S13- 1003: A Lone Tester in an Agile World

Track: Agile Testing

As more teams become self organizing, the tester that is part of a dedicated group becomes less common. Testers integrated with test teams are a more common occurrence, and in many cases, especially with smaller teams and projects, there may well be just one tester on a given team (or in a given company). Making the switch to being a lone tester can be jarring, but it need not lead to despair. Lone testers can offer unique insights and be a force for good for their respective teams.

Session Takeaways:

  • Working with stakeholders to help deliver real testing value.
  • Understanding how to use exploratory testing and automation to help find the “headline news” issues.
  • Developing a rapport with your team so that you are seen as an ally and an asset rather than as an enemy or a liability.
  • Practical lessons learned from years working with both traditional and Agile teams as a Lone Tester
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Session Speaker:

Michael LarsenMichael Larsen – Senior Quality Assurance Engineer, Socialtext
Michael Larsen is a Senior Quality Assurance Engineer with Socialtext in Palo Alto, California. Over the past two decades, he has been involved in software testing for products ranging from networking equipment to capacitance touch devices to Internet applications. Michael serves as a Director for the Association for Software Testing (AST) and is their current Chair of the Education Special Interest Group. He actively teaches software testing through the Black Box Software Testing series of classes offered by AST. He is a black belt in the Miagi-do School of Software Testing, is the co-founder and primary facilitator for Weekend Testing Americas, and is the senior producer (and frequent commentator) for SoftwareTestPro.com’s “This Week in Software Testing” podcast. Michael writes the TESTHEAD blog at http://mkltesthead.com/ and can be found on Twitter at @mkltesthead.