T-Shape

Description

The term "T-Shape" visually describes the competences expected on a T-Shape profile [van Veenendaal 2020] :

• The vertical bar of the T represents the expertise of the person who has a level of competence that allows him or her to get to the bottom of the issue
• The horizontal bar of the T represents all the other competences that a team needs to function, which is expressed by the width of this bar; at the same time, this bar also indicates that all these other competences have a low level.

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Thus, in a team with T-Shapes, each member is capable of performing simple tasks. This diversity of skills allows each team member to collaborate fully on each activity, as long as it remains simple.

In a Scrum team, the plurality of skills is very important in order to facilitate the collaborative value ("[...] before contractual negotiation") of the agile manifesto [Beck 2001]. This diversity is even more critical when it comes to a DevOps team where Ops issues are adopted by Devs [Beyer 2016].

Finally, it should be noted that this mindset grows with the increasing maturity of the team and encourages both the decentralisation of leadership and the confidence that the organisation can have in such a team as it becomes able to organise itself around value.

Application to test maturity

Some teams do not have professional testers and in a "3 Amigos" workshop, the T-Shape mindset ensures at least the endorsement of the tester role.

In addition, it also allows the team to :

• take responsibility for the quality of the product [Moustier 2019-1] because the writing of tests and their execution remains possible, even without a tester
• to facilitate the transparency that is particularly sought after with Scrum [Schwaber 2020].
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Agilitest's position on this practice

Agilitest offers a test automation platform in #nocode [Forsyth 2021], which requires very few technical skills and thus allows for a very rapid learning curve.

The scripts are purposely loop-free to avoid algorithmic errors and endless loops. Furthermore, the tool encapsulates all the technological difficulties by deploying all the required components to run tests on all technologies, including mobility.

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To discover the whole set of practices, click here.

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