Becoming an Agile People Manager - Alex Schladebeck

Talk Description

"The world doesn’t like testers. As a tester, I spend time and effort trying to improve the world for testers to live in. Then I also became a manager. Now I have to start over to improve the next space! And my plan of attack is to set an example by being the best manager I can be.

Never one to ignore a challenge, I’ve been exploring what it means to be a good people manager, and especially, to be a good manager in an agile context, where the focus is not on command and control, but on encouraging people to be autonomous and sharing information. In this talk, I want to share stories and my own personal “rules of engagement” – principles to guide me and concrete actions or responses to common situations.

I’ll go into:

• The power and danger of empathy
• The rule of yes or tomorrow
• Rituals for trust
• Being authentic and vulnerable
• Leading by example

I’ll share things that have worked, things that haven’t, and how I reflect on my growth and learnings to keep progressing."

Alex Schladebeck is a passionate tester and a consultant for quality and agility. She is head of quality and a CEO at BREDEX GmbH.

She spends her time communicating with people! A typical week involves working with customers, teaching and coaching testers and developers about quality, being an agile leader, working on strategy and developing her team to fulfil their potential.

Alex is a frequent speaker and keynote speaker at conferences about agility and quality from her experiences in projects and with customers. In 2018 she was awarded the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person award.