Development

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.

If you could turn back time, what do you wish you had known when you started working as a tester? When you are new to testing, you are faced with daunting challenges. Recent college graduates may find it difficult to apply academic knowledge in practice. It is easy to get discouraged and start questioning whether testing is really for you. Richard Lu and Christin Wiedemann relate their experiences of starting careers as software testers—with no prior testing experience. They share ideas for how senior testers can keep junior testers engaged, and encourage them to learn and step up in their roles. Easy-to-implement suggestions include explaining the company culture, encouraging relationship building, emphasizing communication, discussing the objective and value of testing, and talking about the different meanings of quality. Instead of leaving your team’s new hires to struggle, join this session and learn how to coach new testers to become their best.