Rapid Test Management (RTM)

Test Managers face a mountain of well-known problems in their day-to-day jobs. Whether you are a newly promoted or experienced test manager: 

·         Are you being pressured to make testing faster and less expensive?

·         Are you finding that traditional, "best-practice" approaches to testing are making testing slower and more expensive than your clients demand?

·         Are you being asked to manage a test group for an organization that's moving to Scrum or other Agile methodologies?

·         Are you managing an offshore or outsource testing group, and trying to ensure that they're providing the best value for your clients?

·         Are you struggling with measuring and managing the performance of your test team?

·         Are you finding it difficult to report the status of testing on your project?

·         Are you having trouble setting the right balance between planning, documentation, and testing?

·         Are you trying to figure out how to recruit, select, or train a skilled and diversified test team?

·         Are you being asked to provide estimation for testing time and effort?

·         Are you interested in getting very good at managing the software testing effort?

Rapid Test Management, a continuation of the Rapid Software Testing course, is a new workshop designed to help you solve these problems. 

Based on the Rapid Software Testing course and methodology, and on practices developed by James Bach, Michael Bolton, Cem Kaner, and Jonathan Bach, this workshop answers key questions about how to staff, plan, and run testing projects more quickly, less expensively, and entirely accountably.  The skills presented in this workshop are applicable to any kind of test project, from agile to traditional, but will be especially valuable in those projects where time and resources are scarce.

How Is This Workshop Different?

Rapid Test Management (RTM) is a two-day practical, hands-on workshop that builds on the material presented in the three day Rapid Software Testing course.  In RTM, we will explore test management, your organization's context and how to respond to it.  We'll do the work through a model project that includes experiential exercises, puzzles, and scenarios, along with short presentations, conversation, and some actual testing and reporting.  The goal of the workshop is to teach you how to respond to the challenges of chaotic projects in a rapidly changing world.

Who should participate?

The target audience for this workshop is anyone interested in testing leadership.  This includes test managers, test leads, and their peers, including development managers, project or programme managers, and senior managers. The workshop is ideally suited for individuals as well as small groups.

Participants are required to bring a laptop or tablet computer to search the Web, take notes, and deliver those notes to the instructor.

What new skills will I take away?

Whether you're experienced or new to test management, we'll explore the challenges of the role and how to work around them.  You will practice an effective alternative to test management approaches that emphasize test cases, wasteful documentation, and bureaucracy.  In response to the specific needs of the workshop participants, we'll present elements of Rapid Software Testing for Managers including

·         How to plan and prepare a test project when product information is incomplete or unreliable

·         How to estimate and negotiate for the resources you need

·         How to design and defend a rapid, risk-based test strategy

·         How to apply exploratory testing approaches that inform incremental planning

·         How to establish a productive relationship with programmers

·         How to be an effective advocate for testability, testing, and quality

·         How to supervise testers and be accountable for their work

·         How to create a diversified team and guide its members toward building skill

·         How to report project status to indicate progress and prompt the right questions

Is the Rapid Software Testing course a prerequisite?

Absolutely.