EuroSTAR, one of the leading conferences on software quality in Europe has announced the program for their 2018 edition. EuroSTAR will be held in the Netherlands starting 12 november. What a great line-up of speakers this year’s edition will hold.
You can check out the program yourself. Note that many new topics and speakers have emerged this year! This year’s programme will see the likes of AI, IOT and Blockchain feature throughout, as well as some of our old favourites like DevOps, Agile, Automation, Test Management and so on. The depth of the conference programme tells you where our industry is headed and helps you prepare for what lies ahead.
On Wednesday my colleague Egbert Bouman will give a presentation as well: in Agile Testing in a Formal Organisation he shares his experiences at the Dutch Bank.
For Bits&Chips magazine I wrote an article about successful agile adoptions.
In the article I state that embedding the agile processes and mind-set in the rest of the organization is crucial for its success. I refer to Jeff Sutherland’s Aggressive Scrum, where he states that to many teams fail to deliver at the end of their sprint. In order to get Agile working, it is important to break down old patterns. Strong agile leadership is required for this, as well as a strong Product Owner and Scrum Master.
Last Monday we organised an interactive session about scaling agile. During this session we compared some of the scaling agile frameworks and we discuss the challenges that we encounter when we scale up our agile. What problems are introduced when we start collaborating over multiple development teams, when we extend our agile way of working towards portfolio level? Together we brainstormed and came up with quite a list of challenges that we need to find a solution for.
We concluded that for most of these challenges we are either stakeholder or responsible for finding the solution. Thus, we learned, when our organisation starts with scaling their agile, we should be pro-active and involved. Basic understanding of the scaling frameworks and their differences is needed to be a mature partner in the discussions, so we examined how frameworks like SAFe, Less and Nexus help us to have a grip on development and maintain adaptive?
I believe we all had an interesting, valuable evening with lots of knowledge exchange, insights, networking, good food and drinks…Thanks all for participating and we hope to see you at another Valori event.
The TestingUy event exists at the initiative of a group of passionate about testing, wanting to create a meeting space where they can share experiences and knowledge on the subject. I am proud to be invited to this years edition. More details will be published on the TestingUy webpage soon. But I am already looking forward to seeing the country, meeting you fellow testers and sharing my experience of course…..
I am thrilled to announce I’ll be speaking at the BCN Software Evening. Altran Spain is organizing this event for Software Professionals who wish to network together and to watch engaging and entertaining talks given by industry experts while having fun.
For this occasion I am working on a whole new keynote, called: The art of Excellence, adding value as an IT professional. In this keynote I will explain how disruptive trends require a flexible organisation. I will share challenges that organisations are struggling with and what this means for the IT professional. key question is how you can develop yourself and your team in order to keep adding value to the changing organisation and embrace the new opportunities that arise.
Furthermore the event will host Daniel Garnier-Moiroux and Luis Herrera, cutting edge technology an R&D corner and live coding demo. The BCN SOFTWARE EVENING 2018 will take place in the new Valkiria HUB in 22@, technological district in Barcelona.
There is no better place to share & discuss with other software professionals and enthusiasts. Make this happen! You can get your free ticket on the event page. I hope to see you all !
I am proud to announce that we will host an interactive session at Valori. On Monday 9 April we’ll compare three scaling agile frameworks. Together we’ll discuss the challenges that we encounter when we scale up our agile. What problems are introduced when we start collaborating over multiple development teams, when we extend our agile way of working towards portfolio level? How do frameworks like SAFe, Less and Nexus help us to have a grip on development and maintain adaptivity? Using a case we’ll challenge you to select the best framework and gain insight in the different focus they have. Consider joining this event when your organisation is thinking about scaling or just started with the implementation of a scaling agile framework. Using the insights of this evening you’d better prepared to join in on the discussions and contribute.
I made a small impression of the event, so you’ll know what to expect:
You are welcome to Valori at the office (Orteliuslaan 1000 in Utrecht) on April 9th for the interactive knowledge session ‘Scaling Agile’, but registration is required and the number of seats are limited:
Today I got a nice mail from a reader of my blog. The mail referred to a previous blog on mobile testing. In this blog I refer to a presentation I gave on the a conference of the Den Norske Dataforeningen (The Norwegian Computer Society) where I talked about mobile testing. Not only will did I list some things that you might want to test, when testing a mobile app. I also made the link between business drivers for building the app, design consideration that need to be made during development, and tests that relate to them.
My reader asked for more detailed info. Dear reader, you can download the extensive version of the mind-map below. I gave a presentation about this topic also, please find the slides in this post also. Good luck with your mobile challenge!
Mindmap Mobile Development and Testing (Extensive MindMap)
Presentation: Mobile testing – the relationship between tests, business goals and design considerations
These are the slides of the masterclass I gave 24-1-2018 at the Barcelona Test Academy. Using an assessment we started a discussion about what it takes to be an agile tester. It was valued by many of the participants as relevant and a nice opportunity to exchange thoughts and experiences. The participants left the room with a good understanding of where he/she stands and could explain: “I am an agile tester because…”
Description of the masterclass session: Testing has transformed into Agile Testing. Testing has become a responsibility of the whole development team. Many testers wonder what their role is now that everyone is testing. Some people say that Testing is WHAT we do and Agile is HOW we do it. In order to contribute effectively to quality solutions, agile testers need to combine the WHAT and HOW in their daily approach.
Time for a deep-dive. What defines the agile tester and how do we add value. In this workshop participant will fill ins an self-assessment based on the 12 characteristics of the agile tester. We’ll share the group results and create a snapshot of where we stand. Next, we will discuss each of the characteristics mean to us, how do they make agile testing work, help to boost the agility of the test process and how we can embed quality in the agile development process. In groups we will share examples from the trenches to go along with each of characteristics. What do we do to make it work, and what challenges do we encounter? Participants will help each other and be able to benchmark their own ideas.
This session aligns with the needs that I recognise with many colleagues. They are good testers, work successfully in an agile environment, but want to get better in explaining why they are a good tester. How does their attitude and approach contribute to valuable software solutions? Join this session if you want to improve yourself and want to get practical tips from the real world; If you want to learn what makes your testing agile and how is your agile mindset translated into a valuable testing approach. Participants can use the self-assessment to identify blind spots in their skills. Each of the participants will leave the room with a good understanding of where he/she stands: “I am an agile tester because…”
For the 5th time, Practitest and TeaTime with Testers launch the State of testing survey. The State of Testing 2018 seeks to identify the existing characteristics, practices, and challenges facing the testing community in hopes to shed light and provoke a fruitful discussion towards improvement.
Each year the amount of participants has increased, and the final reports become even more valuable as a culminated reflection of testing trends, challenges, and characteristics.
The final report is translated into several languages and shared globally, further expanding the reach and impact this report has on all of us in the QA world.
You can help the test community by sharing your thoughts and view on the testing profession. Fill in the survey. Of course you’ll get the report for free, so you can learn how others look at the world. I think it holds valuable information, and refer to it often in my work and conference presentations.
QA&TEST is a Software Testing and Quality Assurance conference with a focus on high-tech and embedded systems. It brings together professionals and experts from different sectors such as: Railways, Aeronautics, Medical Systems, Electronic Devices, Banking, Insurance or Telecommunications. It’s a unique and personal conference that is held in Bilbao Spain on 17, 18 and 19 October 2018.
The International Technical Committee of QA& TEST seeks for methods, techniques and tools to help engineers to develop and test, efficiently and effectively, complex embedded systems, addressing aspects such as functionality security, robustness, reliability, performance, interoperability and compliance to standards.
We like you to contribute and share your knowledge. Read the Call for Papers for some topic suggestions and details about the excellent speaker conditions.
At the Agile Testing days I spoke with Claudio Peronne about his keynote on the POPCORN FLOW method. Claudio developed a workflow and team improvement method that is based upon a few principles. High-over it combines the identification of Problems, the brainstorm for what options the team has to reduce the problem with a Kanban board to track progress of the experiments.
The board he uses to support the method is built around the POPCORN acronym.
The first three columns cover the translation from problems to solutions
P: The prioritised problems that the team identifies. Where Claudio states that when multiple team members experience a problem, it’s a truth. I think that that is a good attitude to avoid endless discussion on whether an observation is leading to a real problem or not. If it bothers a few team members, it worth considering to tackle it. O:options of experiments you can do to learn, reduce or eliminate the problem. Claudio states that it good to define multiple options, so you are triggered to give it a good thought and to enable you to choose the best option. P: the Possible Experiments column holds the options that you select to do and these items will be more elicitated than the raw ideas of the option column. If you want to do refinement, I think this is the time to do it, to ensure the whole team understands what we are going to do and what makes it successful.
The rest of the board handle the flow of the committed stories.
C: defines the experiments that the team commits to. O: Holds the ongoing experiments. R: the review triggers the team to assess the results that have (or not) been accomplished with a finished experiment. N: Gives room to identify the next steps the team would like to take.
I am experimenting with the board in one of my teams, and use it in a SCRUM-OF-SCRUM setting. On team level I like to make improvements small so they fit in the two-week sprint. On a higher level I like to identify more serious bottlenecks and understand that it might take more than two weeks to conquer them. That’s why I really enthusiastic about the Kanban flow in this approach. It leaves room to pick-up bigger experiments, but since we use WIP limits the team is forced to prioritize and chose what items they want to work with.
Above all I notice that the approach feels quite intuitive and has a direct link with the problems that the team members feel they are struggling with. That helps to keep it alive and top of mind.
I think Claudio Peronne did a great job in creating this method. If you want more info, I advise to watch the video below or browse through his slide deck. Both are a nice introduction of the board and it’s underlying ideas. Check it out! Although I am still experimenting and learning, I think it’s is a valuable approach. Furthermore, a lot of information can be found on his website. There you can even buy stickers (if you like) to make a nice POPCORN board yourself.
Note: I share this blog, since I like the idea. I do not have any involvement in the method. All credits go to Claudio Peronne.
17 January TestNet (the Dutch Test Association) another theme-event. This evening will focus on scaling Agile and will host various sessions.
Han Duisterwinkel will talk about scaling frameworks and explains how these do (or lack to) address hybrid agile and e2e testing. He will make a link to the work of the agile tester and share some of his experiences.
Edwin van Loon shares his experiences with scaling agile at APG. Edwin was QA lead at this organisation and involved in with setting up the testing in SAFe context.
Parallel to these two presentation I will host an interactive workshop. Together with Valori colleagues Eric van the Mark and Patrick Schilder, I will compare some agile frameworks. What is the difference between SAFe, Nexus and LeSS. What are the challenges we face when scaling, and which of them should we address as a tester? During the workshop we will present the different frameworks, but will go interactive as well. Imagine your organisation thinks about scaling, and you are asked for advice. Based on a case we’ll practice this situation and learn to understand the differences between the different scaling frameworks.
We hope to meet you in the NBC in Nieuwegein on 17 January. For more information go to the Testnet website
In January I will host a session at the Spanish Test academy in Barcelona. On the program you’ll find sessions on exploratory testing, continues testing, working with Docker and Cucumber and many more.
I will host a session on agile testing. Together we’ll try to define what makes the tester a good tester and what makes him an agile tester. I made a small video introduction to explain what you can expect in my session. I hope to meet you 24 January in Barcelona.
Finally I got hold of my own copy of the little book of testing wisdom. I wrote chapter 2 of the book, but didn’t get to see it, until it was delivered to my home last week. The book is a pocketbook (it truly is, I tested it! See the photo in this blog) featuring 25 testing tips from leading software testing professionals from around the globe.
If you can order your own copy and learn what tips Michael Bolton, Hans Buwalda, Fiona Charles, Anne-Marie Charrett, Derk-Jan de Grood, Rikard Edgren, Isabel Evans, John Fodeh, Paul Gerrard, Shmuel Gershon, Dorothy Graham, Julian Harty, Anne-Mette Hass, Rob Lambert, James Lyndsay, Rik Marselis, Fran O’Hara, Declan O’Riordan, Stuart Reid, Alan Richardson, Huib Schoots, Ruud Teunissen, Geoff Thompson, Bob van de Burgt and Erik van Veenendaal have for you.
As well as getting your hands on this fantastic little pocketbook, by purchasing it you will be contributing to a very worthy cause! All profits from the sale of this book will be donated to the Linnea Nordström fund. In late 2016, Linnea was diagnosed with a rare but aggressive brain tumor called DIPG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pons Glioma) and since then has undergone (and continues to undergo) specialist treatment in Mexico.
Great to see how the community is lending a helping hand!
Today I gave a presentation at the Agile Testing Days. The room was packed and we talked about the way the testing profession in evolving.
5 years ago the Dutch Test Association published a book that described the changes in the testing profession. I was one of the 7 authors and we organized a few workshops on the theme. Last may we hosted a retrospective workshop during which the participants evaluated the 2012 predictions. Key question during this workshop was: What is the status of the profession and what skills and role should a tester take in order to add value and a job.
In my 2017 ATD presentation I shared the results that of this workshop. I shared the highlights of the book, told what predictions were correct and which were incorrect. But most of all I will shared the opinion of or fellow testers: What do roles do they have now, and what roles do they expect to have in 5 years from now.
