Fastest-growing global community
Speaker's Bio & Key takeaways
"Would heu-risk it? - 20 years of learning in 40 min"
Lena Pejgan Wiberg
Bio:
Constant learning seems to be at my core. I believe continuous improvement is something we should all strive for by keeping up to date and always challenge ourselves, our assumptions and the way things are done.
As a manager, I strive to see the potential in every individual. Being available and present, delivers a clear message and help people grow. That's how I want to work.
I see myself as someone who removes obstacles rather than a control function. A service provider, not a gatekeeper.
To me, it is important to keep up to date with the operational, technical side and I am happiest when I get to use all my skills and move things forward.
As a person, I am usually described as a fast learner who is passionate, empathic and has an ability to see context and how things fit together.
I like to give back to the communities by speaking, facilitating workshops, mentoring or collaborate with schools.
Synopsis:
The experiences and lessons learned from working with developing software since 1999 resulted in the Would heu-risk it card deck, 30+ blog posts, some articles and a book draft in 2020.
They center around risk analysis, heuristics, patterns/anti-patterns and can be grouped into three distinct categories: Traps I see testers fall into, Tools I see testers use as super-powers and weapons testers could use to focus their work (also known as common weak-spots in building software).
This talk will be a compilation of my main learnings from 20+ years of building software, seeing the complexity from a developer, a tester, a test lead and a manager perspective.
We will use the 30 cards as a focal point to try and cram my most important learnings into 40 minutes.
Takeaways:
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Testing heuristics as super-powers
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The importance of bug advocacy
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Up-skilling yourself
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Involving yourself in the entire process to shift left, right, up and down
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Different perspectives to software quality
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And a dash of ethics
"Emotional Intelligence for Testers"
Astrid Winkler
Bio:
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Astrid is currently working as a Senior Project Manager with Swiss marketing firm named Face AG and is primarily responsible for end-to-end success of multiple campaigns and customer engagements under her umbrella.
She is a skilled project manager with excellent people skills and is also proficient in stakeholder management. Her typical day at work involves talking to her stakeholders, understanding their needs, engaging with third parties, negotiating contracts, creating a project plan, and work with her wonderful team to execute it for success.
Astrid's colleagues often describe her as passionate, inspiring, reliable, open-minded, creative, responsible, careful, helpful, and fun to work with personality.
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Synopsis:
As human beings, we often deal with difficult situations that most likely include fellow humans. When situations or people start to trigger us it becomes critical to reflect and decide about your reactions within seconds. And sometimes situations warrant us to step back, reflect and do the right thing after thinking through the situation. In scenarios like these, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a great tool, to effectively deal with stressful situations, misunderstandings or conflicts, and in fact, if applied skillfully EI can help one steer things towards success.
As a newbie in the testing industry, I developed my understanding based on the different talks I attended. I realized how much human-centric and human-dependent technology is. I learned how testers work and what they deal with. EI can help you become the best version of yourself and help you perform better whether you are a team leader or not, EI can help you become the best version of yourself and help you perform better.
In this talk, participants will learn;
Why is testing an emotional activity and how can a tester use Emotional Intelligence? How can Emotional Intelligence change their perspective as a leader? How to use EI in their personal and business life. It will help participants understand and react in the best possible way based on the situation/person they are dealing with including their own needs.
"CSI Testing - investigate like a pro"
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Adam Matlacz & Elżbieta Sikora
Bio:
Adam has spent his whole professional life in the IT in different roles - tester, consultant, pre-sales engineer, business analyst, scrum master and Agile Coach. Now he works as a full-time Senior Project Leader at Demant. Outside the office, he passionately shares his experience with the community by giving talks and organizing workshops on software testing, Leadership and Agile processes.
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Elżbieta joined the IT world a few years ago but quickly found out that she has a knack for testing. Her passion is finding out new – better – ways of working. She constantly works on developing her skills, looking for inspiration to other domains. On her path of discovery, she stepped upon the idea of CSI testing – which she developed into a full-blown testing framework. Elżbieta is an example of what happens if a determined person sets an ambitious goal and decides to follow her passion.
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Synopsis:
Description: Every software project is a crime scene for a tester. There are bugs. Lots of them. Lurking in the code. Waiting to be released... to crash software at the most unexpected moment. But no worries - your CSI team is here to help!
After trying out many techniques supporting exploratory testing, Ela came up with an idea for a complete framework that helps turn off the autopilot and become true-born QA detective. Our work is exactly like the work of a private eye. One time we lack clues and must use different tools to gather evidence; another time in contrary – we are overwhelmed with the information and have to narrow the scope of the investigation to things that matter.
CSI Testing principles brings out the essence of what testing is. You will learn what features make a good tester; what skills are worth developing to enhance your work. Finally, we will present a complete algorithm for testing your software like CSI! You can use CSI Testing to organize exploratory session; investigate customer problem that you can't reproduce; test a task in a sprint or as a matter of fact - do any quality-related task - the sky is the limit.
During our talk, we will present the theory and practise behind CSI Testing framework - together with a case study that will help understand the material better. "I don't trust people, they tend to lie. Evidence never lies." - Gil Grissom
Key Takeaways: -
Break the mould! Think outside of the box and look for inspiration for testing techniques everywhere. - Learn and use in your daily work the CSI principles to enhance your work. - Implement CSI Testing algorithm to deal with the most difficult cases
"Hands off Exploratory Testing - How to Manage Test at Scale"
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
Bio:
Maaret Pyhäjärvi is an exploratory tester extraordinaire with a day-job at Vaisala as Principal Test Engineer. She is an empirical technologist, a tester and a (polyglot) programmer, a catalyst for improvement, a speaker and an author, and a community facilitator. She has been awarded the two prestigious global testing awards, Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person 2016 (MIATPP) and EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award (2020), and selected as Top-100 Most Influential in ICT in Finland 2019&2020. She’s spoken at events in 25 countries delivering over 400 sessions. With 25 years of exploratory testing under her belt, she crafts her work role into a mix of hands-on testing and programming and leading and enabling others. She leads TechVoices enabling new speakers, blogs at https://visible-quality.blogspot.fi and is the author of three books: Ensemble Programming Guidebook, Exploratory Testing and Strong-Style Pair Programming.
Synopsis:
Agency - the capacity of individuals to act independently and make their own free choices - is at the heart of learning. Learning is core to Exploratory Testing, to optimize the value of testing we do. However, exploratory testing in projects is rarely a single person job but we need to share testing work across multiple people in teams and even multiple teams in a system of systems. We need to ensure we pay attention to both testing of today and testing of the future. How do we manage testing to maintain agency while ensuring coverage?
In this talk, we approach managing exploratory testing at scale from my most recent project experience. In a system of systems where five teams each release their subsystems co-dependently building independence for continuous releases intertwined with six conceptual subsystems with external owners, what does managing testing to enable exploratory testing look like?
This is not a story about managing testing based on sessions. This is a story of working with product owners to identify gaps and assign responsibilities, working with teams to make the right skills available for different kinds of testing tasks across roles, identifying testing roadblocks with data deep dives and creating space where test design and test execution always come together while navigating corporate documentation requirements.
Hands off when people explore. Hands on when you explore to be capable of coordinating coverage.
"How To Navigate A Career in QA"
Nicola Martin
Bio:
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Nicola is currently working in the AI and Data Science field as Head of Quality at Adarga.
Nicola has many years of experience focusing on quality for high profile projects across different industries. She specialises in working with companies to build high-performance teams, create strategies, improve processes, and create high-quality deliverables for customers.
Nicola is passionate about increasing diversity and inclusion in software engineering. She mentors and coaches professionals wanting to change careers and others wishing to develop their careers. She is a mentor for the British Computer Society (BCS), the Association for Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK) and is also a committee team member for the BCS Special Interest Group in Software Testing (SIGiST) and BCSWomen.
Synopsis:
If you are a graduate or trying to get into a your first tech role and especially QA, it can be really daunting when you don't know where to start. It is equally difficult when you want to change your current career for one in QA.
If you are new to tech or just wondering what to do next, then this talk will help you to navigate a career in
QA.
Key Takeaways:
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How to get into a QA role.
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Dispelling some of the myths about careers in QA.
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Career paths you can take once you are in.
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What to do once you're on the right path.
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Skills you will need.
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How you can benefit your career by finding a good mentor
"Two Quality Frameworks from Deming That Help Testers"
Mike Harris
Bio:
Mike has been working in testing for 20 years and is currently the tester for Geckoboard. He has been a member of a test team, a Solo Tester and a Test Lead. He has also worked as a part of waterfall, lean and agile teams. Mike has a B.Sc.(HONS) from Middlesex University and is an Associate of the University of Hertfordshire. He has set up and led a Testing Community of Practice and been part of a successful agile transition. He is also Co-Programme Chair of the British Computer Society’s Specialist Interest Group in Software Testing. In his spare time he coaches his daughters cricket team Follow Mike on Twitter: @TestAndAnalysis
​Synopsis:
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Deming has been described as the "grandfather of quality". He is known in lean and agile professional circles but is not well known by testers. I am a Tester and feel passionately that testers would benefit from having an understanding of Demings work. I have spoken at several lean\agile events, such as Scrum User groups, about Deming's work on quality and I have adapted my talk to focus on aspects of Demings work that will be of particular interest to testers. Deming is primarily known for his work in Japan, where he advocated quality as a business philosophy. His work underpins many aspects of lean and agile, and our understanding of quality. As an introduction, I will give short descriptions of agile and lean, and describe Demings work. I will then talk through the Deming Cycle and Demings 14 Points for Management. These two frameworks are designed to improve quality and I will talk about how, as testers, we can use them to help us in our work.
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Here are the key takeaways:
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Attendees will gain: An understanding of the Deming Cycle and how it helps testers an understanding of Demings 14 Points for Management and how it helps testers a knowledge of the "grandfather of quality" W. Edwards Deming a better understanding of quality a better understanding of lean and agile.
'Shift-left with early Model-Based Testing' supported by TestCompass
Silvio Cacace
Bio:
Silvio Cacace, Test Consultant with more than 26 years of experience. Founder and CEO of TestCompass, the early Model Based Testing tool (eMBT) in the cloud.
​Synopsis:
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Nowadays we as testers put a lot of effort into automating the test execution. But this does require a structured test preparation and test case design. Early Model-Based Testing (eMBT) is a software testing approach that can help you optimize and speed up the test case design phase. And more important, eMBT promotes and stimulates communication between all stakeholders with the aim of getting a shared understanding of the requirements.
Takeaways:
Ealy Model-Based Testing
Shallow learning curve
Easy to use
Early based
Shif-left testing
TestCompass Readable test model
Automatically generation of logical & physical test cases
Testing earlier, smarter & faster
Speed up your shift-left testing with TestCompass
Communication
The automated test design phase
"Changing the definition of usability testing"
Melissa Fisher
Bio:
Melissa is a Test Team Lead @ Sage
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Abstract:
If you google, what is usability testing, then the most common answer is that we test our products on users to find out about how usable our product is. However, what about if we, as team members, test how usable our product is before users get it or alongside user feedback?
My talk is going to redefine the definition of usability testing by shifting it left and creating team accountability to create a usable product. I’ll teach you eight themes of usability testing to help your team get ahead of the game and bake usability in from the start. Along the way I will give you tips and tricks to help your team succeed.
In this talk, you will learn:
* What usability testing is.
* Eight themes of usability.
* Tips & tricks to help you with your usability testing.
* How teams need to be accountable for creating a usable product.
"Automation Addiction"
Huib Schoots
Paul Holland
Huib Bio:
Making better people and software quality to accelerate by:
Connecting - Innovating - Facilitating - Coaching - Enabling - Teaching
I have national and international experience in the field of software development. I am an expert in the field of software quality and testing and I have in-depth knowledge of and experience with agile working methods, coaching, project and test management and change processes. I am one of the five Rapid Software Testing trainers in the world and I am a welcome guest at conferences as an experienced presenter, workshop facilitator and trainer.
Paul Bio:
I help companies transform their software testing to be more efficient and effective at finding important bugs quickly. I have found that supplementing a robust automation suite with actual testing performed by actual people (testers) is substantially better at finding bugs that matter to the customers when the testers are properly trained.
I am a Software Testing consultant and teacher. I am one of four instructors worldwide for the Rapid Software Testing course. Visit http://www.satisfice.com/info_rst.shtml for more information.
I specialize in adapting testing methodologies to be more effective, efficient, and reducing waste. Finding ways to document only that which needs to be documented. Modifying reporting of test activities to provide actionable information to stakeholders and reduce/eliminate potentially harmful metrics (like pass/fail rates and % of Test Cases executed, etc.) and instead generate useful reports (listing issues, coverage, amount of effort per feature area, etc.).
​Synopsis:
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We need tools to do our work. Robots are getting more and more populair to take over dull and repetitive work. Artificial intelligence will help us tremendously to analyze data to help us get better information about our systems and customers. Oh and all these things also will speed up testing right?
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The essence of software development is that during development, we learn about what we need, what the customer really wants and how the product we are building actually works. This is research and development, learning along the way, and needing feedback to get it right. The faster we get feedback the faster we can go. Automation comes with a tasty and digestible story: replace messy, complex humanity with reliable, fast, efficient robots! And this is where it becomes risky! Robots cannot replace human thinking, creativity or learning when there is no data to learn from. Tools can aid that learning and thinking, but cannot replace it.
Are we becoming grumpy old guys? Our fixation on “test automation” (and now on “AI”) is causing us to lose connection with the human, social purposes of software development and testing. Tools are cool! We should use them. We should use them a lot to help us develop an understanding of our products. Tools can help us to be powerful. But what we are seeing often looks like elaborate attempts to avoid making contact with the software, our clients, our customers, and our mission.
In this thought provoking and entertaining talk Paul and Huib will share about their experiences with automation in several organisations. The solutions to these problems are not easy. This talk will give the audience some practical tips and tricks to help our customers be more efficient.
Key learnings:
How to solve problems with automation addiction in your company - A healthy perspective on tools and automation in your projects - Examples of and experiences with successful and unsuccessful automation - Robots cannot replace human thinking, creativity or learning when there is no data to analyse. - Tools can aid that learning and thinking, but cannot replace it.
'Great Expectations – Simple, automated data validation'
Ryan Howard
Bio:
- Experienced Software Tester with a passion for Quality. Supporting businesses to streamline their testing, remove bottlenecks and build a robust effective testing approach which suits their business, increases quality and provides a less risky and faster route to market.
​Synopsis:
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So, we’ve all heard that ‘Data is the new gold’ but do we spend enough time testing it? Even if we do have plans to test it, how do we do it? There are thousands of tutorials online for running automated UI tests or setting up API tests but comparatively little on testing databases.
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In this session, we’ll look at how we can use Great Expectations, an open source Python package to test database structures and data easily with little code. Great Expectations utilises Jupyter Notebook to provide a simple framework for writing ‘expectations’ against a number of the most widely used databases including Postgres, MySQL and Microsoft SQL server.
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Let’s validate some data.
"Let's shift testing left and right!"
Parveen Khan
Bio:
Parveen is a senior quality assurance consultant. Being a quality advocate she believes delivering high quality products is everyone's responsibility. She loves collaborating with teams and optimizing processes, tools and methodologies to enable the creation of high quality products. She is also an international speaker sharing her stories and experiences in testing to inspire other people around the globe. In her spare time, she plays the role of wonder woman for her two lovely kids. You can connect with her on twitter - @Parveen_Khan10 and read her stories at https://www.parveenkhans.com/
Abstract:
In the current era, organizations are building applications with more complex architectures such as - blockchain, distributed systems, and microservices. The job of maintaining these systems and ensuring it is working as expected has become a challenging task. Gone are the days where testers have to rely on the UI’s to validate an application. Now it is all about what happens underneath the hood and how far you shift testing. I worked on a team where we followed DevOps and started testing as early as possible by shifting left. But that wasn’t enough in terms of the quality of the product or keeping our users happy. That’s where we changed our process and started taking smaller steps into shifting right. Join this session, where I discuss my journey with shift left and shift right approach. I will share how using this approach has been helpful to our team. Attendees who attend my session will learn tips, tricks and tools to adopt this approach.
'Switching Careers in QA: Transition from Manual to Automation Testing!'
Aparna A G
Bio:
- Experienced Solutions Consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and services industry. Skilled in Test Automation, Software Development, Java, NodeJs, Requirements Analysis, PL/SQL, and BDD tools such as Jbehave, Cucumber, etc. Strong consulting professional in Test Automation and BDD with a Master's degree focused in Software Engineering from BITS Pilani.
Synopsis:
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Switching a career is never easy. It does not happen overnight. It involves a lot of planning and preparation.
Are you looking for a transition from manual to automation testing?
Or do you know someone who is struggling to find a way how to switch?
Well, then this talk is for you.
In this talk, we will discuss about:
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Current trends of testing
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Why is automation important?
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Commitments and considerations when switching the career.
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How to prepare yourself to switch to your dream role!
Why should we adopt "Continuous Testing"?
Giridhar Rajkumar
Bio:
Giridhar has over 11 years of experience in the IT industry. He has worked with multiple customers in the UK, EU, India and Latin America for successful transformations in Test Automation & DevOps. He is an author, speaker and successful Instructor in Test Automation and DevOps concepts. He is passionate about exploring new technologies and is an expert in Agile and DevOps. He is a successful trainer and trained over 5000+ professionals in Test Automation to get well-versed with the concepts and help them in implementing them in real-time. Besides his Testing Profession, he spends his time in Web and Android development. He has innovated several IP tools that revolutionise the way testing works within organisations.
Synopsis:
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Today, organisations across the globe, prefer to deliver their products much faster and bug-free. They follow several SDLC like Agile where the delivery happens in a short period and much faster. When the delivery happens at that pace, the testing assets should also be capable enough to go along that pace. Manual testing and simple automated testing concepts can't help in these scenarios to identify the bugs in much earlier stages. We need to start thinking about advanced testing concepts of implementing the test automation strategies, like Continuous Testing to help to keep up the pace and quality of our STLS. In this talk, Giridhar is going to take you to understand the concepts of real-time implementation of Continuous Testing and how to implement it using modern DevOps tools.
"Opportunities for Testing Professionals in EU Region"
Arpita Swer
Arpita Bio:
Highly ambitious QA Consultant with 12 years of experience and expertise performing diversified roles as, QA Lead, Senior QA, Individual contributor, Business Analyst.
My professional passion is TESTING with QUALITY. For me, Domain does not matter. I believe that Working in new cutting edge technologies and new Domains will give me new learning's and more exposure. Manual Testing | Automation Testing | QA | Leading activities are my key strengths. Very Detail oriented.
Rohit Bio:
I am Senior QA / Test Designing enthusiast with PRINCE2 certification. I have been supporting various tech companies to achieve quality deliverables in Germany, Jamaica, Estonia, US, Poland, Ukraine, UK, France, Oman, Hong Kong for the past 12 years.
Rohit Bahadur
"Getting job abroad is hard%?*"
Sandeep Khaira
Sandeep Bio:
I help & coach non-EU / international professionals to bring forward their passion, enthusiasm, skills, experiences, accomplishments & motivation to connect, & relate better with EU employers through my Career coaching, CVs, Cover Letters, LinkedIn Master Class & job application strategy, so professionals can put their best foot forward & get more interview calls!
I strongly believe everyone has some skills, its only about noticing those skills, working on them, polishing them & finally presenting them effectively to the right people. You might not carry great job application writing skills (for CV, Cover letter, connecting with network), however, I am definitely sure you carry any of the great skills. That's why I coach people to make stand out job applications, network better, shine during the interviews & get hired even from abroad (using their own amazing skills & expertise).
I helped many great professionals from different backgrounds such as Data Scientists, Software Developers, Test Automation, SAP, Networking & Infrastructure, DevOps & SREs to land a job they wanted from their home country itself!
I am proud to say people got interview calls 10x faster after integrating my job search strategy teachings into their job applications & interviews. I am also honored that I have served professionals from 6 different countries!
My experiences:
1) 6.5 years of Coaching Experience - Helped many professionals to design their international (Germany/EU) career through my career coaching, guidance & LinkedIn Master Class!
2) 14 years of IT Industry Experience - Worked in Tech & Business roles, contributed in success of many clients!