Presented at QAI 2005 QA Conference, Matrix Resources - Executive Seminar Series, and 2007 NC PMI PDD. Much of the material surfaces in my various leadership skills workshops.

This presentation, borrowing a bit from Stephen Covey, highlights what I think are the fundamental habits that encompass good leadership. Of course, I'm not saying they're the only ones or that I've got a "lock" on the notion. Just a few observations and lessons from my own experience that you might find thought provoking and useful.

Manage Your Testing with Scrum

I've found that the Scrum Agile Methodology can be used to "wrap" all sorts of project management activities to improve team focus - leading towards better project outcomes. This presentation focuses on leveraging Scrum for managing software testing cycles.

It has a surprisingly nice "fit" around testing work and aligns nicely with risk-based testing techniques.

Enterprise and large-scale legacy instances of Scrum struggle with how to effectively test their applications. The problem is in the integration and regression phases - where all testing simply can not be performed within each development sprint. This presentation identifies a few approaches for dealing with this. It also serves to give license to the idea that testing can and sometimes must occur "outside" the iteration.

It's also a nice follow-up from the above presentation.

Was presented locally at 2005 TISQA testing conference and at many national conferences (STAR, ALM EXPO, and QAI) in 2006.

This presentation is based on material in my endgames book and a lead article that was published in Software Testing & Performance magazine in March 2005. It focuses on looking "beneath" defect data to understand the true health of your projects and recommends that testers get better at understanding trends and influencing project adjustments.

or

Software Endgames - Learning How to Finish What You've Started

Presented at RTP PMI LIG group and Charlotte SPIN groups early in 2005. Also presented at Better Software, Software Testing & Performance and Charlotte PMI Professional Day conferences later in 2005.

This talk focuses on the change management (CM) aspects from the Endgames book. It's a high level review of key lessons from the change reduction chapters, with some additional bits about good endgame team behavior.

It's the second related talk I've pulled together to share some of the content lessons from it.

Presented at 2005 Software Development Best Practices conference.

The presentation is an adaptation of my estimating workshop materials. I wanted to boil down the:

Into a fast (90 minute) workshop that will give attendees to the method, speed and application possibilities.

It also has tremendous application to the Agile methods approach to planning - so that link and synergy is inevitable as well.

Presented at QAI and PSQT/PSTT Conferences in 2003 and 2004.

I "inherited" an offshore software testing team in the Fall of 2001. This presentation shares lessons and experiences from focusing and improving that working relationship over the next few years. It should help anyone chartered with establishing or improving offshore working relationships - particularly in the area of software development or testing.

Presented at QAI 2003 QA Conference.

This presentation focuses on how to (1) Perform an Assessment, (2) Create a Strategy and (3) Reset the direction of an automation project. While focused on test automation, the strategies are very general purpose and very much focus on how ineffective communication amongst project stakeholders and participants that can cause many project problems.

The assessment can be used not only to assess an automation effort, but to initiate one as well.

Software Testing & PR - What They Didn't Teach You in School

Presented at STAR West and PSQT/PSTT Conferences in 2002.

It's focused on public relations & communications skills for software testers.  While it's quite "soft" in nature, it is one of the areas where I believe we need to improve the most. Please take a look and give it some thought...

I have another variant of this talk that I'm again giving at the STAR East 2003 and QAI QA/QC 2003 Annual Conferences. I've added a deeper exploration of personality type to the presentation, referencing MBTI.

All of these presentations, while centered on Software Testing, have quite a lot of general applicability to technology teams in general. I've also developed this topic into a 4 hour workshop with quite a bit of experiential practice and learning.

I've long been a proponent of operations planning at the organizational level. Think of it as an annual assessment at the organization level (any organizational level). It's a health and adjustment check that should be regularly made.

It has two directions of use, towards the team and towards management. Both are useful for strategy development, tactical adjustments and communications. The template should give you a feel for the focus and the construction tips - insights into how to pull it together.

I reference Operations Planning in my: 7 Habits and Creating & Leading High Performance Test Teams workshops.

Presented at PSQT/PSTT East 2003 Conference and at local RTP  PMI chapter in July 2003. Also presented at PMI IS-SIG PDS 2006.

This presentation focuses on the "anti patterns" of planning and tracking at too high and low of a level within software projects. It then explores alternative planning techniques from the Agile Methodologies (XP and Scrum) and my own Endgame planning techniques as approaching the "Right" level for handling project change volatility.