In the agile community, executives tend to get a bad name. They are accused of not understanding agile and the benefits it will bring their companies. But we just need to speak the same language: Look beyond the surface-level reasons for resistance and try to identify the financial grounds. Just follow the money!

For decades brainstorming has been our go-to method for ideation, yet it holds back our success when the environment doesn't encourage everyone to contribute. Instead, try brainwriting—writing ideas on paper and letting teammates iterate on them. It improves not only the quantity of ideas you get, but also the quality.

Tools are a normal part of testing jobs because they can amplify our ability to learn about product quality. It's a good idea to review new tools for automation, performance, or monitoring to see if some solution will help you test better. Before you even look at tools, though, there are two questions you should ask.