In recent weeks, there has been increased discussion among some in the Agile PMI community who are seeking empirical proof for how and why autonomy and team empowerment actually works. What I find interesting is how difficult it is for Agilists to provide much more than anecdotal evidence supporting this foundational Agile principle.

This discussion interested me because I have reached beyond the Agile community over the last year to learn more about how human performance is influenced by our work environments and our cognitive biases

The latest research from Osterman on the state of test processes and automation revealed what those of us pursuing Agile engineering practices have known for nearly a decade… that the manner in which Test and QA are typically executed in most companies is appalling and worse, dishonors the QA and Test professionals who aspire to add real strategic value to software products and solutions.