F13-104: Lean Coffee Discussion: Crossroads of Quality Assurance and Agile

Track: Agile Testing

Many companies are in search of Agile-land, a land where projects are always on budget and on schedule. Sometimes it appears as though the Quality Assurance Engineers are leading the effort, with testers embracing the consumer advocacy role and in many cases receiving Scrum Master certification. Other times it appears QA has been left behind in agile adoption, slower to adapt as we fight to maintain bloated suites of test cases and 40 page boiler plated test plans that no one wants to read. This will be the general theme at our Lean Coffee discussion. According to the website http://www.leancoffee.org: Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build an agenda, and begin talking. Conversations are directed and productive because the agenda for the meeting was democratically generated. There are currently dozens of Lean Coffees happening world-wide, including Seattle, San Francisco, Stockholm, Toronto, Boulder, New York City, and more.

The Lean Coffee structure is simple and straight forward:

  • Sticky note and introduce topics.
  • Vote to prioritize topics.
  • Discuss highest priority topic in a time box.
  • Vote to continue discussing the topic or move on to the next.

This session will use the Lean Coffee structure to discuss the intersection of agile and quality assurance, focusing on specific topics based on participant choice. Come prepared with a few topic ideas and be ready to engage. This is your chance for a structured open discussion with other conference attendees and speakers; interactive community knowledge sharing at its best. Coffee is not mandatory; any beverage will do.

Session Takeaways:

  • Discussion will focus on topics most beneficial to the group as we will focus on time boxed topics that are voted on by the participants.
  • Interactive discussion will identify conference attendees that are interested in similar topics, fostering discussion and connections lasting long after the conference is over.
  • Participants learn how to facilitate Lean Coffee discussions to use on future projects.
Download Presentation
Please Note: The presentations are intended for attendees only. The presentations page is password protected – contact info@softwaretestpro.com for verification of attendance and the password to access the presentation.

Session Speaker:

Todd SchultzTodd Schultz – QA Manager, Deloitte Digital
Over the past 15 years Todd has tested many types of software, in many industries, from web pages and insurance software to audio/video software and video games. Currently he is working on mobile applications, deep diving into this emerging market to identify the unique Quality Assurance challenges and how to mitigate them in an agile way. Todd is passionate about professional development; mentoring Quality Assurance Engineers who see QA as a career, and not just a job.