Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality Engineering

Everyone Owns Quality? Really? - Gitte Ottosen


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Are Cross-Functional Teams Really Working? Deep Skills vs. Shallow Roles in Agile

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"When we expect that everybody is supposed to do everything, then nobody does anything really good." - Gitte Ottosen

In this episode, I talk with Gitte Ottosen about cross functional teams, quality engineering, and how deep skills fit in agile work. We question the Everyone owns quality mantra. If all own it, who does the hard parts. Gitte calls out mechanical agile and the comb shape myth that makes people wide and shallow. We talk about what Scrum expects from a team and why testers still bring sharp value. AI may take easy tasks, yet we need critical thinking and solid test design to judge its output.

Gitte Ottosen is a test manager and quality coach with a strong focus on a value driven approach to software development. She has 30 years of experience in IT, primarily within test, test management and process improvement, in both traditional and agile contexts. She is focusing on supporting a quality mindset across teams and organizations in Denmark. As a self-confessed test and agile evangelist who preaches the need for a strong quality and value driven focus, Gitte is a strong advocate for a context-driven approach, a role requiring profound professional insight, passion, and persistence—qualities that she holds in abundance. Gitte is a dedicated trainer within the areas of agile and test and is a regular speaker at international conferences.

Highlights:

  • Saying everyone is responsible for quality without a named owner means no one takes ownership, and most agile teams lack the testing competence to carry that responsibility collectively.
  • Broad skill profiles, the so-called comb shape, produce shallow expertise across the board; two or three deep competences per person is the realistic ceiling for genuine excellence.
  • Reviewing AI-generated test output without understanding test design techniques adds no value, because you cannot spot what is wrong or missing if you do not know what the correct output should look like.
  • Testing context determines the tester's contribution: someone without a technical background delivers most value upstream, shaping acceptance criteria and process models, not downstream in the pipeline.
  • ...more
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    Software Testing Unleashed - QA, DevEx & Quality EngineeringBy Richard Seidl | Software Development & Testing Expert