My Agile 2009 Proposals

Bit by bit, the Agile movement grew until it was massive. So now you have people - thousands of them - eager to learn how to develop software the 'agile' way.

And testing is part of that.

I can either choose to be a part of that discussion, or, well ... not. So I am wading in, proposing several sessions at the Agile 2009 conference in Chicago. That process is interesting because it is iterative - you propose sessions, get feedback, and have an opportunity to revise your proposals before they are accepted or rejected.

So I'd like to tell you a bit about my proposals. The abstracts below include a link to more material. To follow a link, you'll need to create a free account at the Agile2009.org website. Once you have an account and have logged it, you can follow the links to read detailed outlines for each talk, and comment or review talks if you desire.

I would even go so far as to say that if you want a quick primer on the state of agile, you might just want to peruse the proposals.


Next Generation Test Workshop
Level: Expert
Stage: The Agile Frontier

Pre-defined acceptance tests, TDD, Mocks, BDD, ATDD … which is right? Matt Heusser argues that testing should be a strategy used to meet the needs of your business at this point in time, and that that strategy needs to evolve over time. This workshop will combine experiences to discuss what actually testing approaches are working in the field, and why, and may will hope to create advice for teams adapting to agile-testing … or trying to take things to the next level.


Adding Exploratory Testing to your agile process
Level: Intermediate
Stage: Testing

What is exploratory testing, and how do I fit it into my Agile Process? Matt Heusser introduces exploratory testing as a discipline that can complement and extend other forms of testing. He’ll discuss what exploratory testing is, the problems it solves, the kind of bugs it is good at finding, and how it might fit into a portfolio of test strategies. Students will leave with a variety of exercises and concepts they can use to explain exploratory testing to others, and sharpen each other skills.


How do I do this 'Agile Testing' Thing?
Level: Introductory
Stage: New to Agile

Agile methods view testing as something that can happen continuously, throughout a project, often before coding even begins. In addition, the Agile concept of testing is a much larger tent, as the benefits spill out to include better requirements, better communication on the team, and design benefits for the technologists. This means that more groups want to get different things from software testing. Matt Heusser presents one way to do it in practice, based on his experiences at Socialtext, Priority Health, Open Source, and community involvement.

Technical Debt: Beyond Cliches
Level: Practicing
Stage: Coaching

Like any addiction cycle, Technical Debt is hard to break because it provides absolute and certain benefits today with a deferred and uncertain future pain. So how can we prevent, or stop the merry-go-round of technical debt?

To answer this question, Matt Heusser organized the Workshop on Technical Debt, which was funded by the Agile Alliance and ran in the summer of 2008. This presentation will cover some lessons learned from the workshop, combined with Matt’s own personal perspectives and experiences on the issue.

So there you have it. I am vaguely considering a proposal on massively distributed agile teams, perhaps for the 'frontier' stage.

I am interested in your feedback, both at agile2009.org and here. I believe the information I have to present could complement the current agile literature well - and that we could possibly move things forward a bit with the workshop - and, yes, that I could learn a thing or two.

Hope, after all, spring eternal.

More to come.