Many Small Loops: Feedback That Hardens Agent Output
Agentic QA holds up through many small feedback loops in the process instead of one big test gate at the end. Three ideas for where a team can start.
Agile Testing & Quality Engineering
Agile software development makes quality a shared and continuous responsibility. This topic connects agile testing with quality engineering and explores how feedback, testability, and risk awareness can become part of short development cycles, DevOps, and continuous delivery.
The articles and podcast episodes cover practices such as shift left and continuous testing as well as collaboration, roles, and technical foundations. The goal is not a rigid recipe or testing as early as possible at any cost, but fast and reliable feedback about product quality. This hub is for teams that want to shape quality across the delivery flow and improve their way of working pragmatically.
Articles
Agile Ways of Working: Why It's Time for Real Agile
Agile ways of working spark more eye rolls than motivation today. Agile isn't dead, though: now is the time for real agile that is individual and human.
Agile Software Testing: Quality from the First Step
Integrating Agile software testing ensures quality from the start. Transform your testing mindset with DevOps and automated processes.
For, Against or Both: Why Teams Unite Against Something
For, against or both: people and teams find it easier to unite against something. Winning over the naysayers takes a goal that appeals emotionally.
Detox for Agile Teams: Small Breaks and Sprint Fasting
Detox at work starts small: quiet moments during the day and a sprint break in which the team does nothing at all help agile teams avoid burnout.
Legacy Systems: Why Hardly Any Company Modernizes Them
Legacy systems grow through adapters and wrappers into technical debt. Modernization rarely pays off in the short term, so few companies dare to start.
Agility and Sustainability: Start by Keeping It Simple
Agility and sustainability fit together. With KISS and Lean, teams cut redundant meetings, bloated apps and features nobody needs. That takes courage.
Complicated, Complex, Chaotic: Learning to Deal with Chaos
From complicated to complex to chaotic: agile frameworks tamed complexity, but they don't hold in chaos. Now intuition, flow and empathy count.
Low-Code Testing Turns Business Experts into Citizen Testers
Low-code testing turns business experts into citizen testers, since software demand outgrows developers. Linked TCoEs replace the classic test center.
SDETs and Coaching Roles: Testing Needs Broader Profiles
SDETs, coaching roles and quality engineers in place of test managers: in a truly agile setup, quality becomes a shared responsibility of the team.
Lean Agile Testing: Quality Engineering Turns Predictive
Lean agile testing at scale builds on the House of agile Quality: roles, approach, tools. Next is predictive quality engineering with data and AI.
Quality Culture at DB Netz: Quality Coaches Replace Testers
Quality culture at DB Netz means quality coaches instead of dedicated testers, and continuous testing built into the MoQ-AP CI/CD pipeline.
Testing in Production: Where Software Testing Is Heading
Testing in production, simulation and product certification: why the static lab test falls short and testing turns into a task for the whole team.
Testing as a Craft: Deviations Drive the Product Forward
Testing as a craft survives full automation: its outcome depends on the skill of the people doing it. Teams set their quality level consciously.
Software Testing of the Future Needs Quality Coaches
Quality coaches shape the software testing of the future. They make quality a team value, even as continuous delivery speeds everything up.
Focus Control: How Teams Get Out of the Problem Trance
Focus control breaks the problem trance. Pattern interrupters, an upright posture and the improv rule "Yes, and" shift a team's attention to what works.
Models of the World: When Everyone Is Right
Everyone has their own model of the world, built from experience and values. Why agility doesn't fit every company and what Netflix shows about rules.
Is Agility the Answer to the Future? People Grow Inside It
Agility alone does not answer the challenges of the future. As a framework for personal development, it makes people, teams and companies resilient.
Agile Testing: Quality Is the Responsibility of the Entire Team
Agile testing works when the whole team owns quality. Automation alone won't fix it, but patience, freedom for testers and honest retrospectives will.
Agile Test Management: The Tasks That Stay with the Team
Agile test management spreads release planning, backlog reviews, and the Definition of Done across the team. The test manager becomes a facilitator.
Agile Manifesto at 20: A Mindset Beyond Gurus and Dogmas
The Agile Manifesto turned 20 and agility now reaches far beyond software. It remains a mindset that no guru, dogma or purchased framework can replace.
Living Software Quality as an Attitude: Four Milestones
Software quality becomes a team attitude in stages: from testing basics via reflection and experiments to a culture where testing is part of the work.
What Is Agility, and Which Agile Values Drive It?
Agility rests on agile values, principles, and an attitude that keeps teams effective in a VUCA world. Scrum and Kanban are only where it starts.
Complicated Became Complex: Why We Work Agile Today
Software and its framework conditions have turned from complicated to complex. Agile working helps teams deal with what they cannot know in advance.
Wanting to Want: Software Teams as the Seed of Change
Wanting to want is where change starts. Why systems resist it, and why software teams with self-drive and self-responsibility can be its seed.
Testing in the Digital Transformation
Testing in the digital transformation must scale with complex, networked systems, supported by test automation, agile processes and microservices.
Agile Testing Quadrants: How Testing Changes in Agile Teams
The agile testing quadrants by Gregory and Crispin put all test types in one picture. With test pyramid and exploratory testing, the team owns quality.
Automation in Testing: From a Nice-to-Have to a Must-Have
Automation in testing is now a must-have. It reaches well beyond test execution to static analysis, test data, environments and non-functional tests.
DevOps: Digital Transformation Requires Continuous Testing
DevOps needs continuous testing: IT systems are never finished, so data, processes and data transfer need automated tests with users involved.
Agile Mindset: Why Agility Is Primarily a Matter of Mindset
An agile mindset matters more than agile methods. Without openness to change, projects fail despite them, and the mindset helps in everyday life too.
Testers Need More Creativity: Unit Tests Free Up Test Design
Software testing is changing. Unit tests, TDD and automation free testers to design better tests and question the product from the user's point of view.
Agile Testers Can't Be Made by Decree: What Helps Instead
Nobody becomes an agile tester by decree. Address testers and developers one by one, give them time, allow mistakes and make sure the work is fun.
Agile Technical Debt: Why Testers Must Keep It in Check
Agile technical debt is the measurable cost of poor code. Testers contain it with story reviews, code checks, continuous integration and done criteria.
Agile Development for Medical Devices: Aligned with Standards
Agile development for medical devices can comply with ISO 13485 and IEC 62304. A manufacturer shows how: short iterations, daily meetings, reviews.
Podcast Episodes
How to Build Rules and Skills So That Agents Can Remember
AI coding agents need fewer manual reviews once you work on the system itself: rules, hooks and retro skills make their corrections stick for good.
Lean Management: Why Problem Analysis Beats Quick Fixes
Lean management starts with understanding a problem instead of rushing to a quick fix. That breaks the repeat cycle and exposes waste teams overlook.
Resilience in Software Projects: Follow the Bug Trend
Resilience in software projects starts with accepting bugs rather than avoiding them. What bacteria and moths teach about trends and testing hypotheses.
Vibecoding and the Lack of System Understanding in Practice
Vibe coding risks grow where system understanding is missing. The future belongs to Pi-shaped developers who combine breadth with real depth.
Testing Complex Systems: Ship Small and Learn Fast
Testing complex systems: complex vs complicated, and why software behaves more like weather than a bridge. Safe-to-fail experiments help teams learn.
Automatically Reviewing Documentation with AI Personas
Documentation testing with AI personas: a simulated junior developer burned 1.8 million tokens where a senior needed 300,000, exposing gaps in the docs.
TMMI Level 5: How Mature Teams Stop Bugs Before They Exist
TMMI shows companies where their test processes stand and what comes next, from basic planning to preventing defects before they arise.
Positive Leadership: How PERMA Links Well-Being and Results
Positive leadership ties appreciation to measurable results. The PERMA model names five evidence-based strategies for well-being and performance.
Post-Agile: What Organizations Actually Need Now
Agile meant something once. Now it means almost nothing, and that loss created a real opening for organizational development that actually fits.
Business Agility in Crisis: An Emergency Diagnosis for Teams
Business agility is ailing in many companies, but not dead. Two emergency medicine checklists show where it hurts, and often one method less helps most.
How to Build QA Culture in Your Company
Building a QA culture starts with listening: map what quality means to each role, win budget with defect costs and change one thing per quarter.
Flaky Tests: Why They Destroy Trust in CI Pipelines
Flaky tests don't just slow down CI, they erode trust until engineers stop believing the build. Here's how to fix that.
Ensemble (Mob) Testing: Test Expertise Grows in the Dev Team
Two years of exploratory ensemble testing in a real project: What the method brings, where it gets stuck and why testing is suddenly fun.
Error Culture: Clarify What Errors Mean at Project Start
Error culture sounds good on the vision board, but collapses at the first real bug. What really helps before the stress comes.
Developer Experience: Testers Shape All Four DORA Metrics
Developer experience is measured by four DORA metrics, and testers influence each one. An isolated test environment per developer shortens lead time.
Is AI in Software Testing Making the Tester's Job Obsolete?
AI in software testing is not making testers redundant. The job shifts toward test strategy, critical questioning and early work in refinements.
Stoic Decision-Making: Judge Choices Instead of Outcomes
Stoic decision-making separates the quality of a choice from luck. Premeditatio malorum, the 10-10-10 rule and a decision log make it daily practice.
Given When Then: BDD Scenarios Grow from Shared Examples
Given-when-then scenarios pay off when business and tech write the examples together. BDD is not a testing technique: the scenarios drive the code.
Tester Influence: Frame Bugs by Business Impact
Tester influence is influence without authority: frame each finding for its audience. A 15-second check at standup does more than a big program.
Cross-Functional Teams Need a Clear Owner for Quality
In cross-functional teams, when everyone owns quality, no one really does. Why these teams lack deep testing skills and how testers still add value.
Nonviolent Communication in Testing: Observe, Don't Judge
Nonviolent communication gives testers four steps: observation, feeling, need and request. It lets QA teams raise hard points without blaming anyone.
Remote Testing: How External Testers Join Agile Teams
Remote testing works in agile teams when external testers join stand-ups and team chats. Hour quotas and a four-stage process get them going in a week.
Built-In Quality: Small Practices Beat Big Frameworks
Built-in quality often breaks not in the team but one layer above, in management. How small practices, not frameworks, keep quality from slipping.
Retrospectives: Five Phases to Avoid Jumping to Conclusions
An agile retrospective often yields the same sticky notes. Five phases after Derby and Larsen, data before judgment and small, concrete next steps help.
Holistic Testing: Quality Work at Every Stage of the Loop
Holistic testing makes the whole team own quality, with testing at every stage of the DevOps loop. Shared understanding early prevents costly rework.
QA Coaching: Eight People Support 100 to 120 Applications
QA coaching replaced central control: eight people support over 100 applications, and an unread test manual became guardrails that teams accept.
Rosenberg's Nonviolent Communication in Everyday Testing
Nonviolent communication has four components: Observation, feeling, need, request. What this looks like in everyday testing.
Learning with Simulations: Experience Agile Principles Firsthand
Learning with simulations like the Okaloa Flow Lab lets teams and managers feel WIP limits and the pull principle at a board rather than on a slide.
Quality Coaching in SAFe: Closing Gaps Between Teams
Quality coaching in SAFe closes the gap between teams on a release train through requirements coaching, process workshops and defect management.
Organizational Intelligence: Efficiency Blocks Adaptation
Organizational intelligence shows in how well teams learn together. Retrospectives are the biggest lever, pure efficiency leaves little room to adapt.
Software Analysis: Assessing an Inherited Ticket Shop
Software analysis of an inherited ticket shop: static analysis gave a first verdict in 1.5 days. Then a third of the code turned out to be a black box.
Model-Based Test Case Design: First Abstract, Then Concrete
Model-based test case design often breaks down between model and concrete test. Two phases fix that: high-level tests first, data and scripts later.
Quality in Software Development Is Now a Team Task
Quality in software development moved from a late test phase to a team task. Now AI forces the question many teams never answered: what is quality?
Shift Left vs Shift Right: You Don't Have to Pick One
Shift left parallelizes testing before go-live, shift right watches production. One insurer runs the same UI tests in both worlds. How that works.
Software Quality Metrics: Trends Say More Than Single Values
Software quality metrics only help when they fit the context and feed real decisions. Team comparisons mislead, and lead time deserves a closer look.
The Testing Profession: What Skills Does a Tester Need Today?
The testing profession has become a team task, since quality belongs to everyone in an agile team. Experience counts for more than knowledge alone.
Testing in German-Speaking Countries: How Agile Are Teams?
Testing in German-speaking countries has been surveyed every few years since 2011. Agile projects now dominate, while classic techniques lose ground.
Security Audits: A Baseline Instead of a Major Cleanup
Security audits work best as a habit: draw a baseline, run security checks in the pull request and fix a few findings whenever you touch the code.
Systemic Methods for Teams: Why Outside Advice Rarely Sticks
Why do well-intentioned impulses in a team so often fizzle out? Systemic consulting explains how connectivity determines impact.
Post-Agility: Transformation Requires Multiple Change Models
Post-agility has turned agile into a vague umbrella term. Kotter, Satir and Tribal Leadership show why change fails and why small steps get further.
Accessibility Under the BFSG: What B2C Companies Must Do
Since June 2025, the BFSG makes accessibility mandatory for B2C companies, with fines up to 100,000 euros. WCAG-based tasks help teams comply.
Sustainable Software: Performance Cuts the Carbon Footprint
Sustainable software starts with performance: less CPU, memory and data transfer cut carbon and cloud costs. Three image tweaks alone save 97 percent.
Shift Left in Acceptance Testing: Build Trust Early
Shift left in acceptance testing means testers shape requirements early. Acceptance tests then build trust instead of hunting bugs just before delivery.
Minimum Viable Test Strategy
Test strategy via workshop instead of a hundred-page document: How a collaborative format quickly brings teams to a common test picture.
Green Software: What If Planet Earth Were a Stakeholder?
Green software starts with one question: what if the earth were a stakeholder in your next sprint? Supporting old devices cuts e-waste and saves costs.
Continuous Discovery: Domain Expertise Belongs on the Team
Continuous discovery fills the gap Scrum leaves before the backlog. Event storming, story mapping and Gemba walks help the team understand customers.
Remote Teams: When They Outperform Office Teams
Remote teams can work better together than office teams, but only on one condition: Knowledge must be networked, not people.
DevOps CALMS: From Abstract Goals to Everyday Team Life
The DevOps CALMS model (culture, automation, lean, measurement, sharing) turns a battle cry against burnout and waste into daily team practice.
User Story Testing: Make Stories Testable with Examples
User story testing starts with acceptance criteria written as concrete examples. Add specs only where they help, and use the light Three Xs strategy.
Quality by Design in Software: Prevent Errors Early
Quality by design in software prevents errors before testing has to find them. The pharma-born approach rests on risk analysis and process metrics.
Classic Test Techniques: Agile Teams Still Need Them
Classic test techniques such as decision tables still apply in agile projects. So why does quality suffer when twelve teams work side by side?
Quality Assurance at Otto: Life Without a Testing Team
Quality assurance at Otto works without a testing team. 15 quality specialists coach 60 teams, helped by Quality Buddies and consumer-driven contracts.
Test Selection with Teamscale: A CI Pipeline in Ten Minutes
Test selection with Teamscale runs only tests that cover changed code, so 6,000 PyTest cases fit a five-minute budget in a ten-minute CI run.
Continuous Everything: How to Measure the Quality Gain
Does Continuous Everything really improve quality? Six years of data show trunk-based development smooths out the defect peaks around each release.
Team Alignment with OKR: Goals That Survive Day-to-Day Work
Team alignment with OKR needs three to five early metrics, health metrics as a counterweight and a neutral facilitator who guides goal setting.
Green IT: Fewer Features, Less Data, No Idle Machines
Green IT makes software draw less power, green by IT uses software for sustainability. How the Pink Index, caching and smaller cloud nodes help.
BDD Scenarios: Gherkin Written Afterwards Is Not BDD
BDD scenarios look simple, but Gherkin without real team conversations costs more than it brings. Why five to seven steps keep a scenario readable.
The ISTQB CTFL 4.0 Makes Testing a Team Responsibility
ISTQB CTFL 4.0 unites classic and agile testing in one syllabus and treats test management as a team role. Existing certificates remain valid for good.
House of Agile Quality: Roles, Approach, and Tools as Pillars
The House of Agile Quality rests on a test foundation and three pillars: roles, approach and tools, topped by lean quality engineering methods.
Shift Left: Quality Starts with the User Story
The shift left approach builds quality in early: vertically sliced user stories, feedback in the IDE, solid unit tests and contract testing with PACT.
Ensemble Programming: One Types, the Whole Team Thinks
Four to six people, one keyboard, real code: ensemble programming and ensemble testing bring testers and developers together where meetings fail.
Contract-Based Testing: Detecting Breaking Changes Early
Contract-based testing lets provider and consumer agree on a versioned contract. Breaking changes then surface in the CI pipeline before integration.
ISTQB: President Wants to Review Curricula Every Five Years
The ISTQB runs almost entirely on volunteers across 68 member boards. Its president wants every syllabus, CTFL 4.0 included, revised within five years.
BDD Testing: Given-When-Then for Business and Developers
BDD testing uses Given-When-Then scenarios so business stakeholders and developers share one understanding of a feature before any code is written.
Agile Quality Assurance: Talking Comes Before Coding
Agile quality assurance starts in the conversation about requirements, long before acceptance testing. Leaving tests out is fine if the risk is known.