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# A scrum in Croke Park
- URL: https://www.annemariecharrett.com/scrumming-in-croke-park/
- Published: 2009-03-04T07:26:35.000Z
- Updated: 2021-06-15T09:46:29.000Z
- Author: Anne-Marie Charrett
- Tags: blog, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb28231, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb28239, #62e5a4aa26d211003dcebed1, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb281fd, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb281bc, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb28171, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb28146, #64324ade31c943003d684eca, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb2816a, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb2823f, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb2823e, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb28169, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb281f2, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb2823d, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb28202, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb2817e, #63f3d454b701cf003d5b15ee, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb281df, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb2823b, #60c1d1dd5b103d003bb28156

I’m attending the SQS conference on Software Testing in Croke Park, Dublin. I thought it was appropriate to go to an Agile Testing session involving Scrum amongst other techniques in the same hallowed ground where not to recently a game of Rugby was played out between England and Ireland.  
As our trainer Mike Scott was English, we tried not to gloat too much.

I won’t bore you with lots of analogies on how Agile is similar to rugby, besides after a day of Agile, I can’t think up too many, I’m sure someone out there can….

But here is what I enjoyed about Agile and its techniques

I liked the concept of the balloon pattern and testing so early that no code has yet been written, only your installation packages. I think thats really smart. You can iron out all your installation and configuration issues up front.

I like the concept that we as testers need to ask lots of questions and not make assumptions, though I think this is not unique to Agile. A course on Rapid Software Testing by James Bach also stresses this point. However, Agile demands intelligence in testing, where perhaps more traditional methods are less exacting?

There seemed to be a heavy dependency on Test Driven Development (TDD) which I am a big supporter of, though I do question the use of 100% Acceptance Test Automation. I think in every software testing exercise there is room for both manual and automated testing. Its a question of intelligently planning out what percentage ratio works best for that particular project or environment.

Is Agile faster and cheaper as its sometimes portrayed? I suspect not, but it does offer a customer greater flexibility and visibility and I like the sound of that!