ISTQB® has released the 1st increment of the Advanced Level (CTAL) Agile Test Leadership at Scale (ATLaS) version 0.3. This is the first of the six increments planned in the CTAL-ATLaS certification. CTAL-ATLaS is a “Agile” module within the ISTQB® Certified Tester Scheme and an in-demand next step after the ISTQB® Certified Tester Foundation Level (CTFL) and ISTQB® Certified Tester Foundation Level Agile Tester (CTFL-AT).

The release consists of the first chapter (Quality Assistance) of the ISTQB® Advanced Level Agile Test Leadership at Scale syllabus (v0.3), body of knowledge (v0.3) and sample exam questions and answers (v0.3).

Because of the incremental model the Release Notes will not be available until the very end of development of the complete ATLaS product.

This is the first time that ISTQB® has developed and released a certification  incrementally. According to Agile principles, iterations ensure better quality through early feedback and continuous improvement.

When will the complete CTAL-ATLaS certification be ready?

We are planning to have it available by Q4 2022 (current estimation).

More information can be found in the CTAL-ATLaS FAQ section.

Product Owner of the CTAL-ATLaS v0.3 Mette Bruhn-Pedersen, said:

“With the increasing demand for business agility there is an even greater need for accelerated quality. This is not achievable if all responsibility for quality remains in the individual teams or specific roles, such as testers. Therefore, test management becomes quality management and organizations need to adopt quality assistance across the organization as well as within delivery teams. This changes the role of quality assurance and test professionals to be closer to agile test leadership and to fostering a quality culture and mindset.

ISTQB^® will offer a new certification at Advanced Level to help people build the competencies needed to effectively contribute to such demanding business environments. The certification is called Agile Test Leadership at Scale (ATLaS) and the first increment is now available for download on ISTQB^®’s website.

In the first chapter you will learn the need to foster a value-driven quality mindset and culture. The certification looks at what Quality Assistance is and the skills that you need. It supports understanding quality assistance as an approach to quality management. It provides examples for the coaching, facilitation, training and change management skills required for quality assistance. Plus uses given quality related problems to illustrate how quality assistance uses a combination of the four important skills.

Using Quality Assistance with your organization brings value by:

• Providing support in changing the mindset and culture to one that scales business agility
• Enhancing everyone’s responsibility for quality
• Giving test leaders and people in other leadership roles new skills to accelerate quality

ISTQB^® will be releasing each increment as it is developed to engage the community; so training providers can start to build courseware and exam providers can build exams. We also wanted to gain early feedback directly from our customers to help us tailor this certification to market demands. This is a new way of releasing for ISTQB^®, using an iterative method building assets up until the final full launch when all materials, including exams will be ready. You will also see a new look syllabus format which focuses on the learning you will gain, supported by a Body of Knowledge giving you rich examples and walking you through each learning objective in detail.

The Agile Test Leadership at Scale qualification is aimed at people who work in an organization that is pursuing agility at scale, or business agility, and who already have a basic understanding of agile and agile testing. The ISTQB^® Foundation Level certificate and Foundation Level Agile Tester certificate are prerequisites for taking the Advanced level Agile Test Leadership at Scale certification exam.”

ISTQB® President Olivier Denoo added:

“The ISTQB® is proud to release the first chapter of our new Advanced Level certification, Agile Test Leadership at Scale.

While Agile methods are spreading fast and becoming the new norm in software development and testing, the time has come to scale up and focus on a new dimension: Agility at Scale.

More than just isolated projects, organizations are facing challenges to align Agility across their whole business. Many different approaches have already been adopted by industry such as SAFe® and Spotify.

Complementing our core Foundation and Agile Tester certifications, the Advanced Level Agile Test Leadership at Scale qualification is approach-and-methods-agnostic. It is aimed at people who work in an organization which is pursuing agility at scale or business agility. In this first chapter you will learn the need to foster a value-driven quality mindset and culture.

It is also important to notice that for the first time, an ISTQB® certification is being released in several parts. Not only is this a great opportunity for our dedicated team to “walk the talk”, but also a new approach to better streamline the efforts within our ecosystem. By publishing the certification in increments member boards, training providers and exam providers have the opportunity to iteratively localize materials, design courseware, and create exam questions so everyone is ready when the full certification is launched.

I hope that you will immediately start using these materials as part of the career development programs in your organizations to accelerate your business agility transformations.

I wish you all a happy reading. Stay tuned and take care…”

Chair of ISTQB® Marketing Working Group Sebastian Małyska, noted:

“It’s just a first step towards an awesome journey. Very few organizations, in fact only those that are brave ones, are designing a new product or value driven by the experimental process. This is one of the basic concepts of Agile that is commonly forgotten. Thus, ISTQB^® would like to remind the community that combining two things like innovation not only at product but on the process level and strong knowledgeable and supporting team are the critical ingredients of business success.”

Thank you to all who have supported the update including Michael Pilaeten (Working Group Chair); Mette Bruhn-Pedersen (Product Owner); Jean-Luc Cossi, Richard Green, Michael Heller, Leanne Howard, Ebbe Munk, Francisca Cano Ortiz, Samuel Ouko, Tal Pe’er, Murian Song, Marcelo Chanez, and Loyde Mitchell (Authors) and many other from Exam & Marketing Work Groups.

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