HUSTEF 2022: Alex Schladebeck - Mixing without merging: comb shaping for developers, testers

Complete separation of roles and tasks between testers and developers is so 90’s. But is the swiss army knife (everyone does everything) the modern way, or is there a middle way? How much of other people’s tasks are also my responsibility in a team context? Is having a specialisation bad? What sets of skills will I need for the future?

In this keynote, Alex will explore the way that roles (specifically developer and tester roles, but also other roles in agile teams) have evolved over the past 15 years, and what we can expect of their evolution in the years to come. She will introduce the idea of comb-shaping (as an expansion of T-Shaping or Pi-Shaping) to describe our multi-faceted roles and skills, and will talk about how to actively work towards being a comb-shaped team member and how to build teams that support and benefit from comb shaping.
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Biography

Alex is a passionate tester whose favourite topics are quality, agility and humans. She is CEO and Head of Quality at Bredex GmbH. In these roles, she supports colleagues, customers and teams on their journey to better quality - be it in products, in processes or in their communication. In previous roles, she was responsible for enabling teams and growing quality. Now she enables others to do that work, and works on nurturing a system in the company where everyone can flourish. Alex views the world through the curious eyes of a tester and loves learning new things. She shares her knowledge and experience in workshops, coaching sessions and as a speaker or keynote speaker at conferences.