Software Testing Blog | Zenergy Technologies

Three Key Agile-Centric Metrics

In one of our previous blogs the term “just enough” was used to portray the idea that we (whether you’re in a testing, dev, or management roll) should help everyone on the team to resist gold plating and actively help and encourage each other to do just enough. And that by doing the “right just enough” we are BEING agile. But why? You may ask, is this term so important? Because it plays into the team’s overall velocity. My friend and colleague, Shaun Bradshaw, and I were recently...

March 15, 2018 agile methodology, agile technique, Agile, metrics

How an Old Test Lead Got Agile

1. Seek Out Advice from the Experts, Inside and Outside 2. Communicate Often and To a Wide Audience 3. Know What the Risks Are and Call Them Out ASAP 4. Get to Know Your Product Owner 5. Don’t Get Caught Up in What You Think You Know 6. Get to Know Your Developers 7. No More Multi-Tasking 8. Embrace the Retrospective 9. Slow Down (a Little) and Enjoy the Ride I spent eighteen years testing before I ever worked withagile. When I suddenly found myself transitioning to an agile team...

August 17, 2017 Agile, waterfall to agile, agile leadership roles

Pair-Coaching

Pair-Coaching in Agile Coaching Some Resistance to Pair-Coaching It’s Not Just the Teams Changing your Lens Adaptive Pair-Coaching Strategy One Voice Wrapping Up I’ve been doing more pairing lately. Much more. But, more specifically pair-coaching. I’ve been pairing in my conference workshops and talks, quite a bit, with Mary Thorn on theagilequality and testing side of things. I’m also pairing with Josh Anderson on our Meta-cast and I’ve done a few presentations with him. Very...

May 11, 2017 agile methodology, agile technique, Agile, pair-coaching

Caught in the Middle: How To Balance Agile Team Needs with Wayward Management Requests

Your Manager Asks for a Massive Test Plan During a Two-week Sprint Your Manager Asks for Resource Estimates for the Next 6 Months Your Manager Asks for a Detailed, Metrics-driven Daily Status Report Your Manger Thinks This is Doing Agile Wrapping Up

April 17, 2017 Agile

Bugs, Bugs, and More Bugs!

February 21, 2017 agile methodology, agile technique, Agile, defects

The Agile Project Manager - Please Sir, May I Have Some Help?

A seasoned director of software development was championing agile adoption at her company; it was a moderately scaled initiative, including around 100 developers, testers, project managers, BAs and the functional management surrounding them. They received some initial agile training, seemed to be energized and aligned with the methods, and were set loose to start sprinting. Six months later things were in shambles. Managers were micromanaging the sprints and adjusting team estimates...

November 18, 2016 Agile, agile leadership roles, agile project manager, agile team roles, failure in agile

The Agile Project Manager - Fail NOW as a Strategy

Coaching to Avoid Failure Agile Exposure The Notion of ‘Failing Forward’ Wrapping Up – But, I’m a Bit Strange… I was at a conference not long ago speaking on and sharing variousagiletopics. After one of my presentations, a young man stopped me to ask a few questions. We struck up a nice conversation that eventually discussing sprint dynamics within Scrum teams. I mentioned that I usually coach teams toward declaring their sprints a success…or (pause for meaningful effect) …a failure.

October 24, 2016 Agile, agile leadership roles, agile project manager, agile team roles, product owner roles

Refactoring and Technical Debt: It's Not a Choice, It's a Responsibility

A few years back I was coaching a large group of Scrum teams at an email marketing SaaS firm. The group had been practicing Scrum for over four years and had become a high-performance agile organization. Most of my efforts focused on fine-tuning from the perspective of an external set of eyes. Working with this organization and its development teams was a privilege. Refactoring vs. Technical Debt Broad vs. Narrow Consideration Stop Digging the Hole and Deeper Fill in the Hole Broadly...

October 5, 2016 agile methodology, agile technique, Agile

Hardening Sprints: The Good, Bad, and Downright Ugly

Moving On… Hardening Sprint Stabilization Sprint Release Readiness Sprint Spring Cleaning Sprint Why the Dreaded ‘Hardening Sprint’? Get Out of Jail Free Card Conceptual Support Hardening Contexts Distributed and At-Scale Agile Customer Receptivity Test Automation Coverage Skewed Sprint Consolidation Defect Rework Deployment Readiness and Training Regulation, Governance, and the Art of Trivialized Agile Testing Wrapping Up For Further Reading I remember the threatening email as if I...

September 12, 2016 agile methodology, agile technique, Agile, hardening sprints

Distributed Agile Teams: The Art of the START

For some,integrating testers into agileteams stands to be the real challenge, especially when working with distributed agile teams. I’ve sharedagilemethods for over ten years at conferences and workshops. One of the top three questions I always receive from attendees is: Does Agile work with distributed teams? A Tale of Two Distributed Teams The “Bad to Ugly” Establish the Team(s) Train the Team Together Establish Norms, Standards, and a Character Sprint Review Together! Wrapping Up

August 26, 2016 Agile, distributed agile teams, agile team roles

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