Janet Gregory, co-author with Lisa Crispin of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams, will be in Johannesburg from 23 June 2014.
Hot on the heels of its announcement of an exclusive partnership with Agile testing specialist DragonFire, Johannesburg’s IndigoCube in collaboration with the Special Interest Group in Software Testing (SIGiST) is hosting a seminar
with Janet Gregory, DragonFire founder and principal.
Scheduled for 26 June, 08h30 at the IBM Auditorium in Johannesburg, Gregory will discuss the role of testers on software development projects which follow the Agile methodology.
Agile is based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organising, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development and delivery and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.
Aldo Rall, principal consultant at IndigoCube, says the company is seeking to change perceptions of software testers in an effort to boost the quality of locally developed code.
“While they are usually brought into most projects as something of an afterthought, testers can and should play an integral role in software development from the very start. With their active participation from an early point, better quality software is the likely outcome,” he states.
Calgary-based Gregory is internationally recognised as a thought leader in software testing. IndigoCube’s relationship with Gregory and DragonFire provides South African companies with exclusive access to intellectual property which includes ‘The whole team approach to Agile Testing’, a training course she developed.
In her presentation, Gregory will challenge the traditional approach taken with most software projects which sees testers joining the team after coding has started, or even later when coding is almost finished.
“Testers often have a limited role in advising the project team early regarding quality issues but focus only on finding defects. They become accustomed to this style of working and adjust their mental processes accordingly,” Gregory says.
In Agile, the role of testers is more integrated. “They must collaborate closely with customers and programmers throughout the development lifecycle. Their focus changes from finding defects to preventing them; the tester’s role changes to include testing early and incrementally, and responding to changing requirements” Gregory explains.
That means a change in the tester’s mind-set from “how can I break the software?” to “how can I help deliver excellent software?”.
Rall says this mind-set shift raises the profile of the tester and changes their role to an inclusive one. “To find out more, we invite developers and testers to register their interest in this free presentation. Seats will be limited, so we urge you to book soon,” he says.
Janet Gregory will also be running a three-day training course, accredited by IC Agile, from 23 to 25 June 2014 at the IndigoCube offices in Johannesburg. The training course will explain how testers can become valued agile team members, how they contribute to delivering a continuous stream of business value, and ways to overcome common cultural and logistical obstacles in transitioning to an agile development process.
“This is a unique opportunity to be coached by an internationally acclaimed Agile consultant. Janet is passionate about promoting agile quality processes in software development,” notes Rall. “We highly recommend this course.”