Lessons from a 1-day training engagement - a Trainer perspective

I was a Trainer for bunch of smart QAs recently. The training was about "Agile QA". This term is very vague, and if you think about it more deeply, it is also a very vast topic.

The additional complexity was that this training was to be done in 1 day.

So we broke it down to what was really essential to be covered in this duration, and what could be covered in this duration.

We came down to 2 fundamental things:

1. How can the QA / Test team be agile and contribute effectively to Agile projects?
2. How can you be more effective in Test Automation - and that too start this activity in parallel with Story development?

So we structured our thoughts, discussions and presentations around this.

At the end of the exhausting day (both, for the Trainers as well as the Trainees), a couple of things stood out (not in any particular order):

• What is the "right" Agile QA process?
• Roles and responsibilities of a QA on an Agile team
• Sharing case studies and the good & not-so-good experiences around them
• Effectiveness of process and practices
• Value of asking difficult questions at the right time
• Taboo game - playing it, and reflecting on its learnings
• What to automate and what NOT to automate?
• Discussion around - How do you create / generate Test Data?