Fran has 30 years’ experience in the software industry having worked in development, test, management and now quality consulting. Fran specialises in pragmatic approaches to lean/agile, quality/testing, and associated practices. For the last 10 years, a key element of his work has been providing agile/lean coaching, training and advisory support to organisations transitioning to agile/Scrum with a particular emphasis on agile testing. He is co-organiser of Agile Tour Ireland and a co-founder of the Irish SIG in Software Testing - SoftTest. His tutorial, ‘Metamorphosis – Moving to Agile and Staying Agile’, was voted best tutorial at EuroSTAR 2016 in Stockholm.

The intent of Scrum is to deliver potentially releasable software every Sprint. However, in practice I continue to see many implementations of Scrum that struggle to deliver value early and often. Inappropriate interpretation and implementation of the roles, events and artifacts of Scrum often undermine the ability to utilise effective testing practices and deliver the required level of quality.

This session highlights the most common pitfalls observed in practice using Scrum that affect quality and test. It provides insights into why they occur, warning signs to look out for and then suggests how they can be addressed.