AU - CSTC

Descrizione

The Agile United Certified Soft-skilled Test Consultant (AU-CSTC) training focuses on the people skills that software testers need to work effectively with team members, colleagues and clients. It explores how communication, team dynamics and individual behavior influence testing activities and the quality of the software delivered.

Through practical exercises and interactive learning, participants develop approaches for building trust, supporting team improvement, communicating testing insights and handling challenging conversations. The syllabus builds on the soft skills and knowledge at the heart of the Agile Test Model (ATM), connecting these competencies to the daily work of a software test consultant in an agile development environment.

Chapter 1 – Self-awareness and Team Dynamics

• Understanding your strengths, needs and behavior within a team
• Creating and presenting “My user manual”
• Exploring team interactions through the Gameception serious game
• Recognizing challenges in collaboration, accountability and product quality

Chapter 2 – Building Excellent Teams

• Self-determination theory and basic psychological needs
• Accountability and psychological safety
• The apathy, anxiety, comfort and learning zones
• Improving accountability with the PERFECT principles
• Promoting psychological safety with the LEADING principles
• Building trust through compassion, logic and authenticity
• Lessons from High Reliability Organizations (HROs)
• The BARE strategies and SPACE mindset for team excellence

Chapter 3 – Visualization Techniques

• The value of visualization in testing and collaboration
• Using visualizations to explain systems, processes and testing insights
• Representing systems through nodes and links
• Organizing static information with mind maps
• Visualizing experiments and process improvement with PopcornFlow©
• Tracking improvement progress with subway maps
• Visualizing client, concept and product outlines

Chapter 4 – Implementation of Models

• Understanding what models are and why they are useful
• Using models to communicate ideas and manage complexity
• Practicing modelling with words
• Recognizing the limitations of models
• Distinguishing a model from the reality it represents

Chapter 5 – The Agile Test Model (ATM)

• The three worlds: client needs, concepts and the software product
• Connecting client needs and concepts through capture and analysis
• Connecting concepts and the software product through verification and checking
• Connecting the software product and client needs through exploration and validation
• The testing activities associated with each bridge
• The role of social skills and knowledge across the model

Chapter 6 – Storytelling

• The role of stories in communication, learning and decision-making
• Structuring a story around a call to adventure, challenges and a takeaway
• The six questions that shape an effective story
• Telling a test story: what and why, how it went and what was found
• The effects of dopamine, oxytocin and endorphins in storytelling
• Choosing and telling stories for different purposes

Chapter 7 – Critical Thinking

• The definition and value of critical thinking
• The three pillars: information gathering, assessing argumentation and self-regulation
• Examining claims, conclusions and assumptions
• Recognizing logical fallacies
• Understanding the difference between heuristic and critical thinking
• Practicing critical thinking through debate

Chapter 8 – Recognizing and Mitigating Biases

• Understanding cognitive biases and their influence on decisions
• System 1 and System 2 thinking
• Anchoring bias, happy path bias and authority bias
• Recognizing the HALT conditions: hungry, angry, lonely and tired
• Considering the impact of decisions on others
• Seeking an outside perspective and reflecting on past experiences
• Making assumptions explicit and asking “What if we are wrong?”
• Using pair testing, peer reviews and exploratory testing to help mitigate biases

Chapter 9 – Giving and Receiving Feedback

• The purpose of feedback as a basis for improvement
• Motivational feedback through compliments
• Activating feedback with the hamburger method
• Evaluating feedback with the Pendleton method
• Understanding challenges in giving and receiving corrective feedback
• Applying the SCORE method for corrective feedback
• Ground rules for respectful, specific and constructive feedback

Chapter 10 – Negotiation Techniques

• The role of negotiation in a software tester’s daily work
• Understanding the influence of emotions on decisions
• The three negotiation pillars: preparation, exploration and negotiation
• Defining goals and a Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA)
• Preparing questions, alternatives and an accusation audit
• Using empathy, summarizing and adaptation to build understanding
• Addressing emotions during exploration
• Applying techniques such as the “magic how” and “go to the balcony”
• Allowing room for “No” and explaining the consequences of an unsuccessful negotiation
• Practicing negotiation through interactive exercises