November Meeting: BDD in .NET with SpecFlow

A key concept of any Agile methodology is communication. It’s no longer normal or acceptable for developers to sit and develop applications in isolation from the business. To that end, developers and business domain experts have been trying to find better ways to communicate. While developers tend to speak in terms of “code and technology” most business domain experts are more comfortable communicating in terms of scenarios, workflows and business rules.

Test Driven Development (TDD) was the first step in getting these two groups to communicate in the same way. Developers could write unit tests that expressed business requirements with the hope that business users could validate that what was being tested was in fact what the desired behavior was. But, unit tests are still code and while it was better, the communication was still stilted and inefficient.

To help this communication new techniques such as Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) have become popular. Along with these new ideas, new tools like SpecFlow have become popular as a means to express unit tests in a way that the business can better understand and validate.

This session will demonstrate how SpecFlow can be leveraged in your BDD or ATDD practices. In this session you will learn what SpecFlow is and how to integrate it into your C# .NET project. The Gherkin language and the “Given, When, Then” paradigm will be explained. You will see how to write tests in a way that business users are not only capable of reading, but can also help you create them.

James Bender is VP of Technology at Improving Enterprises, enjoys developing software and working with other passionate technologists.

Event Sponsors

Update on Sunday, December 23, 2012 at 6:23PM by Agile Cincinnati

Thanks to James Bender for coming down from Columbus to discuss BDD and SpecFlow with our group.The members learned a little about Gherkin syntax and how SpecFlow .NET integration enables users to write the behavior of software in a way that can be understood by both business folks and developers; as well as, generate automated tests.  This increases the chances that the software written will be both right and of good quality.

We had a good time time chatting with James after the presentation, too bad he had to get back to Columbus shortly after.

Congrats to our Pearson book winner Kevin Zamora who chose "How Google Tests Software"

July Meeting: TDD - Unit Tests From a Slightly Different Point of View

Test-driven Development is generally either embraced or despised by developers. I will discuss the different mindset between coding and coding using TDD, the benefits of TDD, and where to start.

Katie Dwyer has experience on both sides of the coin, software engineering and project management. Since discovering the benefits of using Agile practices, Katie has become passionate about spreading the word and teaching others about Agile and best practices for adoption and using Agile practices to improve software quality in her work as a release manager. She is a Certified Scrum Master and Certified Scrum Developer, and has a M.Sc. in Computer Science from Northern Kentucky University.

When: July 12, 2012  (Second Thursday).
Networking: 5:30-6pm.
Program: 6-7:30pm.
Where: Max Training. 4900 Parkway Drive Suite 160 , Mason (Cincinnati), OH 45040

PMP's: This event counts for 1 (one) PDU

Book Sponsor

Update on Wednesday, July 25, 2012 at 11:32PM by Agile Cincinnati

Another summer meeting; and we started with networking...

Katie Dwyer shared her excellent presentation on Test Driven Development with Agile Cincinnati audience.

She kindly allowed us sharing her presentation material with Agile Cincinnati community, please give her credits for this excellent session about TDD.

Thanks again Katie!!!

April Meeting: Building Effective Agile Teams

Building effective agile development teams is a process that is larger than simply buying some fancy tables and co-locating a group of developers.

While building teams is not a “one-size-fits-all” process, this presentation will review core principles from motivational theory, psychology, and group dynamics that can be applied to forming, building, and scaling agile teams within your organization. Brian Watson will share his “from the field” experience as an Agile coach in building highly productive and efficient agile teams. Topics covered include: training, coaching, balancing business vs. technical needs, navigating the middle- management conundrum, and pairing.

Brian Watson is an Agile coach for VersionOne. He has over 16 years of experience providing Project Management, Business Analysis, and Agile coaching on small to enterprise level projects within a diverse set of industries.  Since 2005, Brian has led Agile transformations blending concepts of Scrum, XP and feature driven development (FDD) within consulting software development factories, utilities, workers compensation, and government agencies

When: April 12, 2012  (Second Thursday).
Networking: 5:30-6pm.
Program: 6-7:30pm.
Where: Max Training. 4900 Parkway Drive Suite 160 , Mason (Cincinnati), OH 45040

PMP's: This event counts for 1 (one) PDU

 Food Sponsor

Door Prize Sponsor

Online Ticketing for April Meeting: Building Effective Agile Teams powered by Eventbrite

Update on Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 5:41PM by Agile Cincinnati

Meeting Epilogue

In April Brian Watson shared his experience on Building Effective Agile Teams with our community.

He drew a model to build agile teams in organizations; The pairing/transition process takes usually 3-5 sprints, once they grow their skills they are ready to code solo. Mistakes in this transition are part of the learning process.

It's important to keep the at least 10% of the team positive, knowledgeable and evangelizing the Agile concepts.

 

Management Support is key to the success of team. Mistakes will happen and part of the learning process.

Team spaces should be functional, doesn't have to be fancy. Elbow room for pairing and collaboration, dual monitors; remove walls, create a central locationg for card wall and stand-ups. Don't break the banks.

The team should be able to say "no" Encourage the team to take risks.

Continuity; only a small part of overall team success is "Agile". Team forms a bond and must be kept together.

Embrace the new culture. Work to convert pessimists; remove lack of understanding; think local and act global.

In our usual monthly drawing Amit Valsangkar is the lucky winner for the book from Pearson and Dan Rice got the tshirt from Atlassian. Thanks again to Versionone for sponsoring our food tonight.

Pearson book winner Amit Valsangkar

Atlassian T-shirt winner Dan Rice