With most companies practicing a version of agile methodology in their software development and testing, building on this is key for the future of testing: continuous integration, DevOps, and new trends in AI and ML are all changing the way you work.
Join leading experts from the testing community to learn about the latest trends in agile testing, solve tricky test issues, adapt to new forms of testing – and become the best at what you do.
Scrum and Kanban – Addressing Real Life Agile Testing Challenges | Fran O’Hara
Are you using Scrum, Kanban, or a hybrid of both? Do you have challenges with test and quality in these contexts? This tutorial is for you.
Get insights into key implementation challenges impacting quality, and test when these frameworks are used individually or in combination with each other. Test and quality related topics initially introduced will include common challenges experienced with team culture, team competencies and Dev-QA integration; user stories and backlog refinement; visualising and integrating testing into the work stream and more.
Plus, a significant element of this tutorial will give you the opportunity to identify your own test and quality challenges with the class, and vote on what challenge should get more focus, and interactive group discussion.
At the end of the tutorial, you will leave with a suggested list of ideas/tips and experiments to try to help address common challenges introduced in the class. You’ll also have access to all the learning materials.
Key Takeaways:
- Deeper insights into implementation challenges impacting quality and test when Scrum and Kanban are used individually or in combination with each other
- Suggested practical solutions to the real world issues being encountered now and as your team and organisation evolves.
- New ideas to enhance your effectiveness in agile testing
Testing SAFely – Finding your way in the Scaled Agile Framework | Gitte Ottosen
Being a tester or test manager in a scaled agile framework can sometimes be a bit like being lost in the jungle; there are many strange animals there (new agile roles), and you have to learn to behave differently compared to the city in order to survive (ceremonies, life cycle). But, as time passes you learn new skills and maybe even change your mindset. You may find that the jungle isn’t that bad after all.
You might not turn out to be Tarzan or Mowgli – but you find ways to live and thrive in the new environment.
Gitte Ottosen took the journey to the wild, being a test manager and quality coach, trying to find her way in the jungle called SAFe. Based on her experience from several agile release trains, she will give you her insights on some of the challenges, along with several practical ways to solve them.
Key Takeaways:
- What to test – Safe says built in quality, what test does that result in?
- Where to test – Team Vs. Train
- Who drives test – The test manager as a coach
The Green Traveller – Prioritizing Your Backlog to Make an Impact | Derk-Jan de Grood
Is your businesses a green traveler organization? Learn how to order your backlog based upon business value and define a roadmap that delivers a workable release. Using the slogan: “Get out the plane take the train”, the Green Traveler aims to expand travel coverage in Europe by combining and linking train and aircraft services, to enable an environmentally friendly one-stop-shop.
Help your organization by sorting their backlog in such a way that it yields in releases with e2e business value that provide fast feedback loops for the business.
While collaborating online with fellow participants, you’ll explore the role of testing as a measure to create feedback and assess whether the roadmap should be altered to optimize for testing. In additional rounds we’ll explore the impact that DevOps and IT improvements have on the road map and we’ll check whether the technical solution we defined aligns with the company goals. Participants of this workshop will gain insight in how to find routes through the forest and influence the planning of the development project, become part of the hunter’s team and hunt for quality, rather than be stuck in the wild.
Key Takeaways:
- Learn how to effectively sort a product backlog based on value
- Experience different ways to define a roadmap with clear releases
- Understand the impact of testing, improvements and DevOps on the release planning
Taming DevOps | Hanna Dernbrant
When Hanna started at Jayway, she went from a waterfall mindset into working with DevOps. It was like going into the jungle, down the rapids – without a paddle! Much like being dropped in a jungle, where you’d turn to explore; she did the same thing in DevOps, and turned to exploratory testing – with great success.
One major difference is that when working with the waterfall model, much like the zoo, your team/pack is the same kind as you; a team of testers. It’s safe and comfortable. In DevOps all of a sudden you’re the only one of your kind. In the DevOps way of working, the pack is different types of people with different strengths. I found that I became a coach for the rest of the team on how to work with quality as a team. It is in everyone’s interest to work together to achieve a good quality product. No one wants that phone call in the middle of the night that wakes you in a panic and cold sweat!
Key Takeaways:
- A practical example of how to work in DevOps
- How to face the challenge of going from waterfall to DevOps
- How to coach your DevOps team members on test and quality
Continuous Delivery in 4 Months for 15 Teams and their 1 Monolith | Thierry de Pauw
15 teams, 1 shared monolith, 1 release every 6 months, and product demand for 1 release every 2 weeks. How do you know where to start with Continuous Delivery, when you’re surrounded by technology and organisational challenges?
This is the journey of 15 teams and their 1 shared monolith, at a federal Belgian agency. They increased their throughput from bi-annual releases to fortnightly releases in under 4 months, achieving a state of Continuous Delivery.
The costs and time for testing quality into the software product, stabilising and releasing the product during each bi-annual release were skyrocketing. The demand for Continuous Delivery was there, but the circumstances made it very difficult.
I’ll cover how we used the Improvement Kata, Value Stream Mapping, and the Theory Of Constraints to choose which changes to apply first, and kickstart the organisational changes we needed to improve quality and drive down lead times.
Key Takeaways:
- Be able to use the Improvement Kata to introduce change at scale.
- Be able to run a Value Stream Mapping workshop to understand the current situation.
- Be able to use the Theory of Constraints to identify which activity should be improved first and which experiment will be most likely to succeed.
The Power of Diversity in Cross-Functional Mob Programming | Cindy Duflot
I am part of a team that does full-time mob programming. The team consists of 12 people from various disciplines (including web, iOS, Android), but only a smaller group does mob programming. In the mob there are two backend developers, one frontend developer, one ops and one QA. We do just about everything together: picking up a story starts at the white board and ends with a push to production.
We draw out the functional and technical analysis and consider what is the best possible API to build for the client apps. In the backend we build and test together. For the mobile apps, we have mob testing sessions in which everyone goes through the feature and writes down the oddities on a white board. Working in this fashion makes standups, planning, retro etc almost superfluous. There is always one item in progress and everyone is working on it. Pretty simple right?
Key Takeaways:
- Mob programming is more than a theoretical approach you read about on blogs. Some people actually do it and it works.
- Ask yourself how agile your team really is.
- Maybe you are triggered to start your own mob?
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