Built-in Quality Applied- New Workshop on the ATD

This november the Agile Testing Days will be held in Potsdam Germany. This is special to me since it will be the first onsite conference I attend since a long time. Most of the conference are on-line and virtual. During the conference I will team up with Jan Jaap Cannegieter for the built-in Quality workshop. In this highly interactive workshop we will be exploring how we can build quality in. It’s based my latest book “the waves of agile“. We made a workshop to bring the story to live and give it practical application. If you want to learn how to design feedback loops, improve the flow in your SDLC and how you can select practices that boost quality, join our tutorial.

The video below is or personal invite to do so. We hope to see you in Potsdam.

Speaking at Agile DevOps East 2021

I am thrilled to announce my contribution to the Agile DevOps conference that is organized by TechWell coming November. I will speak about refinement and how to unlock its potential.

Good refinement makes development more predictable, leads to better solutions, and enables the Product Owner to set the right priorities. Still, many teams fail to unlock the full potential of refinement. Not only is the time spent on refinement often limited, but many of the refinement meetings I join are also inefficient. Join this session if you are an Agile Coach of SM and want to help your team(s) to get more out of refinement. If you are a PO and feel a need to boost quality and predictability, or if you are a member of a distributed team and want to involve your fellow team members.

More information can be found on the conference website: Agile DevOps East 2021

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15th State Of Agile is out now

I love benchmark reports. They provide a nice overview of the developments and trends in the domain. The State of Agile report shows how Agile is perceived in the worlds and this years edition tells for instance that 66% of the organisations use Scrum, 27% are doing Agile for less than 3 years. Organisation that scale, tend to use SAFe as scaling agile framework and enhancing software quality is on the 5th place as it comes to reasons to adopt agile.

This and more nice facts can be found in the 15 State of Agile report. Based on 4,182 survey responses Regina Corso Consulting, an independent survey consultancy, made the report. The survey was conducted between February and April 2021. 

Read the 15th state of agile report

Talking automation at the Australian, New Zealand Conference

1 September the online Testing Conference will be held in Australia and New Zealand. The topics covered are Test Strategy, Leadership and DevOps / Digital QA and Emerging Technologies. I will be sharing my thoughts on test automation. For this special occasion I did three things.

a) I went into the archives and looked up an older presentation to remember how we looked at test-automation in the past
b) I compared these views with the state of automation and practises.
c) I hooked up with Eric de Graaf and Rene van Veldhuijzen to get a multi-angle view.

I had great fun integrating their contribution in the whole story. The result is a nice and entertaining story that we will share on 1 sept.

I love to see you you there, you can register on the conference website.

PNSQC Keynote

Check out the speakers of
this year’s edition of Pacific NW Software Quality Conference (PNSQC). I am
proud to share the stage with my fellow keynote speakers, Erik van Veenendaal,
Julie Wong and Mirjana Kolarov. Together we will cover a nice range of topics
and I am glad that agile is a prominent topic.

Check out the program to see the topics of the keynotes and the other fine speakers. Please join us in October on the PNSQC.

If you think October is too far away, you can join me this Thursday on a AMA session, this will be a special preview of #PNSQC2021 as we gather ‘round the campfire for an “Ask Me Anything” discussion with:

– Erik Van Veenendaal
– Derk-Jan de Grood
– Tariq King
– Mirjana Kolarov
– Jonathan Lipps

Hope to see you there!

Aginext : Live and online

Exciting news! The program of the 9th Annual Agile Tour London has been released. The Aginext conference will be held 21 and 22 October 2021 and offers 38+ amazing speakers and facilitators, running unique and inspiring discussions and workshops around the future of work, and the lessons they’ve learned so far. The theme for this event will be ‘Breaking Silo’s’

In a previous edition I spoke about Built-in Quality I am proud to contribute again this fall with a new story. In my session I will be sharing thoughts and experiences on how to involve the off-shore colleagues that sometimes are in their own silo… More info on this topic will follow…

Hope to see you online at the Aginext conference.

The waves of Agile – Full registration of the book launch webinar

On 5 July we launched my new book: “The waves of Agile, Value delivery in medium and large organizations”.

In a 50-minute webinar I explain what the book is about, and we show the interview Vincent Verloop had with Wilco Dona, who wrote one of the two prefaces. Nils van Schaik shares his thoughts on embracing change, and we have a live QA.

The webinar was visited by nearly 100 people, from US, Korea, Uruguay, Canada, Denmark and of course the Netherlands. Thank you all for attending and thanks Denise Garcia for hosting it with me.

Ordering can e.g. be done at: bol.com or the publisher

Talking about Automation in Australia / New Zealand

I received a notification that the conference is rescheduled to 1 september, The conference website has been edited and the links in the below post no longer exist. I’ll keep you informed.

This friday the online Testing Conference will be held in Australia and New Zealand. The topics covered are Test Strategy, Leadership and DevOps / Digital QA and Emerging Technologies. I will be sharing my thoughts on test automation. For this special occasion I did three things.

a) I went into the archives and looked up an older presentation to remember how we looked at test-automation in the past
b) I compared these views with the state of automation and practises.
c) I hooked up with Eric de Graaf and Rene van Veldhuijzen to get a multi-angle view.

I had great fun integrating their contribution in the whole story. The result is a nice and entertaining story that we will share on 9 July.

I love to see you you there, you can register on the conference website.

Agile-thougths July edition: Waves of Agile

Agile-thoughts is a free online magazine that aims to disclose experiences and enable meaning-full connections. The editors collect treasures from bold agile thinkers and share them with their readers.

Yesterday the July issue of Agile-thoughts has been released. Since the release date coincides with the launch of my new book, the editor has picked a very special theme for the magazine: WAVES.

In the editorial a nice point is made. The special thing about the covid situation is that we were all going through the same phases. This enabled us to adapt quickly. I like the connection made to the waves of agile. As stated: “Understanding the nature of those waves and recognizing the way they materialize along the Agile journey becomes priceless: first, it provides clarity of what to expect through the transformation, and second, it helps grasp a better sense of what is happening in the organization.” In short if we understand the phase we are in, this will speed up the transformation.

Beside referring to the book, other authors allign with the theme as well. See for instance the article by Mattia Rapisarda: Waves, Surfing and Agile, which shares a experience story of Agile Transformation in a Italian Finance Organization.

Check out the magazine and the other articles by Jerilyn Edginton, Aino Vonge Corry, Sonja Blignaut, Fernando Cuenca and Monica Viggars

Great job!

Unboxing my new book: The waves of agile

Today my new book was delivered at the office. Although it was quiet and everyone was rather busy, we did our best to celebrate it. I made a short video impression of the unboxing and our first impression of the book.

More info on: https://techwatchbooks.nl/waves-of-agile.

The books arrived: The waves of Agile

Today the books have been delivered. After
… more than a year of writing,
… after reviewing the draft,
… the edited version,
…the version with lay-out ready,

I had a rough idea of what the book should look like. But today I got hold of the physical copy for the first time. Smell it, feel it and flip through the pages. A great moment, worthy of champagne!

You want to share in some of the festivities, join me on Monday, when we launch the book !

Please let us know if you want to attend.

XP2021 Conference: The changing role of the agile coach

On 17 June I hosted a session at the XP2021 conference organized by the Agile Alliance.

The session was built around the experience report that was previously published about the changing role of the Agile Coach and consisted out of a short presentation and live Q&A afterwards. In the presentation I share my vision on how the role of the agile coach evolves as organizations progress on their agile journey. Different coaching needs will require agile coaches to learn new skills and adopt. I share three profiles and explain how these can contribute to the success of the transformation. Which profile do you prefer for your yourself? I liked the fact that after the presentation one participants clearly preferred the delivery coach, while another seemed to be triggered by the agile counselor. We all have
our preferences, but we should support the organization on all aspects.

I really enjoyed being a part of the conference and loved the discussions we had afterwards. I share the presentation with you, and I hope to exchange ideas with you as well.

Keynote on Testnet Spring-event: BIQ!

Proud to announce that I will be doing the opening keynote on tomorrows TestNet Event. In tomorrows presentation I will be talking about Built-in Quality (BIQ), BIQ maturity and how you build quality in. See the full schedule on the testnet website.

Launching my new book: The waves of Agile

On 5 July I will be presenting my new book: The waves of agile, Value delivery in medium and large organizations. In a free webinar we will celebrate that the book is finished. Join me in this event and I’ll explain what the book is about and we’ll have nice contributions from Nils van Schaik and Wilco Dona.

We’ll have the following program:

How to deal with change? – Nils van Schaik (Director at Squerist)

The customer in the driver seat – An interview by Vincent Verloop (Agile Consultant at Squerist) with Wilco Dona (Head of products at RTL)

Introduction to ‘The Waves of Agile’ – Derk-Jan de Grood (Agile Coach at Squerist )

More information about the book can be found in the book session on this blog.
Please join us on Monday July 5 between 16:00 and 17:00. You can reserve your seat by registering on the event page

The changing role of the agile coach

For the Agile Alliance I wrote an experience report about the changing role of the agile coach. In the report I share my thoughts on how the agile coach role develops and discuss how we can continue to deliver value to the organisation we work for. This report is part of the experience story I will tell on the XP2021 conference which is held 14-18 June.

Check out the program of the conference and see what marvellous topics will be addressed and maybe visit my session on 17 June. If you can’t make it, no worries, you can read the report at any time:

Read the “Changing role of the agile coach” on the agile alliance website.