DevOpsImprovement Game – Maximise business value without ignoring operational responsibilities

DevOps teams have to balance their work between three types of tasks. Development, Operational tasks and Improvements. Many DevOps teams (and that includes the PO) are struggling with balancing between the three types of work. Often Ops work uses up much of the time reducing the adaptivity of the business, while other teams focus heavily on new features and create too much technical debt.

To get a feel about this challenge we created a serious game, called the DevOpsImprovement Game. In this game teams experience how to have a maximum of business value in a sustainable way without ignoring operational responsibilities.

I have posted some impressions of the game before, but I proudly present DevOpsImprovement- The Video. 

Thanks Jana, Philip, Karlijn and Thomas for sharing your impression of the game

Keynote speaker on the Agile Testing Days – Woaauw!

The line-up of keynote speakers for the Agile Testing Days in Potsdam gave been announced. The grin on my face in the picture above is sincere; I am really happy to give a keynote.

Jan Jaap looks happy as well. We are combining forces to make it a story worthwhile. More details will follow in time due.

New eBook series on the Digital Transformation

Proud to present the first edition of three eBooks on the Digital Transformation: Title “Why your organization will not survive the next 5 years, and how to avoid that.” In this first eBook I describe trends that force organizations to adapt their business model and invest in a flexible and adaptive development process. In this eBook I give some examples of disruptive changes and explain how this could impact organizations like yours….

You can download the eBook for free (if you leave behind a few details) on the Valori Website. Currently the publication is in Dutch, I am sorry for that.

This first edition will be followed by two more eBooks….we are currently working on the 2nd edition that will describe what organizations do to become adaptive. To be Continued…

 

How to get more out of your User Acceptance Test- Article in AG Connect with Rene Ceelen

Together with Rene Ceelen I published an article in the AG Connect. Rene Ceelen is researcher on the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op de faculteit Institute for Computing and Information Sciences. He also runs TestMonitor, a consultancy company on ERP Testmanagement.

For this article we sat together and discussed the value of the User Acceptance Test (UAT) and defined some tips to empower the user to do great tests. We also discussed ways to improve the value of the UAT. It can be so much more than just some users playing around with the system.

We wrote the article in dutch, but if we get enough requests we’ll translate it to English. You can read it here: Gebruikers acceptatie testen blijven belangrijk.

Test management in Agile – Full day tutorial at the TestExpo Denmark

On May 22^nd, you will get a unique possibility to enhance your test managers skill set within Agile environments. Together with Jan Jaap Cannegieter I will host the full day tutorial the day before TestExpo™ Conference in Denmark.

We made a little video teaser for you to get an impression of the tutorial. More details can be found on the website TestExpo

Join us in Copenhagen if you want to know

• how to make and use a test strategy in Agile
• make and use light weight documentation
• how different test management like roles add value in Agile
• how to do Test planning and monitoring in Agile

We hope to see you there! Reserve you ticket on the conference website

Safe & Sec: QA&TEST Safety and Security Madrid program announced !

Since 2001 the QA&TEST conference is held in Bilbao. The aim of the conference is to diffuse the latest technological developments in Software Testing and Quality Assurance for embedded and complex systems.

This year the conference is expanded with a Madrid edition that will focus on safety and security.  SQS will launch QA&TEST Safety and Security conference, focused on facing the challenges presented by addressing safety and security aspects in an integrated manner, to both development and testing. QA&TEST Safety and Security will be the perfect complement to the general content of QA&TEST embedded.

On 27 and 28 March the conference will be hosting a great selection of interesting talks. You can check the program on the new conference website.

EuroSTAR Proposals at a glance – what to expect this year?

This week I finished the proposal review for the EuroSTAR conference. I think it is a nice task, since as a reviewer you are not only helping the program board with selecting the best proposals. What I like about the reviewing is that you get an insight in what topics seem to be hot and alive among the community. This year’s program chair Isabel Evans set the theme; working well. She explains on the website to look for talks that describe experiences of Working Well under several broad headings.

Isabel states:” The software, technology, products and services that we design, build and test: whatever they are, we want to deliver them working well. And to meet that purpose, we need to think about how we work well; our practices, our people, and our challenges.”

I am not sure whether this year’s theme influenced the type of proposals, but I noticed a tendency towards generic topic this year.

A lot of the proposals I reviewed were on embedding the testing within the Agile development cycle. I read proposals on how testers can contribute during the refinement and include user experience in their strategy. This aligns with my personal experience that testing discipline seems to merge more and more with agile development. We like to contribute to a fast and efficient creation of solutions that have customer value and build in quality.

Sometimes that requires the tester to focus on the organisation, but it also requires a more technical approach. Luckily there were also some proposals on CI/CD and Automation. I liked the proposals that will show participants to adopt new technology and tools like AI to improve their testing. I read about api testing, Test data and Non-functional testing as well. No doubt we’ll have some of those on the program in Prague next November.

Gamification of the DevOpsImprovement challenge

Yesterday we piloted the new DevOpsImprovement game.

Many DevOps teams (and that includes the PO) are struggling with balancing between Development work, operational tasks and improvements. Depending on the organisational context and the team members, there often is a focus on one of the three types of work. In the Dev, Ops & Improvement game teams experience the benefit of improving your way of working and balancing between short term and long-term benefits.  In the game teams experience that often the way to being proactive and innovative is by reducing the time spent on operational task by sufficient improvements like automation, CI/CD and developing team skills. The goal of this interactive card game is to have a maximum of business value in a sustainable way without ignoring operational responsibilities and creating technical dept.

During the agile guild meeting at Valori we held the first trial run. We made some improvements and will present the game at the NN Agile day, later this month. The participants were enthusiastic: ” it gives examples on how certain improvements can benefit the organisation”, “the events are really recognisable, we have them as well”, “it triggers discussion between teams” and “since it can be done in an hour, I can easily do it during retrospective or e.g. at a lunch session”.

The Dark Side of Test Automation – Interactive Session at the TestExpo 2019

23 May, CopenHagen, Denmark: Capgemini will host the TestExpo 2019. During this full day event Tester will gather and imagine how it would be to work with unrestricted quality assurance, that Test & QA was the highest priority in our organisations and that we and access to unlimited resources. The imagination gets free rein when we, at the CinemaxX theater, take another step to facilitate the development of the test world.

But amidst all this unlimited thoughts and highly positive atmosphere, Jan Jaap Cannegieter (squerist) and I will look at the dark side of test automation. In our session we will explain the five most common misunderstandings when it comes to test automation. The different misunderstandings will then be explained using examples and experiences. This will be followed by an online readiness test: is your project or organisation ready for test automation? And what can we learn from those who have these requirements in place?But there is an alternative for the dark side as well. We will describe what it takes to introduce test automation in the right way.

See our session description and all other awesome speakers on the conference website: TestExpo2019

State of Testing Survey

Following in the tradition of the past 6 years with the State of Testing™ survey, conducted by PractiTest’s QA Intelligence Blog in collaboration with TeaTime with Testers, we are happy to announce the launch of the 2019 State of Testing Survey!

Fill in the survey and help the community to get insights of trends and developments.

You can download the report from last year if you like to see what it looks like: State of Testing report 2019

2018 Year Overview

With the end of the year approaching I couldn’t resist looking back. It has been a full year for me with plenty of assignments,  conferences and challenges. I met a lot of nice people within Valori and outside, with whom I could share my doubts, failures and success. That I could exchange ideas and that inspired me. Thanks if you were one of them!.

How do you summarise a year.  I made a small infographic to visualize the whole.

 

Keynote line up for Agile TD USA announced

Have a preview on the keynote line-up in Chicago. More info can be found on the Agile Testing Days USA webpage. 

Meet the Program Chairs of Agile Testing Days USA

I am thrilled to be a part of the Agile Testing Days USA Program committee. The ATD USA will be held 23-27 Juni 2019 in Chicago. Together with Janet Gregory, Pete Walen, Ash Coleman, Matt Heußer, Faiza Yousuf, Raj Subramanian and Mike Talks we get to select the proposals. I have been reviewing some of them, and amongst them are some nice gems. This will be a great conference.

See: https://lnkd.in/dmzvXJq

Amazing Tutorial on Agile Test Management

Yesterday Jan Jaap Cannegieter and I gave an amazing tutorial at the Agile testing days. In our full day tutorial we discussed the role of the test manager and how to add value in an agile environment.

We discovered that a test manager is operation at two interfaces. One is being that of a quality ambassador that shows the business and stakeholders how testing is done and how its progressing . On the other interface the test manager is enabling the team(s) to build quality into their deliverables. During this full day tutorial we deep dived on both aspects. We discussed the agile test strategy and investigated what activities we test managers undertake, what activities we find important and what is valued most by our stakeholder. You wouldn’t be surprised if we told you that there is a gap between both. Next we practiced with defining agile test plans at MVP and sprint level. And assessed other roles that test managers can adopt. We closed the full circle by concluding that extra activities might be added to our initial brainstorm results. The topic is truly alive. Not only did we have a full rum (we had an all-time conference record with the amount of attendees), during the day we had a lot of lively discussions and answered a lot of questions from the participants. We loved the participation of all in the room and believe we all had a good day.

Please see the slides we used below. We included some photos of the workshop results.

Le dernier jour et je ne sais toujours pas – The Last Day and I Still Don’t Know

The EuroSTAR conference is getting close. I will be hosting an interactive session on Do 15 November, 3:15 pm. In style with the conference theme this session is called: le dernier jour et je ne sais toujours pas – The Last Day and I Still Don’t Know. During the session you will be able to ask any question that remained unanswered during the conference. Since I do not hold all the knowledge myself I asked help from:

• Egbert Bouman
• Declan O’Riordan
• Joel Montvelisky
• Rob Sabourin

If we do not have the answer you might know! During this informal interactive session, you can share your thoughts or help your fellow participants by recapturing those sessions that they missed. So, if you want an answer to that one lingering question, sort your thoughts and get a wrap-up on the conference. Don’t leave yet; this is the session to attend.

We hope to see you in the room !