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Leadership

Concurrent Sessions

W1 Leadership for Test Managers and Testers
Rick Craig, Software Quality Engineering
Wed, 06/24/2015 - 10:15am

Many organizations spend a great deal of time and effort acquiring and learning to use the latest techniques and technology, but they make little or no attempt to train or mentor their staff to be better leaders. While it is true that technology is important, test teams without able leaders will struggle to be successful. Rick Craig shares some of the lessons he has learned in his roles as test manager, military leader, and entrepreneur. Initially, Rick discusses some classic leadership topics―leadership traits and styles, the cornerstones of leadership, and principles of leadership. Explore the importance of influence leaders and how to identify and encourage them. Discover the positive and negative indicators of morale and how to maintain high morale within a team. Learn how to give direction without being a micromanager. Discuss what motivates and what de-motivates testers. Rick encourages you to bring your leadership challenges to serve as points of discussion.

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Keynotes

K4 The Next Decade of Agile Software Development and Test
J.B. Rainsberger, JBRAINS.CA
Thu, 06/25/2015 - 2:45pm

After almost fifteen years of history with agile practices, J.B. Rainsberger sees some alarming trends in our attitudes, practices, and even what we teach about agile. At the same time, he sees some progress in approaches and technologies—e.g., behavior-driven development, naked planning, and continuous delivery. Sadly, we still have maturity models, complicated process checklists, and unnecessary certification schemes. In the coming decade, unless we begin to focus on fundamental ingredients absent from many agile teams, J.B. fears we are doomed to miss many opportunities for getting better. It's not good enough anymore just to be a great agile tester. J.B. says testers, programmers, product analysts, and managers must encourage workplace transformations so we can take full advantage of new tools and techniques. He shares a vision of these transformations and calls on testers and test managers, who work with all stakeholder groups, to stand up and lead us into the next decade of agile.

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