1 DAY CONFERENCE

Agile Testing & BDD eXchange 2013

Friday, 22nd November in London

12 experts spoke.
Overview

Excited? Share it!

Programme

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Flexible Scope

Not fixing scope too far in the future is one of the cornerstones of agile delivery, but it is at the same time the thing that enterprise stakeholders fear the most. Ironically, being able to change decisions after delivery starts is one of the biggest benefits that companies can get from agile delivery, so it's necessary to stop worrying and embrace flexible scope to get the full benefits of an iterative process.



Christian Hassa

Christian started his IT career in 1990 as a freelance programmer. In 1997 he joined TechTalk as a managing partner, which grew over the years to a 60+ people boutique consultancy, specializing on agile coaching and delivery.


Gojko Adzic

Gojko is a partner at Neuri Consulting LLP. He is the winner of the 2016 European Software Testing Outstanding Achievement Award, and the 2011 Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Award. Gojko's book Specification by Example won the Jolt Award for the Best Book of 2012, and his blog won the UK Agile Award for the best outline publication in 2010. Gojko is a frequent speaker at software development conferences, including NDC, Agile Days, Oredev, and YOW!, and is one of the authors of MindMup and Claudia.js.


What do Testers do?

This is an interactive session, with the room directing what topics we discuss. Some areas we could cover include:

  • psychology of the Tester
  • interactions with peers
  • value brought to the business
  • tools
  • skills
  • what makes Testers tick?
  • how Testers use their skills to help deliver
  • Implicit knowledge of the Tester.

We will help each other question ourselves (and others) to help realise how much value we can bring, what that value is, and how we do it.



Adrian Rapan

Adrian is a QA Analyst for the award-winning LMAX Exchange, the revolutionary venue for FX trading. Based in London, LMAX Exchange is authorised and regulated by the FSA in the UK. LMAX Exchange operates an MTF* (Multilateral Trading Facility), with


Tony Bruce

Tony Bruce is a professional, experienced, constantly learning, coaching and teaching agile team member who specialises in Testing. He has worked in various industries with organisations such as Channel 4, Ernst & Young, LMAX and The Children’s Society.


Two Sides of the Story

User Stories are a widely adopted technique for agile teams. But opinion is divided on the value and usefulness of Stories. Are they a godsend for quality? A convenient and precise shorthand? Waterfall requirements in agile clothes? A necessary evil? A pernicious cancer infecting team creativity and product owner freedom?

Are stories really the key ingredient that allows an agile team to get valuable stuff done and tested faster, or are they just a placebo, providing reassurance that at least we "sound agile"?

Should we stick to the standard template? How do we ensure we don't lose sight of the big picture? Is it OK to have technical stories? Should we use cards or a system?



Brindusa Axon

Brindusa is a passionate agile consultant and coach. She works with ambitious companies across Europe to facilitate the kind of organizational change that has great impact on the individuals and the bottom line.


David Evans

David Evans is an independent agile consultant, coach and trainer. He is an evangelist on agile testing, TDD, BDD and Specification by Example, and is a regular speaker at international conferences and seminars.


BDD & The Business Analysts

BDD was designed to improve communication between the people specifying the business requirement and those implementing it. But does it solve the problem of what to build? Does it make the upstream process of specification easier or harder?

TThis program came about as a result of some late night conversations at #Agile2013 in Nashville. This on-line discussion will be another part in that ongoing conversation involving some of the original participants. These are

Kent McDonald(@beyondreqs)

Jeffrey Davidson(@jeffreygoodreq)

Olaf Lewitz(@olaflewitz)

Jake Calabrese(@jcalabrese)

Leslie J. Morse(@lesliejdotnet)

Chris Matts (@papachrismatts) will act as moderator as he will be located in London. He has been a business analyst for twenty years, an agilist for ten years and an author (www.commitment-thebook.com) for a year. He wrote all the bios and promises to be a fair and generous moderator.



Chris Matts

Chris Matts has over 10 years of experience in investment banking including strategy work as a practitioner rather than as a consultant. His specialist areas are real options, IT risk management, business value and agile analysis. He has been working in exotic credit derivatives for the past few years.


Successful Collaboration and MOFF - Applied

The talk will explore how using lean principles with a laser focus on maximising opportunities for feedback (MOFF) rather than on a minimal viable product (MVP) a team can accelerate delivery and respond quickly to constantly changing market pressures.

Jenny, Chris & Pete will talk through how the business was placed at the heart of the project through the use of techniques such as Impact Mapping and Specification by Example and how they were able to maximise business input by placing a strong focus on the objectives and value demonstrated during the showcase (feedback opportunity)

With aspirations of high value, business facing, executable specifications the team also explored some options to integrate their living documentation system (confluence) with cucumber more comprehensively than current offerings and would like to share the outcome with you.



Chris Priest

Chris Priest has been working in & around .NET for the last 15 years in a career that has spanned financial institutions, small startups, and worldwide e-commerce platforms. On a day-to-day basis, he is a hands-on Technical Lead / Architect at cloud consultancy Amido.


Jenny Martin

Jenny is an independent trainer, facilitator and coach in collaborative software development techniques and team development, specialising in leadership, accelerated Agile delivery and public speaking.


Pete Buckney

Pete is CTO at Railsbank - enabling fintech companies to access global banking with 5 lines of code, and driving the costs out of finance infrastructure so finance can be more inclusive and less abusive.


Whose truth is it anyway.

We're interested in what the appropriate level of testing is, so we'll definitely be visiting the testing pyramid. We also have some ideas about the importance of readability, which has been the subject of some of our recent blog posts, so I expect we'll also tackle the testing iceberg. Along the way we might talk about second hand cars, recruitment consultants and/or Scrum certification. Trust us - it'll be fun.



Matt Wynne

Matt is the author of The Cucumber Book, and in 2013 he cofounded Cucumber Limited with Aslak Hellesøy and Julien Biezemans. Their company was acquired by SmartBear in 2019 and he now works as a BDD Advocate with a mission to maximise the adoption of BDD practices in the software industry.


Seb Rose

Consultant, coach, trainer, analyst and developer for over 30 years.

Seb has been involved in the full development lifecycle with experience that ranges from Architecture to Support, from BASIC to Ruby. He’s a partner in Cucumber Limited, who help teams adopt and refine their agile practices, with a particular focus on collaboration and automated testing.


SkillsCasts
Other Years


Thank you to our sponsors and partners


Platinum

Gold

Silver