to any team we work with.
Continuous learning gives you the opportunity to become part of a community of thinkers. In 2009, Jean Tabaka, Liz Keogh, and Eric Willeke [1] challenged agile software practitioners to be leaders in the communities in which we learn, teach and reflect on our work. You can challenge your own ideas with other professionals who also like to learn. You can share your ideas with your peers and have authentic dialogues with innovative thinkers. The cycle of learning continues when one person contributes an idea and someone else takes it to a new level or place. Share your ideas and experiences with your local and global testing communities by presenting, facilitating workshops, or dojos, or even writing and blogging.
Collaborating with our fellow development team members as well as with business stakeholders is a cornerstone of agile testing success. We face new communication and collaboration challenges as more teams are distributed around the globe. We must be prepared not only for the technological aspects of collaboration, but the cultural differences. Gaining expertise in the business domain of the company where you work, enables you to do a better job of testing, as well as help business experts solve their problems.
We believe the most important reason to challenge yourself, is the sheer joy of learning. Daniel Pink points to numerous scientific studies that show that the strongest motivators are intrinsic ones, like autonomy and professional growth [2]. Everyone wants to be fairly compensated for her work, but these intrinsic motivators produce the best software development teams.
Read part one of Lisa and Janet’s article “ Learning for Agile Testers ” in the March/April issue of Better Software magazine.
References
[1] “A Community of Thinkers” by Jean Tabaka, Liz Keogh and Eric Willeke, 2009
[2] http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html
Resources
- Coaching Agile Teams, A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition , Lyssa Adkins, Addison-Wesley, 2010
- Agile Coaching , Rachelle Davis, Liz Sedley, Pragmatic Programmers, 2009
- “Beginner’s Mind: An Approach to Listening ”
- Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams , Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory, Addison-Wesley, 2009
- Problem Solving Leadership (Psl)
- Agile user groups
- Software Testing Club
- Weekend Testers
Pages
About the author
Lisa Crispin is the co-author, with Janet Gregory, of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams (Addison-Wesley, 2009), co-author with Tip House of Extreme Testing (Addison-Wesley, 2002) and a contributor to Beautiful Testing (O’Reilly, 2009) and Experiences of Test Automation by Dorothy Graham and Mark Fewster (Addison-Wesley, 2011). She has worked as a tester on agile teamssince 2000, and enjoys sharing her experiences via writing, presenting, teaching and participating in agile testing communities around the world. Lisa was named one of the 13 Women of Influence in testing by Software Test & Performance magazine in 2009. For more about Lisa’s work, visit www.lisacrispin.com.
About the author
An agile testing coach and practitioner, Janet Gregory is the co-author of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Agile Testers and Teams and a contributor to 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know. Janet specializes in
showing agile teams how testers can add value in areas beyond critiquing the product; for example, by guiding development with business-facing tests. For the past ten years, She has been working with teams to transition to agile development, and teaches agile testing courses and tutorials worldwide. Janet enjoys sharing her experiences at conferences and user group meetings around the world. Janet was named one of the 13 Women of Influence in testing by Software Test & Performance magazine.
For more about Janet's work, visit www.janetgregory.ca/ or visit her blog at janetgregory.blogspot.com.
