Testing Peers

What happens when agility becomes more about following a process than achieving something meaningful?
In this episode of the Testing Peers Podcast, co-hosts Chris, Tara, Linda and Sam explore the difference between being agile and simply doing things labelled Agile. From SAFe and Scrum to Kanban boards and story points, there's plenty of experience to draw upon, and more than a few scars.
The conversation begins with Sam's adventures in musical theatre, including the challenges of creating a production with a distributed team, an immovable deadline and plenty of uncertainty. It turns out there's quite a lot we can learn about agility from putting on a show.
The Peers share stories of process theatre, misplaced accountability and teams losing sight of the bigger picture. But it's not all doom and gloom. They also explore what makes agility valuable in the first place: collaboration, inclusion, experimentation, learning and the freedom to adapt.
Along the way, there's a spirited defence of documentation, some uncomfortable questions about AI and self-healing tests, and a rather unexpected debate about how to measure a giraffe for a T-shirt.
Ultimately, agility isn't about abandoning structure or following a prescribed set of ceremonies. It's about understanding what you're trying to achieve, who you're doing it for and how you can learn and improve together.
Topics covered
Agility versus the performance of Agile
Lessons from producing a musical with a distributed team
SAFe, Scrum, Kanban and process theatre
Documentation, accountability and shared understanding
Experimentation, feedback and continuous learning
Why human relationships and cross-functional teams matter
The limitations of story points and comparing teams
Finding the right balance between structure and flexibility
What does agility look like when it genuinely works? And how much of what we call Agile is really helping us get there?

#PeersCon27 (March 11th, 2027) is now LIVE Tickets for the event are live for the Price of £30.
And as always, we are looking for sponsors to make this event the success it has been for the last 3 years, get in touch if interested
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Where do we find wisdom, and what makes it worth sharing?
In this episode of the Testing Peers Podcast, co-hosts Russell, Tara, Chris and Sanne explore how we discover, absorb and share knowledge. From conferences and unconferences to books, podcasts and conversations, there's no shortage of places to find inspiration. But how do we make the most of them?
The Peers discuss the value of stepping outside familiar communities, seeking different perspectives and deliberately keeping curiosity alive. They also explore how differently we learn, why sharing knowledge doesn't necessarily mean consuming it in the same format, and the challenge of remembering where we encountered that brilliant idea in the first place.
Along the way, there's talk of juggling, ballroom dancing, personal knowledge management, the joys of a good book and why sometimes the most valuable thing a speaker can offer isn't a new idea, but a new way of looking at an old one.
Topics covered
Finding wisdom through conferences, unconferences and communities
Discovering new perspectives beyond our usual professional circles
Keeping curiosity alive through small, deliberate challenges
Different approaches to learning, sharing and retaining knowledge
Personal knowledge management and building a second brain
Books, storytelling and making complex ideas accessible
Links and resources
Communities and events
Friends of Good Software (FroGS)
Never Search Alone
Books and learning
Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
How to Make Sense of Any Mess by Abby Covert
Taming Your Dragon by Dr Andrew Richard Brown
The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr and George Spafford
The DevOps Handbook by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois and John Willis
Further reading and inspiration
Better Allies
Cultivated Notes
Test Pappy
Whether you're a lifelong learner, an occasional conference attendee or someone with a bookshelf full of good intentions, there's something here to get you thinking about where your next bit of wisdom might come from.
#PeersCon27 (March 11th, 2027) is now LIVE Tickets for the event are live for the Price of £30.
And as always, we are looking for sponsors to make this event the success it has been for the last 3 years, get in touch if interested
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If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers
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We've all had ideas that we thought were brilliant, only to be met with silence, indifference or a room full of questions we weren't quite ready to answer. So how do we get people on board with our ideas, and do we always need to?
In this episode, Chris, Ben, Rachel and Russell explore the challenges of getting buy-in, sparked by Ben's own experiences of sharing ideas before they're fully formed. What starts as a conversation about cutting through the noise develops into a discussion about influence, experimentation, collaboration and knowing when to let an idea go.
Along the way, we discuss:
Finding the signal in the noise: Sharing ideas, testing their value and recognising which ones deserve more attention.
Knowing your audience: Understanding what matters to others, choosing the right moment and framing ideas in ways that resonate.
Experimentation over commitment: How small, reversible experiments can make it easier for people to embrace change.
Sharing ownership: Creating opportunities for others to contribute ideas and shape solutions, rather than always providing the answers.
Making space for different voices: The value of asynchronous communication, psychological safety and giving people time to think.
Knowing when to persist or pause: Why some ideas need a different approach, while others might benefit from a little time on the shelf.
The cost of getting it wrong: How excluding people from decisions can damage trust, even when the intentions are good.
We also explore whether every idea really needs widespread support, how leaders can encourage a culture of experimentation, and why sometimes the best way to get started is simply to give yourself permission to try.
And, in true Testing Peers tradition, we begin with a rather important question about our last meals before the robot overlords take over.
We'd love to hear from you! How do you approach getting buy-in for your ideas? Have you ever had an idea that initially went nowhere, only to succeed later? Or perhaps you've learnt the hard way what happens when people aren't brought along with a decision?
#PeersCon27 (March 11th, 2027) is now LIVE Tickets for the event are live for the Price of £30.
And as always, we are looking for sponsors to make this event the success it has been for the last 3 years, get in touch if interested
Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TestingPeers)
If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers
Support the show

AI is changing how software is built. More can be generated, changed and shipped faster than before. So where does that leave testing and quality engineering, and what do we bring with us as the way we build software continues to change?
In this episode, Chris, Russell and Tara are joined by Richard Hinton to explore what the AI era might mean for people working in testing and quality. Rather than trying to protect the role we have today, the conversation looks at how our skills can evolve alongside the technology and where a testing mindset becomes particularly valuable when the pace of change increases.
There’s plenty that is new, from non-deterministic systems and AI-generated code to agents reviewing the work of other agents. There’s also plenty that feels remarkably familiar. We still need to understand risk. We still need useful feedback. We still need to challenge assumptions, understand what changed, ask whether everyone actually understood the same thing, and make decisions about when something is good enough.
The conversation explores:
Why speed and scale make critical thinking and fast feedback increasingly important.
What happens when generating software becomes easier than understanding everything we have generated.
The temptation to outsource our thinking alongside the more mundane parts of our work.
Why small changes, experimentation and good engineering practices still matter when AI is doing some of the building.
Accountability when humans and AI are increasingly involved in the same decisions and outputs.
Bias, hallucinations and what happens when AI is trained on imperfect human behaviours, practices and data.
Keeping our own skills sharp enough to question, direct and understand the tools we're using.
How testing and quality roles might evolve towards risk, systems thinking and helping teams make sense of increasing amounts of information.
The importance of connecting intent with outcomes, rather than assuming that faster creation automatically gives us better software.
There’s no call here to stand on the sidelines waiting to say “we told you so”. AI gives us new capabilities, and we are going to experiment, get things wrong, learn and adapt. Testing has plenty to contribute to that process.
Along the way, we also encounter AI reviewing AI, spaghetti monster systems, sunk costs, 99 bugs on the wall, overly agreeable LLMs and the possible need for critical-thinking rehab centres.
The tools are changing. How we apply what we know will need to change with them.

#PeersCon27 (March 11th, 2027) is now LIVE Tickets for the event are live for the Price of £30.
And as always, we are looking for sponsors to make this event the success it has been for the last 3 years, get in touch if interested
Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
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If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers
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What brings you joy in testing?
In this episode, Chris, Russell and Tara are joined by Linda van der Vooren to talk about the parts of testing that still make the job worthwhile, even when work itself isn't always particularly joyful.
They explore the satisfaction of making a genuine difference, solving difficult problems, helping others learn and watching ideas take hold beyond the person who introduced them. The conversation also turns to the testing community, finding people to learn from and challenge you, and the wonderfully unexpected knowledge you can accumulate simply by testing different things.
There’s also room for deliberately doing things the awkward way, accessibility, root cause analysis, light bulb moments, learning through play, the potential for AI and automation to remove some of the joy of figuring things out, and why sometimes stepping away from work entirely is exactly what is needed.
Along the way: testing bingo, rubber ducks, friction maxing, saxophones, pub quizzes, the great outdoors, naps and a glass wall erected to protect developers from an overly enthusiastic tester.
What keeps you loving testing?
#PeersCon27 (March 11th, 2027) is now LIVE Tickets for the event are live for the Price of £30.
And as always, we are looking for sponsors to make this event the success it has been for the last 3 years, get in touch if interested
Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/TestingPeers)
If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers
Support the show