You got an issue? Check-it!”

I met Daniel Maslyn at the Agile Testings Days, held in Potsdam Germany. Together we settled down in the (empty) pub of the hotel, and I asked him for his opinion. Daniel is a Passionate and Creative test professional. He is known for his energy and enthusiasm which he uses to meet the current challenges of IT in many environments and business domains. Daniel shares his impression of the book: “It’s very pragmatic: You got an issue? Check-it!”

Product ownership – beyond saying no

For many years, I regarded that the ability to say no as one of the most important skills of a good product owner. Do you recognise that? Product owners that take ownership of their backlog will have to say no to work that doesn’t yield benefit for the release or may delay items other teams rely on. The power to say no seems to be an indication of product owner maturity. But that’s not the end of the story.

In the latest edition of Bits&Chips magazine I take the story a step further… Saying no might also mean that you say no to taking true ownership of the product. Read the article to discover what there is beyond saying no

Keeping the Customer Satisfied

This week I gave a presentation at the Agile Testing Days which was held in beautiful Potsdam (Germany). In this presentation I introduce 6 things that customers want. These can be used to promote the new items that need to be developed. In order to deliver solutions that create happy customers they should have insight in wat they purchase, they want to have control and be able to adapt their product or subscription, it should be safe and reliable, delivered fast and cheap.

Agile coaches have customers also. In this presentation I will explain how these items apply to agile coaching as well and how as agile coaches can keep our stakeholders satisfied. I share practices and explain how they can be used to make an impact, deliver value and keep our customer satisfied. Check the slides when you want to learn some effective practices and gain understanding how they relate to each other. When you want work on the satisfaction of your internal customers.

Keeping the customer satisfied as an agile coach from Derk-Jan de Grood

Note: On slide 20 I use a subway-map to visualize the transformation. I talked about that on a previous edition of the ATD, for these slides see the 2016 presentation: Getting-a-grip-on-your-agile-maturity

Workshop on Built-in Quality at the Agile Testing Days

This week Jan Jaap Cannegieter and I gave our brand-new tutorial on Built-in Quality. I this tutorial attendees get hands-on experience in defining those practices that have a quality impact for their organization. We made an inventory of the SDLC and discussed where we want to have feedback loops in the process. Additionally we defined those feedback loops and performed a root-cause analysis. Using the waves of agile each group selected those practices that would fit the organizational context. This resulted in a Built-in Quality strategy that could be pitched to explain how we build quality in and improve the value delivery.

This video gives an impression of the experience we had and is shot at the Agile Testing Days 2021 in Potsdam Germany. Thanks goes out to all the participants that made this day incredible.

Talking Automation at the Australian, New Zealand DevOps & TA Conference

19 November 12GWS will host the DevOps and Test Automation conference in Australia and New Zealand. Themes that will be discussed are Cloud, Data, and programming language , The Latest in Devops, Agile Testing and DevQAOps. 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 19 November 3:30 PM (Melbourne Timezone).

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

The reality I’ve been in for years

This month I am visiting readers of my book “The waves of Agile”. Last week I visited Nienke Alma at her office in Amsterdam. It has a nice view on the Amsterdam Arena. While trains and subway passed outside the window, I asked her about her opinion on the book. Nienke is an experienced Agile coach and she co-authored the chapter on Obeya. Now she has read the other chapters as well. This is the first part of the interview, where we discuss: “growing as a professional”. Nienke explains that the book made her aware of the reality she has been in for years, and helped her to understand how she developed as an agile coach and remained valuable for her organization.

Agile DevOps East – Talking refinement

On 17 November I will be hosting a session on the Agile DevOps Conference that is organised by TechWell. My presentation will be about refinement and I will zoom in on the importance of good refinement, the anti-patterns I see and how we can get more out of refinement.

I am trilled to be a part of this event, and looking forward to the meeting you in the session. As I am also speaking on the Agile Testing days, I will retreat from the conference and present the session from my Potsdam Germany Hotel Room. But, that would not be a problem. In fact it’s fun to virtually link the two conferences.

Check out the rest of the Agile DevOps program on the conference website.

It’s a recognition bonanza

In this video I have a conversation with a very open and enthusiastic Wendy Bruin. We talk about my book “The waves of Agile”.

“I read quite a lot about agile and encounter a lot of agile practises but, this is the first book that properly explains what you can do and how you can implement agile.”

Wendy is an Agile tester with a passion for Agile. She has experience as a scrum master, but read my book through the eyes of a tester. I visited her at her home and she enthusiastically told me why she has the book on her desk as a reference work. Reading “The waves of Agile” through the eyes of a tester is a recognition bonanza.

The video is in Dutch, but I added a subtitles.

Agile Tour London

On 22 October I gave a presentation on the Agile Tour London. I talked about the value of refinement and stated that refinement should focus on divining a good solution. So rather than updating the workflow tool, like Jira. And rather than talking process and planning, refining should aim to bring team members together to share their minds and ideas. Working in distributed team challenges this, due to time zones, language problems and cultural differences. I referred to the SF series for all mankind, to explain what needs attention during online collaboration. You can read an article on this topic on the agile connection site. Since the conference theme was breaking silos we discussed how we can use challenging questions to bridge the gap and involve people.

Next week …Agile Tour London

Looking foreward to breaking silos on the Agile Tour London. I see some nice familiar faces in the line-up. Will be great!

Communication on the moon

After binge-watching the series “for all mankind” I got inspired. I recognized three take-aways that will assist with agile collaboration and communication. To effectively collaborate we need to take care of technique, consider language barriers, and try to read others’ moods and intentions. But most of all, we should be aware of our personal bias toward the ones with whom we collaborate. Their good intentions might easily be misunderstood with serious consequences. Want to know how I got this from watching a science fiction series, read my article!

I am glad Techwell published the article on both the Agile Connection and CMCrossroads. How are considering these takeaways in your daily live?

When you should not buy it ! An interview in the SQS Newsflash October 2021

SQS Spain included an interview with me in their October new-flash. In the interview we discuss my new book and discuss it’s core message, Why you should read it and most important when you should not! You can read the interview by clicking on the image below:

It was like holding a crystal ball!

In this video I ask Mariëlle Roozemond about her opinion on the book “The waves of Agile”. Mariëlle states that outside IT many organizations are starting with agile. “Reading about the 2nd and 3rd wave was like holding a crystal ball.”

Marielle is lecturer at the University of Rotterdam, she is in the board of the agile consortium and chairs the Marcom Consortium. But above she is Agile Coach and I worked with here on several occasions. We met in Rotterdam, in one of the old harbors. Thanks Mariëlle for sharing your opinion.

Full circle of Test Automation

Speaking in Bilbao

The QA&Test Conference in Bilbao is a conference I frequently visit. If not because I am part of the technical committee, then it is for the great atmosphere, the great people and the nice city of Bilbao. Although visiting the city isn’t an option this year, I love to contribute this year with an online presentation. This year I collaborated with my colleagues Eric de Graaf and Rene van Veldhuijzen and we sat back to evaluate test automation.

Description: Test automation is a key practice these days. But how come that I see so many organizations still relying on manual tests. In this presentation we look at continues cycles in test automation. Derk-Jan will share the journey he made while trying to implement test automation practices at various organizations. He’ll compare his experience with today’s state of automation. For this talk he brought some friends along that and together we’ll discover how much has changed and what challenges seem to be consistent. Test automation is about testing. But automating tests forces us to think about requisites, maturity, and business cases. Test automation can be used to drive test improvements. But: What if you have a test automation framework, but the tests just ain’t no good? Does that mean you are back to square one? We’ll explore a successful marriage between testing and automation and explain why the success of AUTOMATION actually lies in automating good TESTS. With contributions from Eric de Graaf and Rene van Veldhuijzen.

The presentation is part of : TRACK 2: Test Automation, 20 October | 16:30 – 17:30. Check the schedule at the conference website

“The waves of Agile” listed on the AgileAlliance site

I am glad to see that my latest book got mentioned on the booklist of the Agile Alliance. So great to see my book between all those other great publications. It proves there is a lot to say about agile and I love to contribute to sharing the knowledge and ideas.

You can find the list of agile related publications on the agile alliance website, under the resources tab. Information about “The waves of Agile” can be found here: The Waves of Agile