I first met Jonathan about ten years ago when he was a young programmer eager to prove to the world that he was the best he could be. At that time I was impressed with his willingness to be open to new ideas – even the idea that a tester could be valuable on an […]
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ATDD vs. BDD vs. Specification by Example vs ….
At Agile 2010, there were about 20 of us at the AA-FTT (Agile Alliance Functional Test Tools) workshop. The emphasis was on “the state of the practice” of Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). In one of the breakout sessions, we had an interesting discussion on what we actually meant by ATDD, which made me think […]
About Learning 2
We know about how people learn – auditory, visual, kinesthetically. But what about those things we can’t know – like people’s attitude, or how our brain perceives messages. This post comes about because of my reaction to a specific teaching style I experienced lately. Over the years, I have been exposed to ‘learning games’, the […]
About Learning
There have been a number of discussions about certifications lately on some of the on-line groups. People seem to be either ‘for’ or ‘against’ testing certification. I am neither, but I am against advertising certification as a way to teach people how to test. The testing certification programs I am familiar with, only show that […]
Quality – What is it, and what’s the cost?
Last night (Feb 1rsts) at the Scotsman’s pub in Oslo after the XP Meetup, I had an interesting philosophical discussion with Tom Gilb, Geir Amdal and Rune Sørensen. My definition of quality is pretty simple – A product has a sufficient level of quality if it meets or exceeds customer’s expectations. I know it’s pretty […]
Reviews in Agile
A few weeks ago on the agile testing list, a developer in a tester role asked about reviews – Where do they fit in the agile process? Lisa (www.lisacrispin.com) and I didn’t directly answer this concern in our book, so here are my thoughts about this subject. Organizations handle reviews differently, but I like to […]
Resolutions for 2010
Last year was a bit of a blur for me. The book, Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams, that Lisa Crispin and I wrote, far exceeded expectations in sales. The need for courses on the subject also came unexpectedly. I spent the year travelling, giving the course and consulting. It was […]
What is the real problem?
I’ve been seeing a pattern lately with some of the teams I’ve been training or coaching. Some have been doing agile for a couple of years but have gotten stuck in a rut and don’t seem to be able to find a way out of it. The same problems keep cropping up in retrospective after […]
Questions on Key Factors for Agile Testing Success
Last week I gave a webinar on the Seven Key Factors for Agile Testing Success. I answered many of the questions on line during the webinar but there were quite a few that I didn’t get to, so I answered them by email. I thought I’d share them as they are questions that have been […]
Shared experience
A while ago, I had an email question from Jennifer about logging defects, as her team was starting their first iteration. I asked her to let me know how it went, and here is her update. I loved it because I thought they accomplished some amazing things and had some great lessons learned so I […]