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 […]
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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 […]
Agile Testing Training Course
Lisa Crispin and I have created a course on Agile Testing with the focus on how testers transition from a traditional testing team to testing on an agile team. Over three days, we put theory into action through a variety of exercises. This course teaches testers how to fit into agile projects, contribute to the […]
Titles, Roles and Leadership
A discussion on the agile testing list got me thinking about titles and authority and how they related to a culture in an organization, or on an agile team. To make it more real, let’s talk specifically about testers, although it could apply to any role. If a tester has a title of ‘Senior’, does […]
Communication & Language Barriers
I’ve just finished speaking at a test conference (link to softwaretest) in Copenhagen, Denmark and came away with some incredible learnings and not all test related. First, I found out I still can’t understand a word of Danish, but that didn’t really matter because everyone spoke English to me (I envy people with fluent second […]