CQAA June 2013 Speaker Program: Agile Testing in a Waterfall World

About the Topic

Everybody seems to be talking about agile these days, but most companies are still using a waterfall based methodology. Often, the team delivering the code uses a different process than the team responsible for software quality. In this presentation, Angela will discuss which agile tenets are worth incorporating into your daily testing activities in this situation and the impacts, both positive and negative, that you should expect. You will learn tips and tricks for introducing agile concepts into a waterfall environment slowly and successfully; methods that incorporate not just application lifecycle management tools, but a look at strategies for process improvement and in some cases good, old-fashioned psychology. Join Angela to find that low hanging fruit you can address quickly to become more agile, understand how to recognize and mitigate common pitfalls, and learn tools and techniques for managing an agile-under-waterfall testing effort. 

Key Learning Objectives

• How to identify which agile practices to adopt
• How to introduce agile thinking to the organization
• How to manage testing in an environment that uses different process models
• What are the project benefits to be gained 

About the Speaker

Angela Dugan has been working on software development teams, filling a variety of roles including architect, developer, and tester since 1999. Angela also spent five of those years as an ALM evangelist for Microsoft, where she was able to work closely with hundreds of businesses across the US to improve their approach to ALM and software delivery. Always passionate about process and quality, she is now the ALM Practice Manager for Polaris Solutions and runs the Chicago Application Lifecycle Management user group. She holds a certification in Team Foundation Server (TFS) Administration and is a Certified Scrum master.