Improving Your Testing Skills and Practices with Gamification - Testing United 2023 Conference - Ben Linders.pdf

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Ben Linders will discuss how to improve testing skills and practices using gamification. He explains that systems are becoming more complex and everything needs to be done faster, so collaboration is important. Gamification applies principles from gaming to solve problems collaboratively in a safe environment. Examples of games that foster learning and improvement include board games and escape rooms. Linders will provide examples of coaching cards and games that focus testing and quality in a collaborative way.

Presentations & Public Speaking

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Ben Linders Consulting
Ben Linders
Improving Your Testing Skills
and Practices with Gamification
Testing United, Bratislava, September 5, 2023

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Ben Linders Consulting
Challenges
 Systems become larger and more complex
 Adoption of new technologies
 Everything has to be done faster
 Collaboration and communication are crucial
Team Learning!
Explore and Improve WoW with Gamification

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Ben Linders Consulting
Collaborative Games
 Talk with your neighbor about a
collaborative game you played
in your team or with friends
 Explain how it made you feel
Examples:
Board game
Card game
Escape room
Team challenge
Workshop or
training

benlinders.com - @BenLinders 4
Ben Linders Consulting
Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous improvement
Freelance Editor for InfoQ.com
BenLinders.com
Books: Valuable Agile Retrospectives Problem? What Problem?
What Drives Quality Self-assessments Continuous Improvement
Games: Agile Self-assessment Game Retrospectives Bingo Impediments
Quality Coaching Agile Testing Psychological Safety Culture

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Ben Linders Consulting
Gamification
Applying principles and practices from
gaming in a non-gaming context
 Solving problems/challenges collaboratively
 Foster psychological safety & growth mindset for learning
 Travel your own journey (emergent structure)
Enable learning and improvement

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Ben Linders Consulting
Basic exercise (warm-up)

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Ben Linders Consulting
Coaching Cards Examples
Why or what, not how
Visualize
Foster discussions
Align and focus
Engage into action

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Ben Linders Consulting
How to play games
 Collaborative exercises
 Related to the tech work
 Safe place to play
 Facilitate the interaction
 Reflect and debrief

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Ben Linders Consulting
Collaborative
Tech work
Safe place
Interaction
Reflect and
debrief
Impediment Board Game

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Ben Linders Consulting

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Ben Linders Consulting
Agile Self-assessment Game
Started as Agile Coaching Cards
Many game formats/exercises
Expansion Packs for Scrum, DevOps, …
Book: Exercises & Experience Stories
Testing, Quality, Psychological Safety
Kanban
Scrum
Business
DevOps Agile

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Ben Linders Consulting
Health Check

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Ben Linders Consulting

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Ben Linders Consulting
Team values

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Ben Linders Consulting
Facilitating games
Preparation
 Agree on scope/focus
 Select/adopt playing suggestion
 Preselect cards
Facilitating
 Make it feel safe
 Asking over telling
 Decide on action

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Ben Linders Consulting
Sharing Challenges

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Ben Linders Consulting

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Ben Linders Consulting
How people feel about playing games
 People like to play games
 Become their authentic selves
 Engage and encourage people
 Provide different perspectives
 Foster collaboration
 Build relationships
 Visualize what’s happening
 Experiment, safe to fail, take risks

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Ben Linders Consulting
Key Takeaways
• Testing and quality challenges are largely impacted by
the way people work and collaborate
• Gamification is a great way to get everyone engaged
and get the best out of people.
• Use self-assessments to find out how you are doing and
foster continuous improvement.
• Coaching cards with testing and quality topics help to
focus and align on what to improve next.

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Ben Linders Consulting
Links
Agile Self-assessments benlinders.com/game
Quality Coaching Cards benlinders.com/shop/agile-quality-coaching-cards/
Testing Coaching Cards benlinders.com/shop/agile-testing-coaching-cards/
Contact me for a discount code! benlinders@gmail.com

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Ben Linders Consulting
Questions?
Questions?
Ben Linders
Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous Improvement
info@BenLinders.com
info@BenLinders.com
@BenLinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.facebook.com/BenLindersConsulting
www.facebook.com/BenLindersConsulting
www.benlinders.com
www.benlinders.com

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