Do you often feel you are the last team in your organization to know about features before they reach customers or that when features are finally ready for testing, it’s too late to produce a high-quality product? Have you felt a divide between your testing team and other engineering or product teams within your organization? In this talk, Ben will review how in his organization he has built a bridge between product, engineering, stakeholders, and our testing team, forming a productive and cooperative environment. We will walk through how my testing team has built that relationship over time. He will review why testing teams may find themselves isolated in silos in their organization. He will review the impact this has on the organization. Finally, he will look into strategies such as building communication, empathy, early team-building exercises across teams, and testing as a whole team approach to help dig out of the silo and create open communication channels shared across your org. So join and learn how to create a more collaborative and productive environment in your organization.

Takeaways from the talk:

• What silos are and how they may impact an organization, including a team’s creativity, communication, and morale.
• If silos are present in your organization
• What techniques you can use to break down silos and how to apply them
• The importance of communication and collaboration within teams
• The benefits of breaking down silos such as creativity, innovation, and efficiency