Facilitate Discovery Sessions with Quality at the Core
Quality isn’t improved in isolation. Structured, collaborative discussions are essential for aligning teams on expectations, risks, and shared ownership. Discovery sessions provide the foundation for a Quality Engineering Strategy that remains relevant, context-aware, and continuously evolving.
Informing the Quality Engineering Strategy
The first four steps in the Quality Engineering Adoption Framework shape a targeted and appropriate strategy, ensuring we are not starting from the ground up. Instead, we build upon existing insights to define the rules of engagement and align quality initiatives with business needs. Discovery sessions play a crucial role in identifying key focus areas and priorities.
Facilitating Effective Discovery Sessions
To ensure a well-informed strategy, teams should engage in structured discussions such as:
- RiskStorming & Impact Mapping Workshops – Prioritising risks, understanding dependencies, and mapping mitigation strategies based on business impact. Useful resources for which can be found here: https://riskstormingonline.com/ & https://www.impactmapping.org/
- Three Hats Sessions – Ensuring business, development, and quality perspectives align.
- One-Page Test Plans – Establish a lightweight, transparent testing approach that scales. Useful reference can be found here: https://www.ministryoftesting.com/articles/the-one-page-test-plan
- Whole Team Testing Practice – Defining what quality looks like within the team and embedding quality thinking throughout the development lifecycle. Useful resources for which can be found here: https://agiletestingfellow.com/training
Sustaining Quality Conversations
A single workshop is not enough. Discovery sessions should be embedded within planning cycles, ensuring continuous adaptation to new challenges. To prevent single points of failure, organisations should cultivate champions, whether through communities of practice, domain ownership, or distributed expertise.
Outputs Informing the Strategy
By the end of this stage, teams should have:
- Key Inputs for the Quality Engineering Strategy – Insights and themes that shape a central, evolving strategy.
- Risk & Quality Alignment Maps – Documented insights from RiskStorming, Impact Mapping, and Three Hats sessions.
- Living Strategy Framework – A dynamic, evolving approach that adapts to shifting business needs.
- Governance & Continuity Plans – Ensuring quality ownership remains distributed and resilient.
Why This Matters
Discovery sessions are the gateway to an effective, adaptable Quality Engineering Strategy. They ensure that quality is not an afterthought but a fundamental part of software delivery. Regular, iterative reviews keep the strategy relevant, context-aware, and valuable, empowering teams to break the cookie-cutter approach and build quality into everything they do.
Next Steps
A dedicated post (“5*”) will explore the structure and governance of a Quality Engineering Strategy in greater detail, outlining how teams can sustain, evolve, and operationalise it effectively: Structuring a Sustainable Quality Engineering Strategy
