Courage to coach

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You might notice that my posts here aren’t necessarily about actually doing testing activities. For the past several years I’ve been one of only three testers on a team of 25 or more coders. Currently, I’m the only tester spread across several mini-teams that add up to around 17 coders. I can’t possibly test every […]

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Ways to improve listening skills

Retrospectives for large teams with many sub-teams

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My team has 40+ members, distributed into seven or so “pods” and across several locations. It’s a challenge to communicate information among the multiple pods. In addition, we often face obstacles that cross over multiple pods. We usually have a “cross-pod retrospective” once a month. It’s typically in the “Happy/Puzzler/Sad” format. We collect items in […]

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Fern Cats

Telling stories together while practicing critical thinking with VTS

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We use our story telling and critical thinking skills constantly as we test and develop software. How often do we practice those skills on something other than features we are going to release to production? Musicians practice their craft. Even coders can practice their craft with katas and code retreats. How can we practice telling […]

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Adventures in Retrospectives: Helping a large team focus!

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I’m a tester on a (to me) relatively large team. Recently I was asked to facilitate an all-hands retro for our entire team. I’d like to share this interesting and rewarding experience. It’s not easy for a large team to enjoy a productive retrospective. I hope you’ll share your experiences, too. At the time of […]

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The Illusion of Control

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Recently I listened to one of Amitai Schlair’s excellent Agile in 3 Minutes podcasts (also available on iTunes), about Control. We had a brief Twitter conversation about it with Karina B., aka @GertieGamer. Amitai tweeted, “We can’t control what happens to us, but we control how we’d like to feel about it next time + […]

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Weekend Testing Fun

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I love Weekend Testing and the chance it gives to collaborate with and learn from testing practitioners around the world. However, weekends are my only time to play with my donkeys and catch up with friends and family, so I rarely have time. In past years, I was able to participate in Weeknight Testing Europe, […]

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