Roll the Marbles! Not Only Good Architecture Helps us to Test Better!

Improving quality is much more than simply exploring the software, as we testers sometimes do. It is also about having a solid architecture to avoid product risks, rather than merely mitigate them. Are you aware of the impact of architecture?

To show you the impact of architecture, we use an interesting metaphor which is also a toy for (big) children! Design, build, and test a marble track while applying the SCRUM approach. You must plan, talk, cooperate, build, test, and think a few sprints ahead to anticipate future problems or risks. Besides that, you will change roles between sprints to determine if you are more critical as a tester about things you did not build.

Additional Information:

The target audience: testers, quality engineers, architects, developers, product owners, busines analysts

Level of tutorial: everybody involved in IT can participate

Pre-requisites like knowledge of a tool or a programming language: none

If attendees need to bring their laptop: no 

Takeaways/what they will learn?

• experience the interactions within a team while building a marble track. 
• deal with restrictions and limitations within product development
• have fun playing with marbles!

you will discover at the end of the workshop, why is it  important to think about

•       Test approaches 
•       Project environment (e.g. people)
•       Product elements (e.g. architecture)
•      Quality attributes (e.g. testability, stability)

from the beginning of the development process. 

Why you would recommend the tutorial

We have given this workshop before, and we encountered meaningful discussions that significantly contributed to a broader perspective that testers need to cultivate. We discovered

other crucial topics that demanded attention, so we extended our initial ½ day workshop to a full-day workshop by including the following topics: 

•       Collaboration and communication with a PO, architect, and stakeholders
•       Incorporate different quality attributes in the development process
•       The consequences of architectural decisions and changes related to testing
•       How to keep the focus on people, process, and product