On 20th May 2010, the South West branch of the BCS hosted by Jon Tilt and Richard Coppen from IBM who gave a lecture called “Agile software testing’ – A practical view of testing in a large scale agile development environment”. Jon and Richard work as Chief Test Architect and Test Architect respectively and shared their experiences of testing and agile testing in large projects.

They started by discussing testing in general, including the problems with leaving testing activities to the end of the development cycle where the cost to fix defects rises exponentially. Then they discussed exhaustive and targeted testing, and how, since testing is a risk reducing activity, targeted testing can deliver the same confidence in a product far quicker than exhaustive testing, which is almost never practical. They talked about how framing testing activities in terms of increasing confidence, and demonstrating how the same level of confidence can be achieved, can gain managerial buy-in to agile testing philosophies. Finally they considered the importance of presenting the results of testing activities in a manner that allows project managers to understand them and their implications.

Despite joining the BCS in December, this was the first event I’ve been able to attend, due to being in the wrong city whenever events were scheduled. So when there are events in the South West, I’ve usually been in Leicester, and vice versa. Naturally I wasn’t sure what to expect, so was relieved when I found it to be a welcoming and friendly atmosphere. Hopefully, now I’m at the end of my degree, I’ll be able to attend more events in the future.