Creativity - Agile Testing Days

The Software Testing Club Community Manager, Uber Director of Content, Editor of The Testing Planet and Morale Officer Test Manager What is creativity? “Something is born, comes into being, something that did not exist before. Which is as good a definition of creativity as we can get” -- Rollo May - The Courage To Create (book) "Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value." -- Sir Ken Robinson "It incorporates playfulness, curiosity, sensitivity, self awareness and independence. It's also about making links between ideas as a habit of thought and looking at things in many different ways." -- Stephen Bowkett 100+ Ideas for Teaching Creativity (book) Why is Creativity Important? Moving to agile will not make you creative It doesn't mean you can only be creative in an agile team “Testing is an extremely creative and intellectually challenging task” -- Glenford J Myers, et al, The Art Of Software Testing "Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted" -- George Kneller http://www.iwise.com/GaYM6 http://www.thesocialtester.co.uk http://uk.linkedin.com/in/robertlambert @rob_lambert Is Excessive Structure Killing Creativity? And what this means for agile Agile Testing Days What got it all started? Expertise + Motivation + Imagination = creativity -- Teresa M. Amabile, Harvard Business Review What's excessive structure got to do with it? We need Enough "creative people.......They see things as others do, but also as other do not" -- Frank Barron - University of California Academic Intelligence - ability to solve problems using traditionally academic skills (IQ tests) Creative Intelligence - ability to deal with novel situations and to come up with original solutions Practical Intelligence - Ability to deal with problems and challenges in everyday life Emotional Intelligence - Ability to relate to other people, to empathise and show concern. To communicate well. Let me tell you a story about Trish Khoo -- http://ubertest.hogfish.net/ -- @hogfish Test Badgerer 9000 New Voice Media Cloud based call centre solutions It has a lot to do with brains Software development requires lots of problem solving Every team member receives all the gear they need to get the job done. Whether you're a developer or working with our customers, you can expect dual screens, the platform of your choice, extremely comfortable chairs, the latest version of any software you might need and a library of books and other resources at your disposal. Campaign Monitor Open company, no bullsh*t Atlassian embraces transparency wherever at all practical, and sometimes where impractical. All information, both internal and external, is public by default. We are not afraid of being honest with ourselves, our staff and our customers. Play, as a team We want all Atlassians to feel like they work with Atlassian, not for Atlassian. We think it's important to have fun with your workmates while working and contributing to the Atlassian team. Let me tell you a story about Marlena Compton -- http://marlenacompton.com/ -- @marlenac Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is -- Isaac Asimov “It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.” -- Albert Einstein 6000+ miles You can see why Marlena moved there 100 % 99 % Note: I made these figures up Note: I made these figures up The graph of agile Coolness Frequency of the word agile Coolness Certification : A slippery slope Look what's happened in the testing community... Quantification : Metrics and outputs from agile To make it more pallatable for many businesses? The agile cheesecake pie But if you remove excessive structure and create an environment that has "Enough" structure to support: Openness Honesty Learning Craftsmanship Empowerment of people Then the creative, open minded, curious and dynamic people will naturally gravitate to you. www.softwaretestingclub.com Images from flickr: Important :http://www.flickr.com/photos/valeriebb/290711738/sizes/o/in/photostream/ Structure : http://www.flickr.com/photos/halderman/4098344214/ Fear : http://www.flickr.com/photos/troyholden/4025623939/ One Way : http://www.flickr.com/photos/fornal/420469323/sizes/o/in/photostream/ Cheesecake : http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/6925685/ Danger : http://www.flickr.com/photos/chego101/3394439610/ Certification : http://www.flickr.com/photos/librarianavengers/3120752680/ Metrics : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/2272701122/sizes/l/in/photostream/ Learn : http://www.flickr.com/photos/heycoach/1197947341/ Computer (Test Badgerer) : http://www.flickr.com/photos/18818532@N00/345981265/ This is the team to get it done Agile teams possess a high level of creativity Some types of intelligence The Future Of Agile? This will breed creativity I came to some conclusions: They value: Exploration Originality Adapting and Iterating Playfulness Sharing creative ideas We self edit We are shy We feel embarrassed It's like a swing. You can move from one side to the other, but spending too long at one extreme will increase your chance of a fall. Environment of FEAR Certificates and Formal Education as a sole measure of competency Best Practices for everything Silos of skills Walls between teams Layers of approval People as resources Long feedback loops Slow to respond to change Devoid of valuable learning 14 lines Each line containing ten syllables Iambic pentameter (In which a pattern of an unemphasized syllable followed by an emphasized syllable is repeated five times) An English Sonnet It's time to do some drawing Image from : http://www.flickr.com/photos/toniverd/ Agile Pursuit Let's write a test case Photo from : http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomswift Blog - http://testertested.blogspot.com/ Pradeep Soundararajan = People and their talents as the sole measure of competency No best practices, just relative judgement Spreading of skills and merging of roles No concept of the separate team Empowerment to the team People as human beings with needs Short feedback loops Fast to respond to change Craftspeople = The Agile Manifesto Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan Results of excessive structure The future with enough structure But what is enough? The Silver Bullet AGILE Image From : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jinglyjon/180600454/ Image from : http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaded/61315242/ Some teams need more. Some less. But not being able to change quickly will be a teams downfall. If you don't know what "enough" is, then try. Adapt. Iterate. Is that what makes a good agile team? Feature : Log On Username : 20 alpha-numeric characters Password : 20 alpha- numeric characters Success : Welcome page Failure : Appropriate error message. Notes: 3 attempts before lock out Any questions? Thank you for your time. Any questions?