These are the slides I presented as a keynote at the Test Management Summit on 6th February 2013.

1. @paul_gerrard
Leadership
A personal view
Paul Gerrard
paul@gerrardconsulting.com
gerrardconsulting.com

2. Theme
• Leadership - what is it?
• There may be trouble ahead
• Will test leaders stand up?

3. “I must follow the
people. Am I not their
leader?”
Benjamin Disraeli
Politician’s view

4. “The first responsibility
of a leader is to define
reality. The last is to say
thank you. In between,
the leader is a servant”
Max DePree
A businessman’s view (Jeeves leadership model?)

5. “Lead me, follow me, or
get out of my way!”
General George Patton
A soldier’s view

6. “You don’t lead by pointing
and telling people some
place to go.You lead by
going to that place and
making a case”
Ken Kesey
A radical author’s view

7. “You don’t need a title
to be a leader”
anon
anyone can be a leader (volunteer)

8. “A leader does not
deserve the name
unless he is willing
occasionally to stand
alone”
Henry A. Kissinger
slings and arrows

9. “The one quality that
can be developed by
studious reflection and
practice is the
leadership of men”
Dwight D Eisenhower
Intelligence, imagination and consensus

10. “I start with the premise
that the function of
leadership is to produce
more leaders, not more
followers”
Ralph Nader
now we’re getting there

11. “Don’t get so far ahead
of people that they
cannot follow”
Me

13. Every now and then,
stand still for a while
and let people catch up
Because there’s trouble ahead
(if you don’t want to collaborate)

14. Definition and
Assurance
Bringing Analysis and Testing Together
with Business Stories

15. Redistributed testing
Functional Build (+little testing) but Testing (lots of
Requirements lots of rework checking + bugs)
Trusted
Requirements + BDD/Test-Driven Testing
Stories
Trusted SAVED
Requirements + BDD/Test-Driven) Testing TIME
Stories

16. The End of Manual
Feature Checking?
Let the tools do it all and
free the testers to do exploration

17. Spec by Example, BDD, ATDD etc etc
Goal Risks
Requirement
Test Log
Story/Feature
Automated
Scenarios Execution
Examples
Examples Manual
Examples
Execution
Scope of the Dictionary
Intelligent Definition and Assurance Slide 19

18. Goal and risk network
Intelligent Definition and Assurance Slide 20

19. Traceability
achieved in-flight;
Business Impact Analysis
becomes possible
Traceability is a by-product of this
way of working, not a difficult
afterthought

20. Traceability
• We can report test coverage at all levels
• We can also report coverage against any entry
in the glossary (Ubiquitous Language)
• We can also report coverage of processes,
paths and process activities (elements)
– Don’t forget – processes add the value, not
software!

21. Business impact analysis becomes
viable
• We have traceability from goals, risks through
requirements stories and tests
• With continuous delivery, these artefacts are
always in synchronisation
• We can trust our analyses much more
• Most projects that fail should never have been
started
Lean starts with choosing the right projects
in the first place.

22. Will Test Leaders Stand
Up?
We need to slaughter a few sacred
cows

23. Developers write code;
testers test because
developers can’t
No they don’t

24. Testing doesn’t just
apply to existing
software, at the end
We test systems, not software;
We test early, we test often but it
might not be called testing

25. Testing is about
measuring achievement,
not quality
Align delivery with project goals and
risks and you’ve got a seat on the
board

26. Testers don’t own
testing anymore
Be a Testmaster

27. One final quotation…

28. “I have taken more
good out of alcohol
than alcohol has taken
out of me”
Winston Churchill

29. @paul_gerrard
Leadership – Thank-You
A personal view
Paul Gerrard
paul@gerrardconsulting.com
gerrardconsulting.com

30. References
1. 100 Best Quotes on Leadership, Forbes magazine
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/10/16/quotes-on-leadership/
2. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/topics/topic_leadership.html

31. Thank-You
Our Thinking:
businessstorymethod.com
Our Technology:
businessstorymanager.com
gerrardconsulting.com