Elisabeth Hendrickson recently hosted the Agile Alliance Functional Test Tools Workshop in Portland, Oregon. I am impressed by both the idea and the attendees – Ben Simo, Brian Marick, Gerard Mezaros, Jim Shore … it’s am impressive list.
While the stars did not align and I could not attend, the good news is that conversation is continuing over the internet.
First, there is the AA-FTT yahoo discussion group, which is open to the public.
Also, the lightning talks were video recorded that they are available on google video right here.
If you’d like to pick one to start with, Brian Marick’s “Let Them Eat Cake” is especially interesting.
There’s something going on here with the way we use terms like “Test” and “Requirement” that causes confusion and misunderstanding. Fundamentally, various groups, like the traditional test community, the “Agile” Developer Community, the Scrum People, and so on, are looking for different benefits from testing. Thus, in conversations, we “miss” each other or leave unsatisfied. Brian even did a second lighting talk that touches on this.
Perhaps that’s a post for another day.