In this class, participants experience a transition to Agile in a paper-based simulation, WordCount. (No programming required.) In the simulation, each participant chooses a role on the team: product manager, developer, tester, or observer. Then, in a series of rounds, the team attempts to deliver a product that the customer is willing to buy. Each successful delivery generates revenue for the company. But as with real projects, producing a working product on a tight schedule can be challenging.
After each round, the instructor leads a mini-retrospective in which participants reflect on key events, then adjust their team practices to increase their productivity for the next round. Along the way, we examine how the team adjusts the testing practices, including looking at how the team is testing, who is doing testing-related activities, how tests reflect requirements, and how the feedback from testing helps move the project forward.
As a result, participants learn to apply the principles of visibility, feedback, communication, and collaboration to increase their rate of delivery. By the end of the day, participants will have a visceral understanding of Agile, and in particular the shifting role of Test/QA in Agile development.
Elisabeth is a consultant specializing in Agile Testing. She started in the software industry in 1984 and has held positions as a Tester, Test Manager, Test Automation Manager, and Quality Engineering Director. Elisabeth founded Quality Tree Software, Inc. in 1997 to provide training and consulting in software quality and testing.
She has written numerous articles and is a frequently-invited speaker at major conferences. In 2003 she became involved with the Agile community. These days Elisabeth splits her time between teaching, speaking, writing, and working on Agile teams with test-infected programmers who value her obsession with testing.