Much Ado About Agile conference - Vancouver

I'm getting my tutorial and track session ready for Agile Vancouver: "Much Ado About Agile".
This conference is put on by the all-volunteer Agile Vancouver user group, and they've put together an impressive lineup of both 'thought leaders' and practitioners, including Key Schwayber, David Anderson, Jim Shore, Jonathan Kohl, Frank Maurer, David Hussman, Janet Gregory, Jennitta Andrea and many more. The tutorials are on Tuesday, Nov. 4, and the conference is on the 5th and 6th.

I'm presenting a tutorial called "Crossing the Chasm: Helping Testers Make an Agile Transition", to help testers new to agile, and teams wanting to help their testers get engaged in agile development. Agile development may have "crossed the chasm", but a lot of times, testers are left stranded on the other side. This tutorial is designed to show how various members of the organization can help testers get the skills they need to be successful agile team members, and help testers understand how to transition traditional testing activities to an agile setting. We'll do some group exercises to help each participant be able to go back to their teams and build bridges across the 'chasm'.

I'm also presenting a track session, "Are Agile Testers Different?" This material came out of questions I have heard a lot: If developers are writing tests, what do these testers do? What's so special about an agile tester? Do agile testers need different skill sets? How do I hire a tester for an agile team? I'll present a list of Five Principles for an Agile Tester that participants can use to learn new ways to add value to their organizations.

There are several other sessions on agile testing, including one on the Agile Testing Matrix by my co-author Janet Gregory, and one on Agile Requirements by Jennitta Andrea. Both Janet and Jennitta are awesome presenters and both sessions should both be quite valuable to testers and agile teams. In addition, Gerard Meszaros is doing a tutorial on Unit Test Patterns, and Mike Stockdale is doing an Automated Testing Clinic.

I haven't been to Vancouver but I'm really looking forward to seeing it, and meeting all the folks at the conference. It's worth traveling to get to this conference, especially if you haven't been to any agile or testing conferences recently. There's a lot of good new information to learn.

If you sign up for my tutorial, please send me any questions or issues you want covered in it.