I spent the week of August 5th at Agile2019… my first time at this conference. I left the conference energized, excited, and exhausted. I am grateful for the rich content from the many presenters, the connections made (both new and renewed), and the collaboration that created this experience. As I reflect on the week, I wanted to take a moment to explore some key takeaways from the conference…

Agile teams are often configured to make use of a SME (Subject Matter Expert). A SME is typically someone not on the Scrum Team, who brings specialized knowledge, skills, or expertise needed by the team. The team doesn't have everything required, so we give them access to a SME. The SME's contribution may be in the domain, technology, or other skills such as problem solving. Sounds great, right? Not so fast…

I've been doing regression testing for over 20 years, split about 50/50 between waterfall and Agile implementations. Regression testing has several characteristics, few of which are attractive no matter what framework you're in. It's a long, tedious, unpleasant process that no one really wants to do. And, as with all such processes, it is by definition prone to error (when was the last time you really put your best effort into something long, tedious, and unpleasant? When was the last time you realistically expected anyone else to?)

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”; It’s a phrase that I’ve heard as long as I can remember. This was always a peculiar saying to me, because every time I heard it, I couldn’t help but ask myself the question, “but how can we make it better?”