Take The Blue Pill Or The Red Pill, You Decide If You Want To Change - Leigh Rathbone

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Leigh Rathbone's profile
Leigh Rathbone

Head of Quality Engineering

Take The Blue Pill Or The Red Pill, You Decide If You Want To Change - Leigh Rathbone image
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Talk Description

The challenges facing testers, test managers, test teams is vast, wide, and deep.... it always has been. Recently though something feels different. With all the tools available to a development team, all the 'best practices', the pennies dropping about quality being built into a coder's work from the offset, the shooting fish in a barrel days are long gone and have been for some time.

So we all have a choice and using the Matrix 'Blue pill do nothing, red pill learn and change' comparison, I relay the journey I have been on. 1998 to 2002 I was constantly swallowing the red pill, on the front foot. Then came the 7 year drought, 7 long years of the blue pill. Complacency, arrogance, lack of self-development all kicked in, and then ....... BOOOOOOM, 3 events changed my life in 2009 that meant I had to take the red pill, I had to change, I had to adopt a mindset of self-learning, self-development.

The message throughout is you own your self-development, not your company. You have to make the decision to take the red pill, and change, and I will hope to show the benefits through my own journey of doing that.

Takeaways:

  • You own your self-development, no one else. You will leave with this being drilled into you
  • You need to prepare for the future of testing and to do that, you have to change your mindset right now. If your CEO came and asked 'How would you test XYZ', would you know right now?
  • You work in an IT driven world, which is forever changing, so why aren't you training your brain to learn. When you leave you'll know why
  • Think Big, Start Small, Start Now - You will leaving KNOWING you have to change, but I will through relaying my journey, and my mistakes, show you some tips and hints
  • The unforeseen benefits of self development

 

What you’ll learn

By the end of this talk, you'll be able to:

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Leigh Rathbone's profile'

Leigh Rathbone

Head of Quality Engineering

I’ve been in the craft of testing for 24 years, mostly in leadership roles, and feel as passionate about testing now, as I did in my first year. I’ve had many roles, from testing the world’s first touchscreen smartphone, to heading up Sony PlayStation European Test Operations, to Head of test for a clinical software firm. I’ve currently made the jump across to Engineering Manager and a company called cinch I’m a huge advocate of self-development, and sharing your learnings from that self-development. I've spoken at over 50 conferences and meetups, ran meetups, and compered at Testbash, Swanseacon, and Manchester tech festival
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Tags

  • continuous-learning