ISTQB® Certified Tester Advanced Level Agile Test Leadership at Scale v1.0 (MVP) has been released

Agile Test Leadership at Scale (ATLaS) v1.0 MVP Press Release – President’s foreword

Could ISTQB® design a certification product differently?

Could an agile approach be applied to writing a syllabus for a certification in agile transformation at scale?

Would an incremental delivery approach to creating a professional certification be welcomed by the quality and testing market?

The questions and doubts were many, but the team working on developing ISTQB® ATLaS took the project in their stride, to say the least! There were challenges, hesitations, failures, and lessons learned...a journey (almost) like any other in the world of agility.

Three increments later, it's time for the first minimum viable product (MVP) to be officially released.

I am proud, as president of the ISTQB®, to offer you the ATLaS certification, a product of undeniable quality which I would recommend to both organizations and professionals.

Many thanks to Mette Bruhn-Pedersen and the ATLaS core team and their contributors.

Let the journey begin ...

Agile Test Leadership at Scale (ATLaS) v1.0 MVP Press Release

ISTQB® releases Certified Tester Advanced Level Agile Test Leadership at Scale v1.0 (CTAL-ATLaS).

After publishing three increments in 2021 in a beta version, ISTQB® has now released the official ATLaS certification v1.0. This is the first ISTQB® certification that focuses on quality and testing challenges in a scaled agile organization. More and more organizations see the need to fundamentally change the way they operate to stay relevant and competitive in our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world. The Covid-19 pandemic showed how quickly everything we know can be turned upside down and if companies and organizations cannot adapt quickly, they may face dire consequences. Business agility is key for organizations to stay relevant when sudden changes happen. It is not enough that the software development team becomes more agile. The entire organization needs to change, including quality and testing, to increase business agility.

The ATLaS certification provides a new approach to test management and quality assistance and supports business agility at an organizational level. The objective is to foster a value-driven quality mindset and culture.

Our product owner for ATLaS, Mette Bruhn-Pedersen, explains why she is convinced that ISTQB® ATLaS is relevant: ”There is a need to re-think the why, what, and how of test organizations in many companies. The ability to ”scale” quality and testing is key in agile organizations. By tapping into the agile transformation programs test managers and test leaders can play an important role as change agents who promote both an agile mindset and a quality culture. I hope ATLaS can inspire test managers, heads of test departments, leaders of test competency centers, and other agile practitioners to transform the way they approach testing and quality.

On behalf of ISTQB®, I am also excited about the new agile approach we have used to develop this certification. During the last year, we have had many people reach out and volunteer to participate in pilots or contribute directly to the development of the certification. It is really great to see that people want to contribute and share their experiences for the benefit of others. We have of course used an agile approach and framework for our own product development; we recognize that we can continue to improve. I am very proud of all our failures and achievements and I hope we will get feedback on ATLaS v1.0 from test and agile practitioners from all over the world. We are already working on the next version where we plan to cover topics like how to adapt your organizational test strategy to an agile at scale environment.”

Read more about the contents of ATLaS here.