My keynote at Agile Testing Days Potsdam. Go forth and help your organisations search.

1. Test Beyond Quality
Beyond Software
Agile Testing Day
Potsdam 2015
Mike Sutton

2. Mike
9
years as a
coach
150
+teams
coached
1500
+people
supported
Mike Sutton
Agile Coach and Improvement Partner
“I help technology organisations become more effective in
meeting their business goals by applying simple and effective
tools - that reduce risk, increase value and create knowledge -
and by nurturing a culture of open and joyful collaboration.
21
years as a
developer
Mentor agile teams and their
members
Helping teams develop
resilience and the tools to help
them self organise effectively
and own their working process
responsibly.
Advise management teams and
executives
Providing wide multi-industry and
multi-disciplinary experience and
expertise to help executives and
management teams develop
modern strategies
Coach organisational
effectiveness with everybody
Sharing a framework and
support to help the entire
organisation develop and sustain
continuous improvement and
effectiveness

3. I want to poke, provoke, tease and inspire.

4. What would you do if you cared enough?

5. What would it take for you to care enough?

6. Now
+5 years
+10
+15
-10
-15
You are
here
Laws on homosexuality
in Uganda
Hyperloop
Uber
Internet speeds in my
village in Spain
Hierarchical corporate
structures
Increased collaboration
Holacracy,
management as a
service.
World of Work Everything Else
Agile Testing Days
#tabletwo
-5 years
Let’s locate this idea

7. “Work has an enormous impact
on my personal growth and
my overall Joy.
Show of hands, how many agree with this statement?

8. Every business is searching
For a repeatable business model, product-market
fit, next revenue ceiling, greater profit, next best-
thing-since-sliced-bread, great culture…
For survival

9. The search is complex
It is uncertain, risky and requires all of our skills
and passion - intelligently applied - to succeed

10. Growth brings it’s own challenges
Who: tiny startup - 3 people, 2 dogs,
possibly a pet squirrel
Searching for: our first 50 customers
Who: mid sized - 500 - 2000 people,
no squirrels
Searching for: wider markets,
perhaps international
Who: mega huge > 30,000 people.
Searching for: break the $50bn /
year revenue barrier.
Complexity,risk,expectation,resources

11. How does the
search impact…
Leaders and leadership
Roles and accountability?
How we collaborate?
Our environment?
How we
choose
tools
What we
care about?
Risk and
mitigation?
How we treat each other?

12. Most business decisions are guesses.
Some are even educated.
Who has the mindset and skills to design
experiments to test and validate assumptions?

13. Agile teams are a place to
cultivate behaviours and
cultures for a new reality
Skills, mindsets and values that are valuable beyond your team.

14. We operate in an
uncertainty-riddled landscape
Effective agile teams are all about managing uncertainty, risk and
emergence.

15. So, you are in a happy, agile team.
You might not all get along, but you have complementary
edges and you mostly don’t want to kill each other.

16. Many agile software teams today
Regular cadence, given just enough to survive but not
enough to thrive.

17. But the rest of your organisation is in chaos
And some might even know they are!

18. Our collective success is too
important to be left to a few
dudes in suits

19. It is time for agile teams and the testing
discipline to go beyond software, beyond
testing and into the organisation

20. Start?

21. What do you bring to the search?
Intelligently
discovering what to
test
Designing safe-to-
fail experiments
The passion to
collaborate
The love of
exploration
The desire to to
make things better
Monitoring
Checking

22. Assume you are invited
Forgiveness beats permission

23. Ask questions.
Go where they lead
About Value, Flow, Quality and Joy
What value do we
deliver as an
organisation?
Why does it take so long
to…?
How do we know we are
delivering the value we think
we are delivering?
What happens if we….?
What kind of organisation do
we want and how will we
know we are getting it? Do we know how good
something needs to
be?
What does Joy mean
for every single person
in my organisation?
What are we searching
for, where should we
look?

24. Don’t do it alone
One person is a “lone nut”, two are a movement.

25. Celebrate.
Reflect. Improve

26. Some Obvious Questions
Where do I find the time?
What if I’m told to “Shut up and do my ‘ job’”
What skills do I need to help search?
Shouldn’t someone else be doing this?

27. 3 things just happened
What’s in it for me
What’s in it for us
A choice to make.

28. Thank you.
Do good work.
Be good to work with.
Seek Joy.
(no animals were hurt in the
production of this keynote)
@mhsutton

29. PLEASE EVALUATE MY PRESENTATION
BY USING THE RATING FUNCTION WHICH
YOU CAN FIND AT MY SESSION DETAILS
ON:
www.agiletestingdays.com
THANK YOU!
#tabletwo forever.
Potsdam