Elisabeth Hendrickson will be coming to facilitate our February meeting. Here's her description:

UPDATE: SolutionsIQ are sponsoring pizza for twenty - arriving at 6:30 <<<

"It will essentially be a shorter preview of the Agile2009 demo I proposed at http://agile2009.agilealliance.org/node/641

Here's the blurb:

Agile teams practicing Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) define acceptance tests collaboratively while discussing each story. This practice helps uncover assumptions and confirm that everyone has a shared understanding of what “done” looks like. During implementation, the technical team automates the natural-language Acceptance Tests by writing code to wire them up to the emerging software. In this way, ATDD tests become executable requirements. This session is a demonstration of the full ATDD workflow from initial discussions through final demo, and everything in between."

Elisabeth Hendrickson came to Portland last month to introduce us to Acceptance Test Driven Development at XPDX. She'll be back in town in April to run a three day workshop: Agile Testing Series.

There are still places available -- be quick to get a spot as I expect that this will sell out soon.

What: Agile Testing Series When: April 28 - 30, 2009 Where: McMenamin's Kennedy School, Portland, OR Instructors: Elisabeth Hendrickson and Dale Emery Cost: Before March 29, $499/day. Group discounts also available.

Description: This is a 3 day series of 1-day classes on the essential principles and practices in Agile Testing: - Day 1: Adapting to Agile (also known as the "WordCount Simulation") - Day 2: Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) in Practice - Day 3: Exploratory Testing in an Agile Context

These classes involve lots of exercises, demonstrations, and discussions, and absolutely no slideshows, and no long, boring lectures.

For more information, please see the registration page: http://www.regonline.com/ATS042809

They're also offering this same series of classes in Pleasanton, CA the preceding week if you know anyone in the SF Bay Area who might be interested. See: http://www.regonline.com/ATS042209

For a long time, folks (Rob included) misinterpreted Behavior Driven Development (BDD) as “Test-Driven Development done right,” as Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) with better tools, or as an umbrella term embracing both TDD and ATDD. So, how is BDD really done, and where does TDD fit in, if at all? It turns out that the real problem may lie in trying to pin down rigorous definitions for these terms, and trying to determine when to do which style of testing. Rob coaches teams to be prepared to use the BDD cycle and the TDD cycle when appropriate, and to be willing to move fluidly between these two intertwined cycles on a daily basis. Rob has witnessed significantly improved levels of communication, alignment, quality, and enthusiasm on teams -- and just in mere days, when BDD is embraced as the central activity of the whole team.

You’ll help explore why, when, and how to use both TDD and BDD together to build the most valuable and maintainable software possible.

Rob Myers is principle instructor and coach at Agile for All. He has over 30 years of professional experience with software development teams, and has been training and coaching organizations in Agile engineering practices since 1998. His courses blend fun, practical hands-on labs, "Training From the Back of the Room” learning techniques, and relevant first-person stories from both successful and not-so-successful Agile implementations. His clients have included many start-ups as well as Fortune 100 multinationals. Rob is currently working on his first technical book, Essential Test-Driven Development.