Recorded 12/16/20

Is your software engineering company scaling? Are you assuming that your quality and test practices will magically scale also? In 2015, Olo engineering was a small startup. In January of 2020, we are definitely not a startup anymore. We did not experience hyper-growth, but it was definitely significant growth. Oh, and to further complicate things, all of our engineers are remote! We added new managers, new developers, new product owners, new quality advocates, new software engineers in test – and all of these new Olo-ites wanted to know – How do you do testing here?

This recurring question forced us to examine and articulate our approach to make sure we were scaling with the rest of the business. We adopted the terminology of Lisa Crispin & Janet Gregory in calling our approach Whole Team Quality (WTQ) and distilled our core practices into 4 threads:

  • Visible Testing
  • Test Scope
  • Automated Tests
  • Team Engagement

JoEllen not only introduces the core practices in each thread; she also describes how Olo rolled the practices out to 14 different teams and how they adapted the approach collaboratively with the team. She’ll provide an overview of the WTQ bootcamps, strategy workshops, and quarterly retros, which respectively introduce the approach, provide practice in new skills, and adapt working agreements for each team. It’s WTQ-in-a-box for teams who are experiencing growth and struggling to articulate a cohesive strategy.

How successful were they? Well, ‘Amigos’, ‘mobbing’, and ‘working agreements’ are now part of the vernacular at Olo. We’ll delve into evolving success indicators of our Whole Team Quality practices as we prepare for another year of growth. Come learn how you can adapt our framework and techniques to scale quality on your team.

Webinar Takeaways:

  • Learn an approach to whole team quality.
  • Experience the practices in this workshop.
  • Adapt practices to your team’s unique context.
  • Refine success indicators.
  • Engage remote team members

Our Speaker:

JOELLEN CARTERJoEllen Carter – Director, Quality Engineering – Olo, Inc.
For the last year, JoEllen has been immersed in scaling the quality engineering efforts at Olo to keep pace with the rapid growth of the business. Who knew? People like to order food online, and Olo is a leader in online ordering. Before that, she was a hands-on tester of the APIs and UIs that are the core of the Olo platform. Along the way, she refined the Olo approach to testing and quality so that it now reflects her commitment to collaboration and team engagement. JoEllen has over fifteen years of experience defining the role of tester on agile teams. She is a creative advocate of the value an experienced, collaborative tester brings to an agile team.

Speaker Details:

Twitter: @testacious
LinkedIn: JoEllen Carter
Speaking Experience: STPCon, Agile, Agile Testing Days, Mile High Agile, Agile Testing Days USA