Techwell – Derk-Jan de Grood

Communication on the moon

After binge-watching the series “for all mankind” I got inspired. I recognized three take-aways that will assist with agile collaboration and communication. To effectively collaborate we need to take care of technique, consider language barriers, and try to read others’ moods and intentions. But most of all, we should be aware of our personal bias toward the ones with whom we collaborate. Their good intentions might easily be misunderstood with serious consequences. Want to know how I got this from watching a science fiction series, read my article!

I am glad Techwell published the article on both the Agile Connection and CMCrossroads. How are considering these takeaways in your daily live?

Speaking at Agile DevOps East 2021

I am thrilled to announce my contribution to the Agile DevOps conference that is organized by TechWell coming November. I will speak about refinement and how to unlock its potential.

Good refinement makes development more predictable, leads to better solutions, and enables the Product Owner to set the right priorities. Still, many teams fail to unlock the full potential of refinement. Not only is the time spent on refinement often limited, but many of the refinement meetings I join are also inefficient. Join this session if you are an Agile Coach of SM and want to help your team(s) to get more out of refinement. If you are a PO and feel a need to boost quality and predictability, or if you are a member of a distributed team and want to involve your fellow team members.

More information can be found on the conference website: Agile DevOps East 2021

18 Questions to Ask for Better Backlog Refinement

Refinement is time spent during the current sprint discussing and elaborating product backlog items so that they are ready for future sprints. Unfortunately, many teams do not unlock the full potential of refinement. Backlog items should be sliced, and a solution should be proposed, reviewed, and discussed. For Agile Connection I wrote an article with 18 handy questions that you can use trigger refinement discussions.

You can read it on Techwell’s Agile connection:

There is still need for test management in Agile but it is done differently

Jeffery Payne wrote a nice blog on agile test management. In this blog he states that agile opens up a lot of career opportunities as the test manager roles becomes more strategic in agile context.

“Unfortunately, many test managers try to keep their role the same. They attend every agile ceremony, insist their teams still attend a weekly status meeting and (…) want the authority to swap team members in and out of projects. (…) Time is very valuable when working in small increments, so any time spent providing status beyond the daily standup is a waste—as is time spent by test managers in sprint ceremonies. Still, there is a role for test managers in agile, and it’s much more strategic than it was before…”

Managers could focus on:

growing the capabilities and skills of their staff.
ensuring that agile teams have effective testing staff
starting and running a testing center of excellence (CoE).
Advocating the importance of testing to senior management .

If you want to read more on the role of test management in agile context, read the full blog by Jeffery: The Role of the Test Manager in Agile

Additionally I selected some of the work I have done on this topic, You can:

Read the free eBook on Embedding Quality and testing in the SAFe framework I wrote with Mette Bruhn-Pedersen
Check out the results of a workshop I gave with Jan Jaap Cannegieter: Do’s and don’ts for the test manager – a testnet workshop
Watch the registration of the Practitest webinar I gave last September: When a Test Manager Makes a Difference
and, even better maybe you can visit the tutorial Jan Jaap and I will be giving on the Agile Testing Days in November this year: Test Management in Agile.

Ask for help

Yesterday I sent my new column to the editor of Bits & Chips magazine. The column deals with asking for help since it enables us to tackle problems earlier and easier. In order to do so you need to have a good social climate in your team. A question for help should not be received with boo and bah’s. It’s not about individuals that need to know-all, the real goal is that you perform as a team.

Much has been written about successful teams. Everyone knows Meredith Belbin’s Roles and Edward de Bono with his six hats. These models provide insight into the team composition. However, they do not express the culture that exists within organizations or teams. And this determines to a large extend, whether team members actually dare to pop the help question.

Nice surprise this week is the column by Naomi Karten who writes about a similar topic. She states: ” Many people think asking for help is a sign of weakness. They’re wrong, though. Asking for help is actually a sign of strength, an indication that you’re willing to admit you can’t know everything and do everything yourself.”

My column will not be released this week, but Naomi Karten’s blog is available at the Techwell site.