TestBash Leadership is the first of our six online TestBashes happening in 2022.
We have asked the Community which topics they wanted to focus in 2022 and Leadership was one of most voted. After Leadership, the following online TestBashes Online will focus on: Mobile, Careers & Hiring, Security and Core Skills as well as, the one and only, Test.bash();!
What Happened
Select a session to learn more about it.
Why We Failed at Building in Testability
What
TalkDescription
Takeaways
- What we are doing wrong in teams that causes testability to fail testability isn’t the problem but team culture via incentives are
- What are the leadership behaviours that enable success with testability encouraged experimentation, reflection and speaking up which was key for collaboration
- What steps can be taken to maintaining testability once established creating psychological safety, how teams can better learn from failure, what they can do to encourage working across discipline boundaries and what positively framing work looks like
Speaker
Lessons Learned As A Quality Engineering Manager
What
TalkDescription
Takeaways
- Learned what skills you would need as a People Manager
- Understand why leading with empathy and kindness is important
- How to deal with difficult conversations
- Learned what further resources such as books and podcasts can help you with your management journey
Testing Ask Me Anything - Leadership with Toby Sinclair
What
AmaDescription
Toby, a certified professional coach, started his career as a Software Developer. After a few years, he became more curious about the ingredients of a high-performance culture. This lead to a journey of self-discovery. Exploring how to unlock performance in himself so that he could help others.
In this session, hosted by the great Vernon Richards, Toby will be answering questions about Leadership, from our attendees live on the Main Stage.
To learn more about Toby's story and career, check out his website here.
Book Clubs Are The Best
What
Book SuggestionDescription
In this talk I'll tell the story of how I started and ran the book club. Of what changed once we were a few books in. And of what value the book club brought.
Takeaways
- How to start and run a book club
- Book clubs are a good way to connect with more people at work
- Book clubs can be a place where you practice leadership
Speaker
Managing People with Autism
What
TalkDescription
The incidence of ASD in the software industry is many times higher than in the general population. But so often we're not aware that the people we are dealing with on a daily basis are different. It's very hard to spot autism - even in ourselves! Our work environment and the way we communicate with each other are in most cases suited for neurotypical people but autistic people might struggle with it. In most cases it's just a few very simple changes that will allow autistic brains to thrive. And it's not just about being nice - teams that include different types of people with different ways of thinking are stronger and better performing.
As a late diagnosed autistic person, I will try to dispel common myths and misperceptions around the signs and symptoms of the autism spectrum disorder, share my own personal experience and provide tips and guidelines for creating a neurodiversity-friendly environment, be it for your team or for yourself.
Takeaways
- What is autism - diagnostic criteria and symptoms
- The experience of an autistic person - what life feels like, what are common strengths and difficulties
- How to create an autism-friendly work environment and tackle common communication challenges
- How to advocate for yourself
Speaker
What's Hiding in Our Minds? Eye-opening Book by Nobel-prize Winner
What
Book SuggestionTopics
Description
I'd like to talk about how "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman inspired me. This book made me gain more perspective on how the human mind works - which helped me in my work and inspired a few workshops and talks I did.
Speaker
Can You Do 'Better Than Richard'?
What
Role Play ScenariosTopics
Description
In this session, Rahul Parwal and Ajay Balamurugadas will 'Do Better Than Richard' in this fun, but serious take on bad leadership situations.
For the past weeks, Richard Bradshaw has shared some videos on Twitter, using the #DoBetterThanRichard.
Join this session to see how these situations could have had a better leadership outcome and why not, try your own outcome?
Takeaways
- Learn how to be a better leader
- Discuss good and bad leadership scenarios
Speakers
Decision Making for Teams
What
TalkDescription
My company has taken the team approach even further and we don't have any kind of bosses or leadership positions anymore.
In this talk, I will present situations where groups need to decide and what strategies and methods there are to make different kinds of decisions as a group. I will also talk about where at my company our ideas went wrong and where we had to adapt to come to decisions involving everyone without slowing down the decision process.
Takeaways
- Decision making for teams
- Types of decisions: consensus vs. consent, veto incorporation
- Methods for decision making: voting, fist to five, systemic consensing
- Typical pitfalls to avoid: how not to slow down and getting into stalls
Speaker
Next Level Leadership
What
TalkDescription
Takeaways
- Considerations for first-time leaders and managers and what are the most important priorities to take on starting out
- Once you are promoted within the leadership/management path, how can responsibilities vary, especially if you find yourself in a leadership role and not a management role
- The differences between leadership and management that I've learned over the years, and the various outcomes from what I've learned
- Career path considerations for testers regarding leadership, management, organisational structure and other aspects
Speaker
The Paradox of Leadership
What
TalkDescription
We, very often, consciously or unconsciously live life linearly, solving problems through logical processes while prodding our intellect to understand life through reducing it to its parts and then trying to put them together in different patterns to try and make sense of it all. But life is a paradox.
Similarly, when you’re leading a team, everything is not black and white. Certain aspects are part of the grey area and you’ll have to read between lines to comprehend them. It is not always straightforward to incorporate a quality strategy as there are multitude of factors that can influence them like size of the QA team, ratio of QA:developers, organizational culture, and communication: between your peers, between you and your leadership team, between you and your direct reports. Sometimes in order to move forward, you need to take a few steps back. This isn’t necessarily slowing down but will help you move faster eventually.
Takeaways
- Focus on simplicity
- Don’t let operational issues hinder your strategic work
- Importance of communication (which when realised early on, could help you enable your team by breaking these invisible barriers)
Discussion: Becoming a Better Leader
What
Panel DiscussionDescription
In this session, our host Laveena Ramchandani, a Software Testing Leader herself, will be joined by three other leaders to discuss ways to become a better leader.
Niranjani Manoharan, born in India and now living in California, is an accomplished software engineering leader in building tools, test infrastructure and improving quality and developer productivity for industry leaders. Check out Niranjani's blog to find out a bit more about her.
Jim Holmes, a leasdership expert in many ways, Jim has experience working with teams across many disciplines (sports, IT, community organizations), which led him to write The Leadership Journey, a practical handbook meant to help you learn how to find a leadership style that works for you. Find out more about Jim by checking out his blog.
Farah Chabchoub an active speaker and member of several tech communities, Farah is also an experienced head of QA and a strategic productivity driver. Learn more about Farah by reading and signing up to her newsletter here.
Speakers
An accomplished software engineering leader in building tools, test infrastructure and improving quality and developer productivity for industry pioneers like Lyft, Pinterest, eBay, Twitter and now at Hippo Insurance.
What is “Deconstructing Feedback”?
What
TalkDescription
Give an overview of what we mean by communication, showing how we can deconstruct communication into simple components.
Showing examples of different feedback models giving the impacts and use cases for them.
How we then tailor our communication to different audiences.
Takeaways
- Understand how Feedback can be deconstructed into simple components
- Become aware of different feedback models
- How different feedback models can impact communication
Speaker
Deconstructing Feedback from Old School to New School
What
Interactive SessionDescription
This session will happen during a break for everyone interested in knowing more about how to give feedback.
A session where we take real work examples of things going wrong and give feedback.
Build the feedback live with contributions from the audience to understand how the feedback is built up from components.
Utilising multiple feedback models such as AID(Action/Impact/Do)
Speaker
Taking the Leap to Leadership!
What
TalkDescription
Takeaways
- Getting ready to be leader as it means to rise above your own needs
- Convincing others and finding your first follower
- Staying relevant and motivating your team
Speaker
Staff Testing Roles - As Inspired By The "Staff Engineer" Book
What
Book SuggestionDescription
This book has made a huge impact on the understanding of my own role - I am not a manager, but a high-level individual contributor.
A Staff role - in the terms of the book. With the lessons and stories from the book, I understand better a leadership career path besides the management track.
A staff-level testing role is often leading delivery teams, critical projects, or internal improvements activities without having formal leadership.
From the stories of similar staff engineers, I can understand elements of leading change around alignment with corporate strategy and presenting to management, among other things.
Speaker
What Weightlifting Taught me About Leadership
What
TalkDescription
Takeaways
- Leadership lessons come from many sources. Be open to finding gems in odd places
- Goals matter. Setting them in one part of life impacts others
- Lessons in one walk of life apply to others
Speaker
Found My Ikigai
What
Book SuggestionTopics
Description
In this talk, Veena explains what's an Ikigai and how she found hers via the book 'Ikigai (The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life), by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles
Ted Lasso Made Me a Better Tech Leader and More Importantly, a Better Person
What
TalkDescription
There are a few things in my journey of being a leader that have helped shape me as a person, and therefore me as a leader.
In 2016 I saw 'Yes Man' with Jim Carrey and it changed my life regarding saying 'Yes' to challenges instead of shirking away from them. 2021 I saw Ted Lasso in the press for winning awards across the world. I started watching, and realised very quickly that Ted Lasso as a person and leader is what I needed to draw inspiration from, in order to make my next leap in leadershipHere are a few of Ted Lasso leadership principles:
- "All people are different people" is a catchphrase of his, and adopting this mindset has allowed me to help a tester that has ADHD. I now look at each individual tester I work with and take their career path and tailor it to them, their wants, their needs, based off this principle
- "Believe in believe" is another that Im using to coach someone with impostor syndrome
- "See the good in others' ties very closely to the retro prime directive and has helped me go into feisty situations with a different lens
Ted Lasso also gave me the confidence to take on managing and leading developers. By following his coaching principles I was able to go and lead a craft that within tech leadership circles, is still a bit of a bit of a taboo thing (Thats slowly changing though) and that is Test leaders leading Developers.
This talk is my leadership journey, tied into the Ted Lasso coaching lessons. Like Ted Lasso, my journey to become a better leader will never end, and I am always learning, seeking improvements. Like Ted, I've failed, and like Ted, I pull learnings from those.
The pandemic is nearly 2 years old, and what Ted Lasso is, is a feel good factor boxset with key life, coaching lessons weaved in throughout. By sharing my journey of how this programme has impacted me, I hope it will change yours.rath
Takeaways
- Putting people at the heart of your leadership ethos is the right thing to do
- Using some of Ted Lasso's coaching principles will give you confidence to lead people outside of your current comfort zone
- Taking Ted Lasso's leadership principles means I now have more skills in my leadership toolbox
- As a leader you will fail, its the learnings from that which are important
- Being a leader means you are in the spotlight, whether you like that or not. That can have impacts on your health, leaders need to self care as well
Speaker
Our Famous 99-Second Talks
What
99 Second TalksDescription
It's not a TestBash without 99-Second Talks!
The 99-Second Talks is the attendee's stage, a opportunity for you to come on stage and talk for, that's right, 99 seconds.
You can talk about anything, a testing topic you want to share, a personal experience, an idea sparked by all the amazing talks you've just listened... the stage is yours, for 99-Seconds!
The host will introduce you on stage and start the clock. As soon as the time's up, a noise will be heard and that's it: time's up!
Prerequisites
You will need to give Hopin permissions to allow your camera and microphone. Make sure these are enabled before you go on screen.
TestBash Leadership News
Frequently Asked Questions
How to Attend
TestBash Leadership as well as all online TestBashes are included in Pro membership which makes it by far the most affordable way to attend. Pro MoT is £249.99 per year with discounts for teams and a monthly option for individual memberships. Alternatively, you can buy a ticket just for the event for £75 - these are now available!
Sponsorship
We want this online conference to be all about Leadership and are actively looking for sponsors for the event. Email marketing@ministryoftesting.com to learn more about our sponsorship options.
Where is the event hosted?
TestBash Leadership is hosted on Hopin, an excellent platform for events like this. You'll need to create a Hopin account to access the event.
How do I join the event?
1. Double check you're logged into your MoT Account. You'll see your avatar and name in the top right-hand corner.
2. Visit the Hopin event space at https://hopin.com/events
3. Enter the password sent to you in an email/or by visiting the top of the event page (Look for the "Join Details" section, on the page you're reading this FAQ) - Available one week before the event!
4. On the Hopin event space, select "Join Event"
5. When prompted to SELECT TICKETS, select "Sign in to join the event" (at this point you can create a Hopin account if you don't have one already)
6. Close the "CHECKOUT" page
7. Select "Join Event" again
8. Congrats, you're now in the reception area of the event 🎉