BDD Kickstart, London

A world-class BDD training for devs, testers, and the business.

BDD Kickstart is a two-day training in the fundamentals of Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) and Cucumber. Thousands of agile teams are benefiting from clearer understanding and greater collaboration between business and IT that BDD brings.

By the end of this course you will acquire the fundamental technical and non-technical skills required to confidently practise BDD.

This course is based on proven and practical techniques, which we've taught to hundreds of ambitious teams around the world.

Both days are led by Ryan Marsh. Ryan is an accomplished trainer, coach and has helped some of America’s best known companies transition to BDD techniques and tools.

After this course, we will run our annual BDD and Cucumber conference, CukenFest London. Tickets for that event can be also be bought below.

Day 1 - BDD Fundamentals

The first day is applicable for any member of a modern software delivery team. (BAs, product owners, domain experts, UX designers, developers, testers, and any other important stakeholders).

BDD Fundamentals will give a thorough introduction to BDD, which is the process that Cucumber supports. There is no automation on this days; the focus is on analysis and collaboration techniques.

We’ll teach you Example Mapping - a powerful technique we have developed to help business, IT and QA break requirements down into concrete examples. This exposes misunderstandings early and will help you write better executable specifications and automated tests later.

Learning outcomes

• The fundamental principles and practices of BDD

• The importance of Rules and Examples

• Translating examples into Gherkin - Cucumber’s format for executable specifications

• Conversation patterns for discovering edge cases

• The importance of a ubiquitous language for problems and solutions

• Using Example Mapping and Discovery Workshops to achieve a shared understanding

• Roles and responsibilities on a BDD team

Delegates will benefit from

• Increased confidence, due to extensive practical exercises

• Deeper understanding, through guided discussions

• Smoother collaboration, by building an understanding of how BDD practices can best be incorporated into their own development process

• Improved productivity, from experiencing and overcoming common obstacles before returning to the workplace

Day 2 - BDD with Cucumber

This day is a solid introduction to test-driven development (TDD) with Cucumber. You will learn to write executable specifications with Gherkin - Cucumber’s plain-text format for automated tests. You will also learn how to use Cucumber to drive the development of a system, and see the design of the system gradually emerge. You’ll end up with a system that does the right thing, and is easy to test.

This day is designed for developers and testers, non-technical people are welcome, but they may find things start to get beyond their comfort zone.

Learning outcomes

• Installing Cucumber and setting up your development environment

• The TDD / BDD cycle

• Writing your first scenario

• Writing step definitions

• Using parameters in step definitions

• Techniques to keep your test code clean

• Backgrounds, Tags, Tables, Scenario Outlines and other Gherkin tricks

• Domain modelling by Example

• Costs & benefits of working test-first

Your Trainer

Ryan Marsh is an agile coach, trainer, and hacker who works with enterprise software development teams to help them be their very best. Ryan believes enterprise software development can be fun, rewarding, and move at high speed no matter the industry. He has helped technology teams supercharge their development at some of America’s most well-known companies.

Ryan is a self taught hacker with a varied background in technology. He is also US Army veteran and leverages this unique perspective to help teams reach their full potential.

Training Location and Times

The training location is Huckletree Shoreditch.

Each day will start at 9.30 AM and finish around 5 PM.