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Quality Coach Workshops

Exploratory Testing with a Team

Anne-Marie Charrett

Anne-Marie Charrett

16 Jan 2025 6 min

Holding an exploratory testing session is a fun way to encourage teams to think from a customer perspective.

Exploratory Testing with a Team
Photo by Maël BALLAND / Unsplash

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Home of the Quality Coach Book plus insights on engineering leadership
ASK THE BOOK • ASK THE BOOK •
Quality Coach Handbook

Quality Coach Researcher

I am a:

Welcome! I'll help you explore Anne-Marie's Quality Coach's Handbook.

Here's what you can ask the Quality Coach's Handbook:

How do I start quality coaching in my team?
Start by identifying a team that's open to change and has some autonomy. The handbook recommends beginning with a Quality Kickoff Workshop to align on quality goals and values.

Key first steps:
• Observe the team's current practices
• Build trust by listening and understanding their challenges
• Co-create a quality vision with the team
• Start small with one improvement experiment

Remember: Quality coaching is about enabling teams to own quality, not doing it for them.
📚 From the Handbook: Coaching, Workshops, Techniques for Team Coaching
What's the difference between a Quality Coach and a QA Engineer?
A Quality Coach focuses on teaching teams to own quality, while a QA Engineer typically focuses on testing activities.

The Quality Coach:
• Facilitates quality improvement across the team
• Coaches others to build quality practices
• Works to make themselves redundant
• Focuses on systems thinking and continuous improvement

The QA Engineer:
• Performs testing and validation
• Writes and executes test cases
• Reports on quality metrics
• May be a dedicated role on the team

A Quality Coach might also do testing, but their primary goal is enabling the team to own quality collectively.
📚 From the Handbook: Describing the Quality Coach Role, What is a Quality Coach

Sign up to ask your own questions and get personalized coaching advice from the handbook.

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Grounded in the Handbook, supplemented by coaching expertise