Fear-based testing and how it leads to anxiety, exhaustion, overwork, poor quality, lack of trust, bad assumptions, and how to avoid this

As of when writing this post in the first days of April 2026, the vibe coding community is buzzing about "Spec-Driven Development." Write a perfect specification, let the AI agents loose, sit back, and watch the magic happen. Revolutionary, right? For me, it feels like a déjà vu from the 2000s. Back then, we called it Waterfall or V-Model. The idea was the same: define everything upfront, hand it over to the people who build it, and collect your finished product at the end.

I was listening to the A/B Testing podcast the other day, episode 229, where Alan Page had my friend Chris Armstrong on as a guest. At one point they were talking about Verification and Validation. Two concepts that have been around forever. Two simple questions, really. "Are we building the thing right?" That's verification. "Are we building the right thing?" That's validation.

When it takes a team two weeks to add a button, the problem isn't the button. And the solution isn't AI. I've been there. Literally. A simple button on a screen. Two calendar weeks. And if you're on the outside looking in, you think: what are these people doing all day? Are they incompetent? Lazy? You see a button. You think it's a button problem.

ThoughtWorks just dropped Volume 34 of their Tech Radar, and it reads less like a technology map and more like a warning letter. Several signals on the same screen, all pointing the same way. If you've been following my posts, none of them will surprise you. What's new is that one of the most respected consultancies in our industry is now saying it out loud.

Who, if anyone, will challenge Aryna? Will the Alcaraz-Sinner machine make it nine in a row? What's Craig Tiley up to this year? We're dusting off the cobwebs to bring you our Australian Open preview,...

Fast Facts for Tennis Nerds

YouTube video by Agile Testing Fellow

Friends of Good Software (FroGS) - Monday 2 December 2024 3pm CET (open space)

Bethany Andres-Beck is a candidate for Congress running to represent Massachusetts' 6th District.

Almost there … Elena Rybakina booked her spot in the WTA Finals and dipped immediately (extremely injured). Basel saw three of its four quarterfinals end with a retirement. Naturally, the ATP decided ...

Fiona Charles is an absolute legend in the software testing world and I had the honor of sitting down with her to discuss tech ethics, the human side of technology, her adventures with Jerry Weinberg,...

Available for purchase online.    Holistic testing is a comprehensive term to encompass testing throughout the development cycle from the start of an idea, through to customer interaction with a deliv...

A book explaining how to look at nature's edges and boundaries to learn how to identify and grow new relationships and improve organizations

Steve Fenton, Head of DevRel & Principal DevEx Researcher at Octopus, shares findings from Octopus’ Platform Engineering Pulse research. He explains why making security and operational policies mandatory often drives healthier platform adoption, how GitOps and Argo are shaping deployments, and which

The first State of AI-Assisted Software Development report has arrived and it's from the same team that brought us a decade of DevOps research. The new report is based on almost 5,000 responses from technology professionals worldwide and over 100...

Welcome to the Open Security Conference (osco), the people-centred international gathering for everyone interested in cybersecurity. Join us 2-5 October 2025 in Rückersbach, Germany.

Welcome to the Open Security Conference (osco), the people-centred international gathering for everyone interested in cybersecurity. Join us 2-5 October 2025 in Rückersbach, Germany.

DORA is a long running research program that seeks to understand the capabilities that drive software delivery and operations performance. DORA helps teams apply those capabilities, leading to better ...

The evolution of our Agile Testing Days tutorial to apply the holistic testing model and succeed with continuous delivery