TestBash UK has been and gone, but it's not over. You can relive the magic by watching the talk recordings. Click the recording link below.

TestBash UK 2022 Playlist

What Happened

Select a session to learn more about it.

Main Stage

In our main stage area we’ll have Talks, our famous 99-Second Talks and a fun Game.

  • Lena Nyström
  • Would Heu-risk It?
    Lena Nyström
    Talk

    Would Heu-risk It?

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Experiences and lessons learned from working with developing software since 1999 resulted in the “Would Heu-risk it?” concept. It all started with a workshop with Lisa Crispin but has since evolved into a card deck, blog posts, articles and a book draft in 2020.

    “Would Heu-risk it?” is centered around risk analysis, heuristics, patterns/anti-patterns that affect us in designing, building, testing and running software. They are 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 focus on what I believe are my most important learnings.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Testing heuristics as super-powers
    • The importance of bug advocacy
    • Up-skilling yourself
    • Involving yourself in the entire process to shift left, right, up and down
    • Different perspectives to software quality

    Speaker

    Lena Nyström
    Lena Nyström
    Engineering manager, Author and Public Speaker
    Lena has been building software since 1999. After a decade of coding they found their heart in testing and that is close to their heart even today when they focus on building organisations and growing people rather than the software itself. Continuous improvement is a core value and they believe we should all strive to keep up to date and challenge ourselves, our assumptions and the way things are done. Lena is the author and creator of "Would Heu-risk it?" (card deck and book), avid blogger, speaker and workshop facilitator. On top of that, Lena combines skills learned through the years in their day job as Engineering Manager. Lena lives outside of Stockholm, Sweden with teenage kids, partner and way too much games, sewing machines and books.
  • Dan Ashby
  • Evolving Our Testing: Assessing Quality Throughout The SDLC
    Dan Ashby
    Talk

    Evolving Our Testing: Assessing Quality Throughout The SDLC

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Imagine a world where testing was properly understood and invited throughout the full lifecycle of building software. A world where quality was not just perceived as “correctness” based on the software meeting the requirements. Imagine the state of the world if this was the case, with people relying more on complex software every day.

    People expect high quality software, with quality being an accumulation of the goodness of the experience in using the software, the correctness in its operability, and the value they obtain from the software. In order to evolve the craft of testing to assess quality in line with this, we need to break out of the mindset that testing only relates to assessing the software.

    In this talk, I will explain my view on testing and it’s purpose of assessing quality, in line with my views of quality being beyond the correctness of the software. Additionally, I will illustrate the value in expanding testing activities throughout the entire software development life cycle:

    • That testing ideas can prevent wasteful development and uncover risks.
    • That testing designs and requirement artefacts can discover ambiguities and risks and prevent assumptions and waste.
    • That testing architecture and code design can be the fastest possible feedback loop (much faster than test automation) on the quality of the code.
    • That much of the output of all of the above testing can dramatically improve the quality of the testing we do when we test the software (improving both scripted and exploratory testing), from us using the risks we discover to better structure our testing.

    There will be examples, there will be models, and there will be stories which I hope to excite and inspire you to reflect on and evolve your own testing towards that imagined world of really showing the true value of testing from assessing quality throughout the entire development lifecycle.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Investigate ideas, requirement artefacts, designs, and processes as part of the SDLC
    • Discuss the testing feedback loops across each activity
    • Understand what activities are involved within an SDLC

    Speaker

    Dan Ashby
    Dan Ashby
    Director of Quality Services
    Proud father. Quality and Testing enthusiast, teacher, coach, mentor and servant leader. Director of Quality Services @ Ada Health. I blog at: danashby.co.uk and I'm a co-founder of the MoT Essentials (formerly the Software Testing Clinic). I love being involved in the testing community (and other communities)!
  • Stuart Day
  • Vernon Richards
  • What is Quality Coaching, Why Should Testers Care And What Difference Does It Make For Our Teams?
    Stuart Day, Vernon Richards
    Talk

    What is Quality Coaching, Why Should Testers Care And What Difference Does It Make For Our Teams?

    What

    Talk

    Description

    This is just a fancy name for “Testers”, right?
    Maybe, maybe not. Let’s talk about it and find out!
    We’ve been leading, mentoring and coaching quality teams for over a decade.
    They’ve even been known to do that work together over the years! During that time, they’ve seen attitudes to testing change and evolve.
    One recent change is the increasing amount of “Quality Coach” and “Quality Engineer” roles appearing in companies.
    Is this a fancy name for the same kind of “Tester” roles that exist already, or is there something significantly different between them?
    We believe there are and will highlight the differences during the conference!

    Learning Outcomes

    • Define Quality Coaching and Quality Engineering
    • Compare the difference between quality coaching and quality engineering roles versus traditional testing roles
    • Contrast how their current approach differs from a quality coaching and quality engineering approach
    • Choose from more options to deal with quality and testing challenges that crop up in their work

    Speakers

    Stuart Day
    Stuart Day
    Head of Quality - Dunelm
    Software delivery professional with over 23 years of experience as an advocate of delivering high-quality value to customers at speed. I am a Quality Coach, Cert. Agile Coach and international speaker with a wealth of experience in both Agile, Digital and Business Agility transformation. I have a real passion for people and their success. Focusing on enabling and supporting their personal development and their career journeys. Currently, I am the Head of Quality at Dunelm Soft Furnishings, building a Culture of Quality and enabling continuous quality throughout the organisation’s technology landscape
    Vernon Richards
    Vernon Richards
    Quality Coach / Senior Quality Engineer
    I’m a Quality Coach & Tester that helps orgs, teams & individuals understand the relationship between quality & testing to help them build better products & deliver more effective services. I’ve been testing since 2002 starting with video games on PS2, Xbox & PC. It may not sound like a real job but it’s the truth! By day I’m a Senior Quality Engineer at a health tech night I run Abode of Quality. Here is one of my core values: “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude (& how you’re thinking) about the problem.” - Captain Jack Sparrow (the part in brackets was my addition though!) I believe that quality & testing problems are actually people problems in disguise! Often the cause of these problems is misaligned goals, different perspectives, low empathy for colleagues, and the list goes on. Using my coaching skills in the quality & testing space, I believe the most effective way to serve the business, is to help teams & individuals gain new perspectives about themselves & their teammates.
  • Louise Gibbs
  • Using Empathy To Guide An Exploratory Accessibility Testing Session
    Louise Gibbs
    Talk

    Using Empathy To Guide An Exploratory Accessibility Testing Session

    What

    Talk

    Description

    I do not have any accessibility needs when it comes to using computers. However, for about 2 years, I was at one point reliant on a wheelchair or crutches to travel. This helped me develop an appreciation of how the smallest thing could impact someones quality of life. 

    Accessibility testing is often an afterthought. This is not surprising as, unless someone has first hand experience of a disability, they will not be able to fully understand what design issues could limit someones ability to use a website. 

    Before accessibility testing, we should first at least try to understand the various accessibility needs a user might have. We should then attempt to use the application the way a user might use it, such as using screen readers or checking the contract settings on a website. Most of the tools a user might use are freely available in chrome extensions. 

    In this session, I will demonstrate the various tools available that can be used to support accessibility testing. As well as this, we will also analyse the tools that a user might use to access a website. Using these tools, we will carry out a live exploratory accessibility testing session so that we can understand the challenges a user might face and use this to identify accessibility issues.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Develop an understanding of the various challenges people with accessibility needs face when attempting to use a website
    • Learn about the different tools that might be used by someone with accessibility needs so they can access a website
    • Run an exploratory testing session on a website using accessibility tools and tools that might be used by users to identify potential accessibility issues that might be preventing someone from using a website

    Speaker

    Louise Gibbs
    Louise Gibbs
    Senior Automation Tester
    Louise is a Senior Automation Tester at PebblePad. Her main job is to review and maintain the automated tests that are run overnight, and investigate the causes of any failures. She has also worked for companies in the e-commerce, scientific research and automotive industries, and runs a personal blog at louisegibbstest.wordpress.com, where she talks about her experiences as a software tester. She enjoys improving her testing skills and her main method for achieving this is by speaking to other Testers and discussing ideas.
  • Simon Prior
  • Growing A Culture of Quality (and Making Testing Fun)
    Simon Prior
    Talk

    Growing A Culture of Quality (and Making Testing Fun)

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Since joining an airline during a pandemic, myself and the QA teams have been on a journey.
    From only being considered valuable to involved once development has been completed and PMs telling us they can't afford us to be involved earlier to now being seen as advocates of Quality and being at the table for discussions about any technical changes.
    The transformation has been tough, but we are now reaping the rewards for all our hard work.

    This talk will talk through how we embraced the culture shift during the pandemic and used it as a vehicle to embrace a more collaborative way of working, bringing people together to discuss Quality and Testing and show ways to improve how we provide feedback on the products through more inventive ways of testing, changing the way we test for the better.

    I'll show how I used my passion for Quality and my external network to engage the QA teams across the company, empower and nurture the existing teams as well as bring new people in to disrupt the status quo and move us forward. Ultimately enabling me to advocate for the teams and raise the awareness of Testing/Quality across the organisation and enabling us to transform the way we work.

    Did I mention our Test Parties? Find out more in the talk.
     

    Learning Outcomes

    • Raise the awareness of the testing teams and the work you do
    • Change the culture by building allies across the business who advocate for you
    • Make the day to day work more enjoyable with collaboration and a sense of fun

    Speaker

    Simon Prior
    Simon Prior
    Head of QA @ easyJet
    Simon is heading up the QA teams at EasyJet. In his career he has worked in various roles across IT from C++ developer, Scrum Master, Build Engineer before finally finding his passion in Testing. He's worked in various domains from CyberSecurity, Gaming/Gambling and now the Airline industry. He has a keen interest in finding ways to improve the testing process and ensuring products are released with the highest possible quality. He also loves coaching/mentoring his team to be the best they can, enabling them to use all possible tools and skills to get their job done to the best of their ability Simon is a well known speaker and meetup organiser in the Software Testing world, a Podcast co-host (check out TestingPeers.com) and also a keen advocate for companies to consider Neurodiversity as part of their inclusion programmes. Simon was recently awarded Testing Manager of the Year at the European Software Testing Awards, with a mention to his great people management and contributions to the wider testing community.
  • Alex Reynolds
  • The Power of Habit
    Alex Reynolds
    Talk

    The Power of Habit

    What

    Talk

    Description

    How simple habits can develop, drive and support a learning culture for you and your team.

    Join Alex Reynolds as he brings to life the teachings of Charles Dhugg and James Clear, and how he used them to create his own learning Habit.

    At the session, you will discover why we are indeed 'creatures of habit' and how you can use this knowledge to introduce a learning habit for yourself and your team. 

    Learning Outcomes

    • Learn how habits are formed and why we favour habits (yes even the bad ones) over anything else
    • Develop a greater understanding of your own habits and how to use this to create new ones
    • The problems with setting goals and aiming too big
    • How to apply the laws of Habit formation to create and maintain a learning habit

    Speaker

    Alex Reynolds
    Alex Reynolds
    Quality Engineering Community Lead at Lloyds Bank
    Quality Engineer in Lloyds banking group, who started off life as a software engineer working on Radar Systems and made the logical move into the finance industry! Alex leads the QE Community in Lloyds bank with over 600 members and an active community of testers and quality engineers. Alex has a love of learning and helping people to learn and develop their own careers. He also has a keen interest in Mindfulness and Meditation and has been practicing for over 25 years. He was one of the founding members of the Mindfulness and Meditation Community in LBG 3 years ago which now boasts over 2500 members.
  • Nithin SS
  • The Hidden Logic of Thinking for Testers
    Nithin SS
    Talk

    The Hidden Logic of Thinking for Testers

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Ability to think deeper is one of the most valuable skills that every tester needs, and yet it is rarely taught in universities and even in workplaces. In today's world, problems are becoming more complex with the addition of new technologies, tools and approaches. To deal with these challenges and remain competitive we should start to think about thinking and build a framework that helps us to face any testing challenges thoughtfully and require a new toolset or framework for thinking. At its core, it must be a framework that helps with problem-solving & provides a structure for our solutioning process. For this, learning and understanding how to spot gaps in our thinking process play a significant role.

    As explained by Daniel Kahneman in the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow", our brains have two thinking systems, 'System 1' which is faster and intuitive and the slower and contemplative 'System 2'. The interaction of the two systems often helps us to get things right or fail at times. Understanding the way we use these systems to think helps us in better decision making and problem-solving. Connecting all the dots around thinking, I have figured out some hidden logic that we still need to explore and analyse. This talk will get you thinking about how you naturally think and unleash its full potential to be a skilled tester by leveraging those hidden logic & approaches.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Explains the importance/role of different thinking types in testers
    • Improve your ability to think, analyse and interpret using those thinking types
    • Guides how to generate a unique art of thinking(Incorporate thinking with metacognitive skills) for testers
    • Learn to spot "gaps" in the thinking process
    • Role of design thinking & Empathic thinking in the craft of testing

    Speaker

    Nithin SS
    Nithin SS
    Head of QA
    Nithin is the founder of Synapse QA, a community space of test automation professionals and software quality advocates. He has nearly a decade of experience in the IT field with a focus on test automation delivery of web and mobile-based applications. Nithin actively runs test automation workshops, helps other professionals share their thoughts and knowledge in the Synapse QA community, and works as Engineering Manager, QA at Fave.
  • Christian Baumann
  • Don’t Be a Fool With a Tool ‒ Fundamental Knowledge for Proper Test Automation
    Christian Baumann
    Talk

    Don’t Be a Fool With a Tool ‒ Fundamental Knowledge for Proper Test Automation

    What

    Talk

    Description

    How is your automation journey going? Are you a beginner or have you already started your journey, but are still struggling? In both cases, this talk is for you! I will share my own experiences and struggles, and you’ll learn how to bring your test automation to the next level.

    Many people get into test automation without having a profound background in programming or without receiving any proper training. They have some idea about what tool to use, gathered some basic knowledge, and managed to create some automated tests with it.
    At a certain point, you suspect that something is not quite right with your automation. Your code feels messy and maintaining it is hell, costs a lot of time and frustrates you.

    This talk has you covered. You’ll learn about:
    • How to create a proper strategy for your test automation;
    • How to use object-oriented programming principles in your test automation;
    • How to recognize and eliminate code smells

    I will present practical solutions to problems I see a lot of people are facing too. I encountered them too. You will walk away with practical advice you can use in your daily work. This will reduce the stress and pain of working, by significantly improving the quality of your automated tests and reducing maintenance efforts.

    Note: The talk is not meant to cover all topics in-depth, but to make the audience aware that certain principles and concepts exist. Those will be presented & explained in what context they are useful, so the audience has a starting point for further studies.

    Disclaimer: This talk is not about any specific tool or framework. The principles described are generic, and I've seen them work in different contexts.

     

    Learning Outcomes

    • Learn fundamental principles and strategies that can improve your test automation projects
    • Get guidance on where to start improving your test automation code and receive pointers for further studies to continue your test automation journey with less trouble
    • Learn about ways to make test automation code less messy and easier to maintain

    Speaker

    Christian Baumann
    Christian Baumann
    Principal Software Tester
    Christian is a principal software tester with 15+ years of experience in the field. He has successfully held different roles in the context of testing: Test Automation Engineer, Agile Tester, Test Team Lead, Test Project Manager and Exploratory/ Functional/ Manual Tester. During his career he worked with various test (automation) tools such as Cucumber, Selenium, Watir and others using programming languages like Java, Ruby and C#, but also applied certain development/ testing methodologies such as Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). Furthermore he successfully applied different manual testing techniques, such as Agile Testing, Rapid Software Testing (RST), Black Box Software Testing (BBST), Exploratory Testing (ET) and Session Based Test Management (SBTM) or ISTQB. Christian is strongly driven by his context, always searching for the best fitting solution for a given situation. He´s able to understand business´ and people´s problems, and is always eager to learn and improve himself, while staying curios, open minded and willing to share his knowledge.
  • Gareth Waterhouse
  • The Power of Storytelling as a Tester
    Gareth Waterhouse
    Talk

    The Power of Storytelling as a Tester

    What

    Talk

    Description

    As a tester, we talk to a lot of people, we tell people a lot of things, but they don't always listen. 

    This talk will look at how powerful stories can be when trying to get our point across, whether that be raising bugs, talking about challenges we're facing or even talking about the testing that we're doing.  It will call on times when I've done this well, and when I've done this not so well and the effects of that. 

    It will talk about how to structure stories, how to get people to buy into the story, how to tell a story short and succinct (think an elevator pitch) and how non-verbal communication can help amplify the story's reach and influence. 

    Learning Outcomes

    • An understanding of story fundamentals - How telling good stories can help you influence people and get what you want
    • How to apply that to testing and everyday life - In terms of telling people about bugs, or about challenges you may be facing to help them understand
    • How to make sure you get the important points across in the story - We've all been there when someone tells a story that goes on, and on, and on, and on... anyway, you get the point, we'll look at how to break down a story to get the key points across in the story
    • How to amplify your story telling through your non verbal communication - When telling a story, only so much is said through what is actually said, you can achieve so much more from a story when you factor in other aspects of communication

    Speaker

    Gareth Waterhouse
    Gareth Waterhouse
    Principal Test Engineer
    Seasoned Tester with over a decade of experience, father of two and Sunderland fan (please don't hold that against me). Always looking at ways to develop others. Regularly blog about things that I think may be of interest.
  • Richard Adams
  • Let’s Go Threat Modelling
    Richard Adams
    Talk

    Let’s Go Threat Modelling

    What

    Talk

    Description

    I will share how I introduced threat modelling to my team and how it is being used within my company.
    Within the talk people will hear the basic theory of threat modelling and also look at how we ran sessions, handle the vulnerabilities found and how I convinced people to try it - using my Threat Agents card game.
    Finally, I will make the case that not only is threat modelling for everyone on your team but as testers, we can be ideal people to get involved.

    Learning Outcomes

    • A basic understanding of threat modelling
    • An idea of what threat modelling might be like "in real life"
    • The knowledge that it is something they can do and not just for security experts

    Speaker

    Richard Adams
    Richard Adams
    Senior Quality Engineer
    After my first full time job as a games tester, I've had a varied career from Gameplay Systems Designer to Software Engineer for security systems with a couple of roles in between. I've since returned to testing as I have a huge passion for testing and just love finding bugs! As well as being a Senior Test Engineer, I am also a Cyber Champion within my organisation. This means that I help drive good security practices and in particular I love getting the team involved in threat modelling. I also get free training on all things security! Out of work I love gaming and carrying on my interest in threat modelling, I have also created a card game called Threat Agents.
    Our Famous 99-Second Talks - Day 1
    99 Second Talks

    Our Famous 99-Second Talks - Day 1

    What

    99 Second Talks

    Topics

    Description

    It's not a TestBash without 99-Second Talks!

    The 99-Second Talks is the attendee's stage, an 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 to... the stage is yours, for 99-Seconds!

    Our amazing host Callum Akehurst-Ryan, 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!

  • Lewis Prescott
  • User Driven Test Reports, Based on Feedback and Feelings
    Lewis Prescott
    Talk

    User Driven Test Reports, Based on Feedback and Feelings

    What

    Talk

    Description

    I'm going to talk about what changes we made to our test reports to change the perspective. During my 7 year career working for startups, charities and fashion retailers, I've seen many different styles of test reports!

    Some benefits we gained from this, we got feedback earlier by inviting users to our sprint demos and also improved rollout of new features by including operations data.

    By the end of my presentation, you will know how to add user based metrics such as user feedback comments to your test reports. I’ll walk through the process we used to come up with the user based metrics to include in our test reports.

    Let me give you an example of what I mean.
     

    What does a test report really tell you?


    What do you mean the RAG status is amber?!
     
    The most recent example is from a charity. I naively thought people looked beyond the red, amber, and green status, turns out if it wasn’t red the report wasn’t read by key decision makers.
     
    I soon realised there was no clear understanding of what the risk was related to test cases executed and bugs found during development. It’s not the responsibility of the stakeholders to understand the intricacies of your test plan and testing process. 
     
    Often qualitative metrics are more powerful in relation to risk and feelings of confidence.
     

    How to create user driven reports
     

    User data makes test reports more relatable for the readers. In my current role at a startup, I ran a workshop to understand from my testers what they think we should report on, this is what they came up with.
     
    The user experience team performs user testing on designs, so we include their feedback in our test reports. The users worked on the requirements, so we included their feedback in our test reports.
     
    Bugs that weren’t going to be fixed before release became modifications to requirements by adopting a zero bug policy. When the code gets deployed to production, the test report isn’t important anymore. So we put the production issues in our test report. 
     
    All these changes meant the report was user centred and risk could be interpreted by the feedback and feeling of the users.
     
    1. Involve everyone who holds information to the user
    2. Use production data such as live issues, support requests, and user feedback surveys to outline how your bug fix impacts the users
    3. Remove testing related terms from your reports such as bugs and test cases.
     
    Are you going to add more user related data to your test report?

    Learning Outcomes

    • Why stakeholders don't understand the risks of traditional test reports
    • Where you can get user data from for your reports
    • How you can remove bugs from reports with zero bug policy

    Speaker

    Lewis Prescott
    Lewis Prescott
    QA Lead
    I'm an experienced QA Lead at Cera Care (one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies), having worked across different industries including Healthcare, Non-profit, Retail and PropTech. I am also a course author on Test Automation University & Udemy, sharing my knowledge is a passion of mine.
  • Julia Pottinger
  • Next Level API Automation
    Julia Pottinger
    Talk

    Next Level API Automation

    What

    Talk

    Description

    APIs are an essential part of an increasingly large number of applications that we use daily. APIs enable applications to exchange data and functionality easily and securely. As testers, we want to ensure that our APIs do not break and provide the expected functionality. We can automate our APIs to speed up the rate at which our checks are done. When automating APIs having tests to ensure that your API returns the correct message and status is great, however, do you test for and automate the negative and edge cases for your APIs? In this talk, I will show you how to get started with automating APIs, a checklist of things needed to automate an API, automate negative tests for your API as well as check that your APIs handle errors appropriately, follow the specified schema, and don't reveal data that it shouldn’t or has certain security gaps. I will also share how to decide which tests you should be automating for your API and how to automate workflows for an API.
     
    API automation executes faster than UI automated tests and I have found it to be more straightforward to write. Join me to start creating these quick automated tests using Supertest (a JavaScript API Testing Framework) for the boundaries of your API. The tips that I will share can be applied to any framework that you use to automate APIs.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understand APIs
    • Negative scenarios to automate for APIs
    • Understanding and using schemas to validate your APIs
    • Testing APIs in Postman
    • Automate APIs in javascript
    • API workflows
    • API Testing Checklist

    Speaker

    Julia Pottinger
    Julia Pottinger
    Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks

    Julia Pottinger is the Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks with expertise in manual, automated and API testing and training which has helped companies enhance the quality of their software through improved test coverage, faster time to market, increased process efficiency and optimized use of resources.

    Julia is passionate about sharing her knowledge and experience and contributes to the testing community through writing articles, and delivering testing content on Test Automation University as well as her Youtube Channel and blog. She also conducts testing bootcamps for persons interested in entering the field of QA.

    Links

    Youtube Channel

    Blog Website

  • Kiruthika Ganesan
  • The Power of Example Mapping!
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Talk

    The Power of Example Mapping!

    What

    Talk

    Topics

    Description

    Who writes the acceptance criteria for your stories- Product owners, Business analysts or the entire team? If the Given-When-Then scenarios are already prewritten and presented to the team, their thought process is curtailed. It might also lead to preconceived ideas and notions. This also tips the responsibility towards a single stakeholder which can prove to be dangerous. What is the alternative then? 

    Discover the Power of Example Mapping!

    Example Mapping is a great way to motivate the team to adopt Behaviour Driven Development. The whole practice is about encouraging communication and collaboration between the various stakeholders. It is of prime importance in an agile setup that the Product, Dev and Tester share the same understanding and have equal partnership in the stories/features delivered. Example mapping facilitates these conversations and also goes hand in hand with the shift left approach. In a nutshell, it is a great team activity which results in substantial gains and increases in productivity. 
    We will find out what Example Mapping is, how to do it and also practise it in an interactive workshop. 

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understand the importance of Example Mapping and how the participants can use it in their teams
    • Tips on convincing the entire team to try this approach
    • Practical implementation with use cases for all kinds of stories whether it is a user story or a non-user story
    • What more could be done with this mapping approach
    • Limitations of Example Mapping and when not to use it

    Speaker

    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Head of Quality Assurance
    I am someone who is passionate about testing and approaches testing with a holistic view. I have over 17 years of experience in the IT industry, working as a tester, developer and a trainer. I believe in the power of people and collaborating to build a safe environment where the teams can thrive and work on creating great software. I enjoy teaching and getting involved in community activities like speaking at conferences, delivering workshops. I am one of the tutors in the Coders Guild and a core member of Synapse QA-a testing community. Also, a keen advocate of Women in Tech initiatives and a global ambassador! When I am not working, I love spending time with my kids and enjoy writing short stories.
  • Marie Cruz
  • Performance Testing 101
    Marie Cruz
    Talk

    Performance Testing 101

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Have you ever heard of the term Performance Testing?

    Do you get confused as to what the differences are among load testing, stress testing and soak testing?

    Have you ever been asked to perform client side and server side performance testing but you’re unsure how to get started?

    If you’ve answered yes to these questions then this talk is for you! As part of this talk, I will cover the following things:

    • Why do we need to test for performance?
    • The difference between client side and server side performance testing.
    • An overview of what metrics to consider when doing client side performance testing.
    • An overview of what metrics to consider when doing server side performance testing.
    • A quick glimpse on how to measure the performance of your favourite website using Google Lighthouse for client side performance and k6 for server side performance.

    After this talk, you should be equipped with the knowledge and tools to use to get started with performance testing.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understand the difference between client side and server side performance testing
    • Know the different metrics when it comes to performance testing
    • A quick overview on how to run performance test and analyse results from a Google Lighthouse report
    • A quick overview on how to use k6 Learn the technical skills to use k6 for back end performance testing

    Speaker

    Marie Cruz
    Marie Cruz
    Developer Advocate
    Marie Cruz is currently a Developer Advocate at k6.io and Grafana Labs. She is a tech blogger at testingwithmarie.com and an accessibility advocate. She is also an online course instructor at Ministry of Testing and Test Automation University.
  • Robbie Falck
  • Throw Out the QA Strategy Documents and Build a Ways of Working
    Robbie Falck
    Talk

    Throw Out the QA Strategy Documents and Build a Ways of Working

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Creating strategies and unifying an agile QA team can be difficult. Why not create a visual strategy? Or even better, a visual Ways of Working!

    In this session, we will talk about the journey my team went on in transforming our agile processes, discovering our Ways of Working and figuring out how to stray away from long strategy documents that no one likes reading and focus on visual strategies that everyone owns.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understand what a Ways of Working is about
    • A whole team approach to QA strategies
    • How to create visual strategies instead of documentation

    Speaker

    Robbie Falck
    Robbie Falck
    QA Lead
    South African / British QA Lead with over 10 years experience in QA and software development across multiple industries. Conference speaker, blog writer and bug smasher! Currently a QA Lead at Moneybox, in London.
  • João Proença
  • Observability Meets a Flaky Test
    João Proença
    Talk

    Observability Meets a Flaky Test

    What

    Talk

    Description

    “Observability”. A word that is quite popular in tech these days, but not always easy to understand what it means in the real world, right? “How is it not monitoring?”

    I mean, we’re told that it’s about “unknown unknowns” and that you should be able to answer new questions about a system without having to ship any code. We’re also told that there are three pillars for observability, “logs, metrics and traces”, and that it’s much more than just monitoring. But how does that translate to real-life scenarios in a software tester’s world?

    Well, one day my team was struggling with a flaky test in our CI/CD pipeline. The way we were able to unravel the mystery surrounding that test illustrates a few key observability concepts on the availability of data and the friction in accessing it.

    In this talk I will tell you the story about that painful flaky test and how it showed us how (the lack of) observability could already be present in our daily lives, without us even realizing it! By the end of this tale, even if you know nothing about observability beforehand, you will understand a bit more. You’ll know some questions you should start asking about your own tests, and have some ideas that will let you find the answers quickly!

    Learning Outcomes

    • Learn what “unknown unknowns” actually look like in real life and how they relate to observability
    • Find out how observability can be your greatest ally when dealing with flaky tests
    • Acknowledge that you may have a lot of useful information scattered throughout your systems
    • Understand the importance of having data stored in one place and multiple views of that data

    Speaker

    João Proença
    João Proença
    Quality Engineer
    João Proença comes from Lisbon, Portugal, and is a Quality Engineer at Ada Health. He has assumed various roles throughout his career in the past 16 years, including quality assurance, development, customer support and marketing. Finding innovative solutions for difficult problems is what drives him the most, so he is always eager to talk about how professionals are overcoming testing challenges around the world. Outside of IT, João is passionate about songwriting, movies and football. You’ll see him tweet about all of these topics using the @jrosaproenca handle.
  • Dana Aonofriesei
  • Leading a Test Automation Strategy
    Dana Aonofriesei
    Talk

    Leading a Test Automation Strategy

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Where to start and where to stop with test automation?

    I will share in my talk practical steps for how to start defining a test automation strategy. By the end of the session, we should be defining a strategy together. The talk is suitable for both individual contributors and managers.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Practical steps for setting up a test automation strategy
    • Technique for setting up a vision and a mission for test automation
    • The role of Test Automation Analytics in the success of your strategy

    Speaker

    Dana Aonofriesei
    Dana Aonofriesei
    Director of Engineering
    I started my career in Software Development 9 years ago and during this time I tried different roles and assignments, as Quality Assurance Engineer, Software Analyst, Scrum Master, Head of Product Quality, Engineering Manager in areas like banking, eprocurement, trust economy. I love working with teams, driving teams and individuals towards results and solving problems. A few keywords that describe me: sports, croissants, cheese, good coffee, competitive, positive.
  • Clare Norman
  • Quality Coaching: Level 1
    Clare Norman
    Talk

    Quality Coaching: Level 1

    What

    Talk

    Description

    Testing is a superpower don't keep it all to yourself!

    I am a beginner quality coach and a self-confessed testing nerd. I started experimenting with quality coaching after reading the modern testing principles. I really love the ultimate goal of them which is to accelerate the team. In particular, they talk about expanding testing capabilities across your team as well as leading a quality culture. I had no previous knowledge and zero experience in this area but thought what's the worst that could happen?!

    Being the only tester in the department I really liked the idea of getting the developers around me to help out with testing. Not only that but as I freed up time by stepping away from physically testing every single feature, I was able to become more of an advocate and evangelist of testing. I stopped physically testing and started talking about testing. To anyone who would listen!

    So if you're asking how can I make the transition to quality coach? I'll share how little nudges towards a long term goal have worked well for me. Some lessons that I've learned so far include:

    • Don't wait for permission! Your job title doesn't need to say quality coach.
    • Find your allies. Locate the people who understand the need for testers.
    • Sell the benefits of this approach to your developers.
    • Make your testing work visible.

    If like me, you're looking to experiment with coaching I'll talk about what techniques have worked in my team such as:

    • Talking about testing early. Give developers exposure to thinking about quality and testing before they write a line of code.
    • Asking developers about their testing. Continue the testing conversation during development!
    • Sharing testing knowledge with your developers. Pair testing has benefits for both parties.

    I learned that knowledge isn't something you lose the more you share it. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I believe anyone can try this out and you'll discover testing nerds in your team that you didn't know existed!

    Anyone can experiment with quality coaching as long as you have the right attitude. I hope to demonstrate that quality coaching isn't an area to be intimidated by and if you're truly passionate about helping your team improve it isn't as hard as you might think.

    Learning Outcomes

    • You will see my story of how I introduced the idea of quality coaching in my team as a complete novice
    • Learn about some simple experiments towards coaching that you can start tomorrow
    • How to talk about testing early and engage developers in your mission
    • How to make your testing visible to increase knowledge sharing

    Speaker

    Clare Norman
    Clare Norman
    Quality Assurance Analyst
    I am a colourful tester based in beautiful North Wales. I fell into testing around 5 years ago and I've never looked back. I love the blend of logic and creativity required. I love to make sketchnotes of the talks I listen to within the testing community as a way of bringing some colour into testing. I love the human aspect of testing. In particular I love reading about psychology and working to understand how people use software. I'm currently the sole tester in my company and experimenting with some aspects of quality coaching has allowed me to have a bigger impact on quality than testing alone.
    Pointless - TestBash UK Version
    Game

    Pointless - TestBash UK Version

    What

    Game

    Topics

    Description

    Ever wanted to know how testers and QA think that:

    • Excel is the most popular testing tool
    • Mind maps are the most popular approach to note-taking
    • Monitoring is just starting at a monitor until something breaks

    Then our TestBash Pointless special is the game for you. Contestants will answer software testing-based questions. If their answer is the same answer as members of the testing community gave for the question, then they score a point for each matching answer. But the more points you get, the less prizes because the lowest score wins!

    So come join our Pointless hosts Gwen Diagram & Mark Winteringham and find out if testing can truly be Pointless!

    Our Famous 99-Second Talks - Day 2
    99 Second Talks

    Our Famous 99-Second Talks - Day 2

    What

    99 Second Talks

    Topics

    Description

    It's not a TestBash without 99-Second Talks!

    The 99-Second Talks is the attendee's stage, an 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 to... the stage is yours, for 99-Seconds!

    Our amazing host Leigh Rathbone, 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!

  • Mario Scriminaci
  • Post-TestBash Meetup
    Mario Scriminaci
    Meetup

    Post-TestBash Meetup

    What

    Meetup

    Description

    This meetup is open to everyone, not just TestBash attendees.

    Join us on the 23rd of September, from 6:00 PM for our post-TestBash UK Meetup, in the Galleries at The Lowry Theatre in Salford Quays, Manchester.

    This post-TestBash Meetup is kindly sponsored by our TestBash UK Purple Belt Sponsor MOSTLY.AI!
    They've also added some yummy canapés and both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks for you all!

    More details on everything that is happening at his meetup will be added soon.
    Tickets are limited to 200, so register now via the Meetup.com site and please, please, if you can't attend, make sure you cancel your registration to give it to someone else!

    Agenda:
    6:00 pm - Arrival (drinks and canapés)
    6:30 pm - Talk: Guided Meditation on Test Data Generation by Mario Scriminaci, CPO at MOSTLY.AI

    Are you suffering from data frustrations? Do you want to start a new life free from bad data habits. Are you ready to learn new, healthy coping strategies? Join Mario, a seasoned Synthetic Data Therapist for a journey into your mind where you will encounter life-changing insights and learn about tools that will help you along the way.
    MOSTLY.AI pioneered the creation of AI-generated synthetic data. Watch the platform in action to see how it speeds up test data generation through automation, and better supports agile processes.
     

    6:45 pm - Networking
    8:00 pm - Finish

    **IMPORTANT**:
    If you want to attend TestBash UK on the 22nd and 23rd of September, you will need to purchase a ticket here.
    Registering for the Meetup only will not give you access to the conference.

    Speaker

    Mario Scriminaci
    Mario Scriminaci
    Chief Product Officer
    Mario joined MOSTLY AI in 2021 and owns responsibility for the company's products. Before joining MOSTLY AI, he worked for more than ten years at ContentWise, where his last position was VP of Product Management and Research. He started his career as a software engineer and data scientist before pursuing his passion for designing beautiful products that bring value to their users. He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Computer Engineering for Intelligent Systems from the University of Palermo.
    99 Minute Workshops

    We're bringing 99-minute workshops to the classroom. These workshops are short, focused and targeted.

  • Gareth Waterhouse
  • Workshop on The Power of Storytelling as a Tester
    Gareth Waterhouse
    99 Minute Workshop

    Workshop on The Power of Storytelling as a Tester

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Storytelling is a skill that needs to be practised and refined like any skill. It also can be applied to Software Testing in a number of ways.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Why Stories are important as a tester
    • How to structure a good story
    • How and When to use a story
    • How you can amplify your story

    Speaker

    Gareth Waterhouse
    Gareth Waterhouse
    Principal Test Engineer
    Seasoned Tester with over a decade of experience, father of two and Sunderland fan (please don't hold that against me). Always looking at ways to develop others. Regularly blog about things that I think may be of interest.
  • Beren Van Daele
  • RiskStorming Workshop
    Beren Van Daele
    99 Minute Workshop

    RiskStorming Workshop

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Learn how to build risk mitigating strategies in an interactive, visual and fun way.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understand and practice moderating a RiskStorming session
    • Facilitate prioritising quality aspects as a team
    • Identify and define risks
    • Explore different practices to prevent, mitigate risks or plan contingency plans

    Speaker

    Beren Van Daele
    Beren Van Daele
    Businessman

    I lead a company: Isle of IT

    Together with like-minded people who value communication and transparency above all else, we wish to grow a company that enables people to be themselves. Experts to the outside, a fellowship on the inside.
    Each member has the freedom to pursue their own merit, whatever that looks like, while also bearing a responsibility to the continuation and growth of the company. With full transparency, we aim to facilitate communication between members to find a balance that makes sense for themselves.

    I am a Consultant:
    I am a consultant who shapes software delivery teams to improve on their work and their understanding of quality. Once a Software Tester, sometimes a Product Owner, I travel around, meeting software crafters all across Europe to learn from and teach.

    I create things:

    • TestSphere, a testing card game that inspires and supports knowledge sharing
    • RiskStorming, a workshop that focusses the team on quality and risks
    • RiskStormingOnline.com is RiskStorming for the remote world.

    I do conferences:

    • BREWT is peer workshop for testers. (organiser)
    • ITMatters is a conference for Diversity and Inclusion in IT (support)
  • Robbie Falck
  • Replacing Strategy Documents with a Ways of Working
    Robbie Falck
    99 Minute Workshop

    Replacing Strategy Documents with a Ways of Working

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Creating strategies and unifying an agile QA team can be difficult. Why not create a visual strategy? Or even better, a visual Ways of Working!

    In this session, we will focus on identifying and analysing the activities that QAs are responsible for throughout the agile process. We'll learn from each other and work together to create a visual Ways of Working that every team member can buy into.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Identify key activities that QAs are responsible for before, during and after an agile sprint
    • Analyse the activities QAs are responsible for to identify best practises
    • Create a visual ways of working strategy of how QAs go about testing

    Speaker

    Robbie Falck
    Robbie Falck
    QA Lead
    South African / British QA Lead with over 10 years experience in QA and software development across multiple industries. Conference speaker, blog writer and bug smasher! Currently a QA Lead at Moneybox, in London.
  • Dan Ashby
  • Continuous Testing Throughout the SDLC
    Dan Ashby
    99 Minute Workshop

    Continuous Testing Throughout the SDLC

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Topics

    Description

    How comfortable are you with all the processes and activities surrounding building software?
    Think about how software comes about as a team:

    • It all starts with an idea
    • We collaborate around the idea to form requirement artefacts
    • We collaborate to for design wireframes for US and UI and pad out our requirement artefacts with this info
    • We use all of the artefacts to stem architecture design, platform design, code design
    • We write the code
    • We have operational software that we can assess
    • We deploy the operational software to production
    • We then observe, support and maintain that software in production

     
    And then we do it all over again for the next feature ideas.
    So why do many testers over focus their testing just on testing the software?
    What happens when you test the feature idea? Or the requirement artefacts? Or the design wireframes? Or the architecture and platform design? And the code design and written code too?
    Doing this actually really helps your team build quality in to the product as they perform these activities. It's the tightest possible feedback loops throughout each activity, and refactoring throughout each of these activities helps to prevent problems and bugs in the next activity.
    Come along to this 99 minute workshop so that you can:

    • Outline the various stages of the SDLC that you can apply your testing to
    • Describe the value and importance of testing throughout the SDLC
    • Use different techniques to actually test throughout these activities before a line of code has actually been written

    Learning Outcomes

    • Outline the various stages of the SDLC that you can apply your testing to
    • Describe the value and importance of testing throughout the SDLC
    • Use different techniques to actually test throughout these activities before a line of code has actually been written

    Speaker

    Dan Ashby
    Dan Ashby
    Director of Quality Services
    Proud father. Quality and Testing enthusiast, teacher, coach, mentor and servant leader. Director of Quality Services @ Ada Health. I blog at: danashby.co.uk and I'm a co-founder of the MoT Essentials (formerly the Software Testing Clinic). I love being involved in the testing community (and other communities)!
  • Louise Gibbs
  • Discover Accessibility Testing Through Exploratory Testing
    Louise Gibbs
    99 Minute Workshop

    Discover Accessibility Testing Through Exploratory Testing

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Historically, accessibility testing isn’t something that has always been encouraged within development teams. However, as organizations become more aware of the benefits of developing inclusive software, accessibility testing is becoming an essential skill for software testers. The problem is that many testers are unsure of where to start.

    Fortunately, with many of the required tools freely available in browser extensions, learning about accessibility testing could not be easier. However, like any usability-based testing, it is mostly about gaining experience. This workshop is designed to help you get started with accessibility testing by learning about some of the tools available and using them to develop those initial accessibility testing skills.

    In this session, we will start to develop our accessibility skills by first discussing the challenges some users might face when attempting to use a software application. We will then run an exploratory testing session on a software application of your choice, using different tools available in the browser extensions to learn more about how they can be used to support accessibility testing. Finally, we will create an exploratory testing charter using what we have discovered which you can take back to your office and use to help your colleagues run their own exploratory accessibility testing session.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Discuss different accessibility needs and how poor accessibility can impact someone's ability to use an application
    • Investigate how accessibility tools can be used to support an exploratory testing session with the aim of identifying accessibility issues
    • Develop a list of common accessibility issues, and accessibility tools that can help support accessibility testing

    Prerequisites

    • A laptop with access to the internet

    • Any browser that allows extensions to be downloaded, but most examples I have are from Google Chrome so this is the browser I’d recommend using for this workshop

    No prerequisite knowledge required.

    Speaker

    Louise Gibbs
    Louise Gibbs
    Senior Automation Tester
    Louise is a Senior Automation Tester at PebblePad. Her main job is to review and maintain the automated tests that are run overnight, and investigate the causes of any failures. She has also worked for companies in the e-commerce, scientific research and automotive industries, and runs a personal blog at louisegibbstest.wordpress.com, where she talks about her experiences as a software tester. She enjoys improving her testing skills and her main method for achieving this is by speaking to other Testers and discussing ideas.
  • Julia Pottinger
  • API Automation
    Julia Pottinger
    99 Minute Workshop

    API Automation

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    APIs are an essential part of an increasingly large number of applications that we use daily. APIs enable applications to exchange data and functionality easily and securely. As testers, we want to ensure that our APIs do not break and provide the expected functionality. We can automate our APIs to speed up the rate at which our checks are done.

    This workshop is geared toward persons who are new to API automation, who want a refresher or want to learn how to automate APIs using Supertest (a JS framework). In this workshop, you will learn how to get started with automating APIs using Supertest (a JS framework). We will be writing test automation for the restful-booker and the SpaceX-graphQL API.

    The workshop will cover how to automate common API requests (GET, POST and PUT), negative tests for your API as well as check that your APIs handle errors appropriately and follow the specified schema.

    During this workshop, you will also learn how to automate workflows for an API.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Automate common API requests
    • Negative tests for your API
    • Check that your APIs handle errors appropriately
    • Check that your APIs follow the specified schema
    • Automate workflows for an API

    Prerequisites

    In order to participate in this workshop, you would need to bring your laptop and have the following prerequisites:

    • Have an understanding of Javascript

    • Ideally (but not a must-have) carried out manual API tests before

    • Postman installed

    Speaker

    Julia Pottinger
    Julia Pottinger
    Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks

    Julia Pottinger is the Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks with expertise in manual, automated and API testing and training which has helped companies enhance the quality of their software through improved test coverage, faster time to market, increased process efficiency and optimized use of resources.

    Julia is passionate about sharing her knowledge and experience and contributes to the testing community through writing articles, and delivering testing content on Test Automation University as well as her Youtube Channel and blog. She also conducts testing bootcamps for persons interested in entering the field of QA.

    Links

    Youtube Channel

    Blog Website

  • Dana Aonofriesei
  • Test Automation Strategy Workshop with Cards Game
    Dana Aonofriesei
    99 Minute Workshop

    Test Automation Strategy Workshop with Cards Game

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Everybody likes playing! So I bring to your attention a workshop with cards game!
    During the workshop participants will design, debate and pitch a test automation strategy using a cards game which will facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing in a safe environment and hopefully the courage to challenge the test automation status quos.

    The workshop is not addressing programming challenges but is touching the design and architectural thinking of a test automation solution.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Test automation solutions
    • How to approach different test automation challenges
    • How to design or kick-off a test automation strategy

    Speaker

    Dana Aonofriesei
    Dana Aonofriesei
    Director of Engineering
    I started my career in Software Development 9 years ago and during this time I tried different roles and assignments, as Quality Assurance Engineer, Software Analyst, Scrum Master, Head of Product Quality, Engineering Manager in areas like banking, eprocurement, trust economy. I love working with teams, driving teams and individuals towards results and solving problems. A few keywords that describe me: sports, croissants, cheese, good coffee, competitive, positive.
  • Lena Nyström
  • Would Heu-risk It? Workshop
    Lena Nyström
    99 Minute Workshop

    Would Heu-risk It? Workshop

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Experiences and lessons learned from working with developing software since 1999 resulted in the “Would Heu-risk it?” concept. It all started with a workshop with Lisa Crispin but has since evolved into a card deck, blog posts, articles and a book draft in 2020.

    “Would Heu-risk it?” is centered around risk analysis, heuristics, patterns/anti-patterns that affect us in designing, building, testing and running software. They are 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).

    In this workshop we will combine classic risk analysis with gamification, using the “Would Heu-risk it?”card deck. Gamifying your classic risk analysis helps us overcome unconscious biases and think laterally as we plan our testing. Playing may also entice non-testers to join the party and learn exploratory testing skills. Tried-and-true techniques combined with a new approach mean better outcomes for our customers!

    Learning Outcomes

    • How thinking about the three categories can bring new risks to light
    • Techniques to uncover hidden risks while focusing on value for customers
    • How to uncover blind spots in design, solution and testing
    • How you could use games to come up with fresh testing ideas

    Speaker

    Lena Nyström
    Lena Nyström
    Engineering manager, Author and Public Speaker
    Lena has been building software since 1999. After a decade of coding they found their heart in testing and that is close to their heart even today when they focus on building organisations and growing people rather than the software itself. Continuous improvement is a core value and they believe we should all strive to keep up to date and challenge ourselves, our assumptions and the way things are done. Lena is the author and creator of "Would Heu-risk it?" (card deck and book), avid blogger, speaker and workshop facilitator. On top of that, Lena combines skills learned through the years in their day job as Engineering Manager. Lena lives outside of Stockholm, Sweden with teenage kids, partner and way too much games, sewing machines and books.
  • Nithin SS
  • The Hidden Logic of Thinking for Testers Workshop
    Nithin SS
    99 Minute Workshop

    The Hidden Logic of Thinking for Testers Workshop

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    As everyone does, we testers think too, as it is our nature. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or down-right prejudiced. However, the quality of things we do depends precisely on the quality of our thought. To systematically cultivate excellence in thought & for skilled application of the thinking process, we need to understand how our brain is modelled along with learning and exploring how to spot gaps in our thinking process.

    In the workshop, we'll question how we naturally think; how we can unleash its full potential; the art of questioning; how to challenge assumptions; modelling the thought process based on Socratic questioning & The Phoenix Checklist; Application of design thinking & meta-cognitive skills into our thinking process; thinking tools that can help to manage them; work through some real-life scenarios that model different testing problems to evaluate our thought process and suggest approaches to solve them correctly.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Outline modelling of thought process
    • Questioning the ability to think, analyse and interpret along with thinking tools that can help to manage them
    • Identify "gaps" in the thinking process and predict common critical thinking mistakes
    • Design own thinking framework to approach any testing challenges thoughtfully

    Prerequisites

    Just join with an open mind along with your experiences. We will learn, un-learn & relearn a few ideas.

    Speaker

    Nithin SS
    Nithin SS
    Head of QA
    Nithin is the founder of Synapse QA, a community space of test automation professionals and software quality advocates. He has nearly a decade of experience in the IT field with a focus on test automation delivery of web and mobile-based applications. Nithin actively runs test automation workshops, helps other professionals share their thoughts and knowledge in the Synapse QA community, and works as Engineering Manager, QA at Fave.
  • Richard Adams
  • Workshop: Let's Go Threat Modelling!
    Richard Adams
    99 Minute Workshop

    Workshop: Let's Go Threat Modelling!

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Cybersecurity is an essential part of modern software and threat modelling is a great way to identify vulnerabilities.

    People may have heard of threat modelling and S.T.R.I.D.E. but often have the question, how do you actually get started?

    In this workshop, we will learn about the core aspects of threat modelling and then get hands-on experience in carrying out attacks and thinking about how the software could be more secure.

    Hear about how I've introduced threat modelling to my team and how it is being used within my company. Know that regardless of your job title, you can get involved in threat modelling and help create more secure software.

     

    Learning Outcomes

    • Match the most common aspects of threat modelling
    • Determine an attack on a data flow diagram
    • Collaborate to assess defences against the attacks
    • Propose threat modelling with their team

    Speaker

    Richard Adams
    Richard Adams
    Senior Quality Engineer
    After my first full time job as a games tester, I've had a varied career from Gameplay Systems Designer to Software Engineer for security systems with a couple of roles in between. I've since returned to testing as I have a huge passion for testing and just love finding bugs! As well as being a Senior Test Engineer, I am also a Cyber Champion within my organisation. This means that I help drive good security practices and in particular I love getting the team involved in threat modelling. I also get free training on all things security! Out of work I love gaming and carrying on my interest in threat modelling, I have also created a card game called Threat Agents.
  • Stuart Day
  • Vernon Richards
  • Let’s Practice Coaching and Facilitation!
    Stuart Day, Vernon Richards
    99 Minute Workshop

    Let’s Practice Coaching and Facilitation!

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    This all sounds wonderful chaps but now what?!

    The challenge with Quality Coaching and Engineering roles is that they rely on a lot of interpersonal skills. We’re talking about things like:

    • Active listening
    • Team building
    • Leadership

    These are easy things to grasp conceptually but difficult to learn how to do during the day job! Ideally, we’d have really safe, consequence-free environments to practice in. Sadly, most of the time we’re in some kind of high-stakes “live rounds” situation where it feels risky to try these things.
    This is where our workshop can come in!

    Using the world famous safe MoT environment as a backdrop, we’d like to give people a taste of the coaching and facilitation skills that underpin the quality engineering work. By the end of the workshop, attendees will be able to:

    • See how their current approach differs from a quality coaching and quality engineering approach
    • Have more options at hand to deal with quality and testing challenges that crop up in their work
    • Experience using coaching skills like active listening and open questions
    • Use techniques like 1-2-4-All to get all the perspectives of the team out into the open

    Learning Outcomes

    • Experiment with coaching skills like active listening and open questions
    • Use techniques like 1-2-4-All to get all the perspectives of the team out into the open
    • Gather new perspectives on existing situations that they’re dealing with at work

    Speakers

    Stuart Day
    Stuart Day
    Head of Quality - Dunelm
    Software delivery professional with over 23 years of experience as an advocate of delivering high-quality value to customers at speed. I am a Quality Coach, Cert. Agile Coach and international speaker with a wealth of experience in both Agile, Digital and Business Agility transformation. I have a real passion for people and their success. Focusing on enabling and supporting their personal development and their career journeys. Currently, I am the Head of Quality at Dunelm Soft Furnishings, building a Culture of Quality and enabling continuous quality throughout the organisation’s technology landscape
    Vernon Richards
    Vernon Richards
    Quality Coach / Senior Quality Engineer
    I’m a Quality Coach & Tester that helps orgs, teams & individuals understand the relationship between quality & testing to help them build better products & deliver more effective services. I’ve been testing since 2002 starting with video games on PS2, Xbox & PC. It may not sound like a real job but it’s the truth! By day I’m a Senior Quality Engineer at a health tech night I run Abode of Quality. Here is one of my core values: “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude (& how you’re thinking) about the problem.” - Captain Jack Sparrow (the part in brackets was my addition though!) I believe that quality & testing problems are actually people problems in disguise! Often the cause of these problems is misaligned goals, different perspectives, low empathy for colleagues, and the list goes on. Using my coaching skills in the quality & testing space, I believe the most effective way to serve the business, is to help teams & individuals gain new perspectives about themselves & their teammates.
  • Christian Baumann
  • Recognising and Eliminating Code Smells 101
    Christian Baumann
    99 Minute Workshop

    Recognising and Eliminating Code Smells 101

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    How is your automation journey going? Are you a beginner or have you already started your journey, but are still struggling? In both cases, this workshop is for you!

    Many people get into test automation without having a profound background in programming or without receiving any proper training. They have some idea about what tool to use, gathered some basic knowledge, and managed to create some automated tests with it.

    At a certain point, you suspect that something is not quite right with your automation. Your code feels messy and maintaining it is hell, costs a lot of time and frustrates you.

    One reason for this can be code smells in your test automation projects. Code what? - you might say.

    According to Wikipedia, “[Code] smells are certain structures in the code that indicate violation of fundamental design principles and negatively impact design quality.

    Code smells can contribute a lot to the above mentioned factors of making working with your automation code feel like hell.

    This workshop has you covered, it is a practical introduction on how to deal with code smells.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Define what a code smell is
    • Identify certain code smells
    • Apply certain refactoring techniques to eliminate code smells

    Prerequisites

    Participants should:

    • have a basic understanding of programming

    • bring pen and paper, for note-taking and brainstorming

    Speaker

    Christian Baumann
    Christian Baumann
    Principal Software Tester
    Christian is a principal software tester with 15+ years of experience in the field. He has successfully held different roles in the context of testing: Test Automation Engineer, Agile Tester, Test Team Lead, Test Project Manager and Exploratory/ Functional/ Manual Tester. During his career he worked with various test (automation) tools such as Cucumber, Selenium, Watir and others using programming languages like Java, Ruby and C#, but also applied certain development/ testing methodologies such as Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). Furthermore he successfully applied different manual testing techniques, such as Agile Testing, Rapid Software Testing (RST), Black Box Software Testing (BBST), Exploratory Testing (ET) and Session Based Test Management (SBTM) or ISTQB. Christian is strongly driven by his context, always searching for the best fitting solution for a given situation. He´s able to understand business´ and people´s problems, and is always eager to learn and improve himself, while staying curios, open minded and willing to share his knowledge.
  • Kiruthika Ganesan
  • Exploring Example Mapping for User and Non-user Stories
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    99 Minute Workshop

    Exploring Example Mapping for User and Non-user Stories

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Topics

    Description

    Who writes the acceptance criteria for your stories- Product owners, Business analysts or the entire team? If the Given-When-Then scenarios are already prewritten and presented to the team, their thought process is curtailed. It might also lead to preconceived ideas and notions. This also tips the responsibility towards a single stakeholder which can prove to be dangerous. What is the alternative then?

    Discover the Power of Example Mapping!

    Example Mapping is a great way to motivate the team to adopt Behaviour Driven Development. The whole practice is about encouraging communication and collaboration between the various stakeholders. It is of prime importance in an agile setup that the Product, Dev and Tester share the same understanding and have equal partnership in the stories/features delivered. Example mapping facilitates these conversations and also goes hand in hand with the shift left approach. In a nutshell, it is a great team activity which results in substantial gains and increases in productivity.

    We will find out what Example Mapping is, how to do it and also practise it in an interactive workshop.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understand the importance of Example Mapping and how the participants can use it in their teams
    • Tips on convincing the entire team to try this approach
    • Practical implementation with use cases for all kinds of stories whether it is a user story or a non-user story
    • What more could be done with this mapping approach
    • Limitations of Example Mapping and when not to use it

    Speaker

    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Head of Quality Assurance
    I am someone who is passionate about testing and approaches testing with a holistic view. I have over 17 years of experience in the IT industry, working as a tester, developer and a trainer. I believe in the power of people and collaborating to build a safe environment where the teams can thrive and work on creating great software. I enjoy teaching and getting involved in community activities like speaking at conferences, delivering workshops. I am one of the tutors in the Coders Guild and a core member of Synapse QA-a testing community. Also, a keen advocate of Women in Tech initiatives and a global ambassador! When I am not working, I love spending time with my kids and enjoy writing short stories.
  • Marie Cruz
  • Performance Testing 101 Workshop
    Marie Cruz
    99 Minute Workshop

    Performance Testing 101 Workshop

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    In this workshop, you will understand what performance testing is and why you need to test for performance.
     
    You will also understand the difference between front-end and back-end performance testing and know the different metrics that are important when doing these two areas of performance testing.
     
    Finally, you will learn what testing tools you can use to measure the performance of an example website.
     
    This workshop will have a hands-on activity where we will run front-end performance checks as well as back-end performance checks on a sample website and give you the knowledge on how to analyse the results.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Discuss the reasons why they need to test for performance
    • Know the difference between front-end and back-end performance testing including the important metrics
    • Build up their technical experience on using tools such as Google Lighthouse and k6

    Prerequisites

    In order to participate in this workshop, you would need to bring your laptop and have the following prerequisites:

    Speaker

    Marie Cruz
    Marie Cruz
    Developer Advocate
    Marie Cruz is currently a Developer Advocate at k6.io and Grafana Labs. She is a tech blogger at testingwithmarie.com and an accessibility advocate. She is also an online course instructor at Ministry of Testing and Test Automation University.
  • Lewis Prescott
  • Create Test Reports Based on Feedback and Feelings
    Lewis Prescott
    99 Minute Workshop

    Create Test Reports Based on Feedback and Feelings

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    Ever felt like the normal test reports don’t hit the spot? Are too data-driven or don’t get read properly? In my experience, this is often the case and can feel like a waste of time.

    This workshop shows how to build user-focused reports including feedback which reflects the real user experience. We will find the relevant sources of user metrics, the difference between qualitative and quantitative metrics and also shared experiences of test reports.

    Not only will you learn a new way to tailor your test reports but you will create your own user-focused report to take back to your team.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understand what user metrics are
    • Describe the difference between Qualitative & Quantitative quality metrics
    • Write your own user metrics for your team

    Prerequisites

    Just bring your experiences, ideas and wonderful selves.

    Speaker

    Lewis Prescott
    Lewis Prescott
    QA Lead
    I'm an experienced QA Lead at Cera Care (one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies), having worked across different industries including Healthcare, Non-profit, Retail and PropTech. I am also a course author on Test Automation University & Udemy, sharing my knowledge is a passion of mine.
  • Alex Reynolds
  • Using the Power of Habits to Develop, Drive and Support Your Learning
    Alex Reynolds
    99 Minute Workshop

    Using the Power of Habits to Develop, Drive and Support Your Learning

    What

    99 Minute Workshop

    Description

    We all have habits, good ones, bad ones and many we don’t even realise we are doing every moment of every day.

    In this workshop, you will examine what habits are, how and why they are formed in our minds, the strength of habits and how we rely on them every day.

    You will then learn how to create and develop a new habit for learning, as well as use strategies from some of the Habit Experts to make it easier to stick to your new learning habit as well as review its success.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Increase your understanding of what habits are and how they are formed
    • Understand how to hack your habits to your advantage
    • Establish clear learning intentions using your knowledge of habits
    • Have a solid understanding of the 4 laws of Habits and how to apply them

    Prerequisites

    Bring your curiosity, a willingness to learn and a pen. Oh and your habits, all of your habits, even the bad ones.

    Speaker

    Alex Reynolds
    Alex Reynolds
    Quality Engineering Community Lead at Lloyds Bank
    Quality Engineer in Lloyds banking group, who started off life as a software engineer working on Radar Systems and made the logical move into the finance industry! Alex leads the QE Community in Lloyds bank with over 600 members and an active community of testers and quality engineers. Alex has a love of learning and helping people to learn and develop their own careers. He also has a keen interest in Mindfulness and Meditation and has been practicing for over 25 years. He was one of the founding members of the Mindfulness and Meditation Community in LBG 3 years ago which now boasts over 2500 members.
    Activities

    Activities are hands-on stands with activities and challenges for you to complete.

  • Nithin SS
  • Deconstructing Your Thought Process!
    Nithin SS
    Activity

    Deconstructing Your Thought Process!

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Nithin SS

    Even the most seasoned testers are vulnerable to cognitive biases and thinking traps when they test. As Testers, we need to employ our intelligence, imagination, and creativity to gain empirical information about the investigated prototype or system. Since Testing is a curiosity-driven, critical, impartial and dynamic activity, we must constantly challenge ourselves and question our methods, techniques and core beliefs. With this activity, we will explore how truly understanding and embracing the scientific methods of thinking can make us better at questioning our assumptions, staying impartial and being more credible testers. You will also learn to recognize bias and experience the importance of questioning assumptions.

    Instructions:

    A prototype/system that can be referred to generate testing ideas would be shared with the group.

    Presentation (5 mins): A brief introduction to the prototype/system under test and the materials and steps needed for the following activities.

    Explore (20 mins): The group will then explore the prototype/system by asking questions, brainstorming, and generating their test ideas/scenarios. We will be doing it in 3 stages, with 3 small sub-activities.

    Wrap-up:

    The group will then present their thought process, how they approached, the assumptions they made, how they rephrased testing requirements & how they interpreted certain information.

    Also, they will reflect on the risks associated with the reasoning process along with the steps they used to mitigate common thinking traps/biases. What worked well in their process, what can be improved, ideas to reuse while facing a similar situation etc.

    Resources:

    Learning Outcomes

    • Understanding on how to deconstruct the thought process.
    • Focus on five essential dimensions of thinking:
    • - the dispositions of thought
    • - the skills and abilities of thought
    • - the obstacles or barriers of thought
    • - the analysis of thought
    • - and the assessment of thought.

    Speaker

    Nithin SS
    Nithin SS
    Head of QA
    Nithin is the founder of Synapse QA, a community space of test automation professionals and software quality advocates. He has nearly a decade of experience in the IT field with a focus on test automation delivery of web and mobile-based applications. Nithin actively runs test automation workshops, helps other professionals share their thoughts and knowledge in the Synapse QA community, and works as Engineering Manager, QA at Fave.
  • Andy Wyatt
  • Tester Hands-on with Sauce Labs
    Andy Wyatt
    Activity

    Tester Hands-on with Sauce Labs

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Bring your own laptop and log in with full-access credentials to be able to test your own native apps or website on the Sauce Labs platform.

    ‘Live’ test on real browsers on Sauce Labs VMs or install your own native apps onto Sauce Labs real devices and test on them with the help of one of our experts.

    You can even run some of your own pre-built test automation to learn how to leverage Sauce Labs with your automation processes.


    We will be on hand to help you get up and running quickly.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Learn why you should test in the cloud rather than build your own testing infrastructure
    • See how easy it is to improve your test coverage
    • Learn how to capture your bugs and provide the information to your devs to get them fixed

    Prerequisites

    You'll need to bring your own laptop.

    Speaker

    Andy Wyatt
    Andy Wyatt
    Manager Solutions Engineering, EMEA
    Having over 30 years’ experience of working in IT, Andy has worked all over the world for organisations large and small and across nearly every vertical. Specializing in Application Development and Testing for more or less the whole of that period, it is in the last 8 years that Andy has focused solely on the cloud testing of digital applications across mobile and web platforms. This period has seen the dramatic transformations in mobile technologies across iOS and Android platforms and Andy has helped many organisations to solve the problems encountered by their development and testing teams in order to provide the best end user experiences that leverage the ever- increasing processing power available in mobile technologies.
  • Christian Baumann
  • Eliminating Code Smells
    Christian Baumann
    Activity

    Eliminating Code Smells

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Christian Baumann

    To eliminate a code smell, you first need to identify that there is a smell, and then you need to come up with a way to safely remove that smell. However, removing code smells can have many advantages, such as making your code base cleaner and thus easier to read and maintain.

    Instructions:

    Identify code smells (15 minutes)

    Have a look at the provided code examples and identify anything that you think is a code smell. Also, think about why your finding is a code smell.

    Eliminate code smells (15 minutes)

    Eliminate the found code smells by applying proper programming principles, maybe by introducing meaningful names for variables or removing duplication.

    Also, think about:

    • Advantages & disadvantages of your solution

    • How to ensure you didn’t introduce any bugs or other code smells?

    Wrap-up:

    Removing code smells is a good way to improve the code base in many ways. It speeds up development, decreases the risk of bugs & failures as well as technical debt. Also, it makes it easier to maintain the application in the future, by any programmer, including yourself.

    Resources:

    Learning Outcomes

    • Follow good programming techniques & implement good design
    • Help speed up development
    • Decrease the risk of future bugs & failures
    • Reduce the risk of technical debt

    Prerequisites

    Read and follow the instructions here.

    Speaker

    Christian Baumann
    Christian Baumann
    Principal Software Tester
    Christian is a principal software tester with 15+ years of experience in the field. He has successfully held different roles in the context of testing: Test Automation Engineer, Agile Tester, Test Team Lead, Test Project Manager and Exploratory/ Functional/ Manual Tester. During his career he worked with various test (automation) tools such as Cucumber, Selenium, Watir and others using programming languages like Java, Ruby and C#, but also applied certain development/ testing methodologies such as Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). Furthermore he successfully applied different manual testing techniques, such as Agile Testing, Rapid Software Testing (RST), Black Box Software Testing (BBST), Exploratory Testing (ET) and Session Based Test Management (SBTM) or ISTQB. Christian is strongly driven by his context, always searching for the best fitting solution for a given situation. He´s able to understand business´ and people´s problems, and is always eager to learn and improve himself, while staying curios, open minded and willing to share his knowledge.
  • James Bent
  • Author a Fully Executable Functional UI Test From Wireframes Without Ever Seeing the App
    James Bent
    Activity

    Author a Fully Executable Functional UI Test From Wireframes Without Ever Seeing the App

    What

    Activity

    Description

    As this catchy title suggests, you will be given a series of wireframes and use the Virtuoso tool to write a functional UI test. You will not see the app. You will have no information on IDs, selectors, or attributes. Just you, the tool, and a wireframe. We will then unveil the app and let you run your test against it.

    You will then see how to continue writing your test while simultaneously executing it on a headless browser. You will make a few API calls, and see how to debug the app using DevTools on the headless browser you are running your tests on. The bug, the browser, and the DevTools are all in the same environment. It’s pretty cool!

    Learning Outcomes

    • Write executable functional UI and end-2-end test from wireframes
    • Discover how far left you can shift testing
    • How to author, execute, and debug in the same environment

    Speaker

    James Bent
    James Bent
    VP of Solution Engineering
    James Bent is the "go to" Solution Engineer at Virtuoso, with a vast and detailed knowledge of automation. He keeps things simple even when talking about the most technical of topics or dealing with dynamic applications.
  • Ka Lee Gary Wong
  • Grace Tree
  • User Stories Against QA with Global Logic
    Ka Lee Gary Wong, Grace Tree
    Activity

    User Stories Against QA with Global Logic

    What

    Activity

    Description

    User Stories. One of the many ways we and our teams interact with requirements. Understanding who, what and why before digging into the how. What if we used user stories to explore how we as teams address quality challenges?

    In this interactive card game, we will create user stories that explore the art and science behind testing. Ideas we like and ones we don't. We will discuss them, test them and perhaps even generate some humour!

    Let's learn together about the tools, techniques, approaches and team dynamics that help and hinder us.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Reaffirmation of QA processes
    • Enlightened about QA stereotypes and possible ways to combat these
    • Interpersonal connections with some of our brightest QA consultants

    Speakers

    Ka Lee Gary Wong
    Ka Lee Gary Wong
    SDET
    Dependable and cheerful, been in the game for so long it can be jaded. But I still love the game. Always learning.
    Grace Tree
    Grace Tree
    Delivery Consultant | SDET
    A consultant in the test specialty for globallogic UK&I
  • Ola Omiyale
  • Put It to The Test
    Ola Omiyale
    Activity

    Put It to The Test

    What

    Activity

    Description

    A short and simple activity to demonstrate how easy it is to create and execute test automation cases with useMango.

    All you have to do is follow the step-by-step instructions, which show you how to build a simple login test case using their component-based model.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Build, Execute and De-bug an end to end testing scenario using pre-scripted components
    • Individuals with different skill sets can build automated test cases

    Speaker

    Ola Omiyale
    Ola Omiyale
    Customer Relationship Executive
    Currently helping companies speed and scale up their testing through codeless test automation. An adovcate for individuals with different skillset's participating in the test automation process!
  • Arlémi Turpault
  • API Testing and Automation with Postman
    Arlémi Turpault
    Activity

    API Testing and Automation with Postman

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Walk through writing scripts to test your response data in Postman, passing data between requests using variables, validating responses against schema, and automating your testing using dynamic faker.js data and the collection runner, defining control flow, and running collections on the command line with Newman.

    Prerequisites

    Speaker

    Arlémi Turpault
    Arlémi Turpault
    Head of Developer Advocacy
    Arlémi Turpault leads Developer Advocacy at Postman, an API platform used by 25M+ people around the world. He started his career as a software engineer doing research and development for Augmented Reality solutions, then naturally turned to developer relations as a deep advocate for great user experiences and access to knowledge. Based in London (UK), and when not interacting with other community members, he can be found reading fantasy books or pretending to be a guitar hero on Rocksmith.
  • Marie Cruz
  • Performance Testing 101 Activity
    Marie Cruz
    Activity

    Performance Testing 101 Activity

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Marie Drake.

    In this activity, we will learn about the key differences between front-end and back-end performance testing and why it’s needed to perform both. As humans, it’s been scientifically proven that our attention span has been decreasing and we have been so used to instant gratifications that if a website performs slowly, we are quick to leave the website and go to a competitor website that functions significantly faster. It is therefore vital that as software testers, you are equipped to have the necessary skills to inform your team on how to get started with performance testing.

    Instructions:

    Part 1

    In groups of 3-4, discuss the following key points:

    • Why do we need to test for performance?

    • Do you have examples or stories where you have been frustrated by a specific website due to its poor performance?

    • Do you have examples or stories that you can think of where the performance of the application that you are testing has degraded due to new feature changes?

    Part 2

    Within the same group, using post-its, try to come up with what you think are the differences between front-end and back-end performance testing. Include examples to explain the differences clearly.

    Part 3

    Whole group discussion. We will then discuss parts 1 and 2 of this activity and the moderator (Marie Drake) can provide more information when needed and clarify any questions from the group.

    Part 4

    How can you make small changes to make sure that you and your team are doing performance testing? Write down some ideas in a post-it note and discuss within your group.

     

    Wrap-up

    Performance testing, both back-end and front-end, can provide massive benefits. It’s not enough anymore for us to just make sure that our applications are functioning as expected. As software testers, we also need to consider the performance and overall user experience. Users are now quick to express their frustrations if they encounter a poorly performant website. To get started with performance testing, we must first understand the key difference between front-end and back-end performance testing.

    To make sure that it gets included, you need to identify the most important features of your website, research the expected amount of load your website is expected to have, share the findings to your team and come up with a performance testing strategy collaboratively.

    Nowadays, there are an abundance of performance testing tools available to help you with performance testing and most tools are becoming developer and tester friendly but before starting with the tools, you need to understand the fundamentals first and update your strategy as and when it’s needed.

    Learning Outcomes

    • There are key differences between front-end and back-end performance testing and it’s important to know these differences so you can better inform your team
    • Having a performance testing strategy can be beneficial for you and your teams
    • As with other types of activities, a data-driven and team-owned approach to performance testing where you can collaborate with others is key

    Speaker

    Marie Cruz
    Marie Cruz
    Developer Advocate
    Marie Cruz is currently a Developer Advocate at k6.io and Grafana Labs. She is a tech blogger at testingwithmarie.com and an accessibility advocate. She is also an online course instructor at Ministry of Testing and Test Automation University.
  • Richard Adams
  • Let's Go Threat Modelling! - Activity
    Richard Adams
    Activity

    Let's Go Threat Modelling! - Activity

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Richard Adams

    This activity is an opportunity to learn how to adopt threat modelling and what a session might look like, using Richard Adams’s card game. The goal is to show you how Threat Modelling works and also that threat modelling isn't for security engineers or lead developers. If anything, the tester mindset gives us the advantage.

    Instructions:

    1. Pick up the “Threat Model” and “Threat Modelling Table” handouts that accompany this activity.

    2. Go through each of the “Threat Agent” entries in the “Threat Modelling” table and identify a type of attack that might be carried out for each one.

    For example, for Denial of Service, we could suggest that a DDOS attack in which a Web API is flooded with requests might be an attack to be concerned about.

    Tip: Find resources online or discuss with one another what each of the threat types are and what types of attacks might be connected to them.

    Wrap-up:

    This activity shows how creating a model of a system and then applying the STRIDE mindset, can help us pick out potential threats. As testers we’re good at identifying risks and that skillset comes in handy when assessing for security threats, even if you might not know how to execute them.

    Resources:

    Learning Outcomes

    • Visual models are a great way to spot security threats
    • The STRIDE mnemonic helps us break down each of the types of threats to our system
    • A threat might have many different types of attacks related to it

    Speaker

    Richard Adams
    Richard Adams
    Senior Quality Engineer
    After my first full time job as a games tester, I've had a varied career from Gameplay Systems Designer to Software Engineer for security systems with a couple of roles in between. I've since returned to testing as I have a huge passion for testing and just love finding bugs! As well as being a Senior Test Engineer, I am also a Cyber Champion within my organisation. This means that I help drive good security practices and in particular I love getting the team involved in threat modelling. I also get free training on all things security! Out of work I love gaming and carrying on my interest in threat modelling, I have also created a card game called Threat Agents.
  • Kiruthika Ganesan
  • Employ Feature Mapping to Capture Requirements of a New Feature
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Activity

    Employ Feature Mapping to Capture Requirements of a New Feature

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Kiruthika Ganesan

    Missed requirements, how it ties up with the user journey and finding out what matters most to the customers is always a challenge. Feature Mapping is an effective discovery mechanism wherein different stakeholders can come together and explore a given functionality and get some direction on what needs to be built/considered. Can the group employ Feature Mapping and figure out the requirements to build for the said feature?

    Instructions:

    A feature with very high-level requirements would be shared with the group.

    Explore (20 mins)

    The group will then explore the feature by asking questions, brainstorming ideas and figuring out what needs to be done for the feature to come alive. This will be done in the below 2 stages;

    Stage 1: 

    • This part of the activity is to assess who will be the target audience and what will they care about the most.

    • The result of this activity is to identify the various user personas and their main motive to use this feature

    Stage 2: 

    • This part is to identify some of the finer details in the user journeys, alternate journeys, identify known risks and unknown risks, error cases, etc., with the help of positive and negative examples

    • The result of this activity is to map out the user journey in the form of sticky notes based on the various user actions performed by the identified personas.

    Eg: Persona1-Step1-Step2-Step3-Outcome

    Persona2-Step1-Step2-Step3-Outcome

     

    Wrap-up: (5 mins)

    The group will then present the feature map and explain their approach on how they decided on the user personas, the user journeys and most importantly what matters to the user.

    Also, reflect on the pending work if any. Are there any outstanding questions? Are there any other spikes or workshops needed to explore certain aspects further? Are we able to build in testability? Are there any specific test data requirements? etc.

     

    Resources

    Learning Outcomes

    • Feature Mapping provides structure to the discovery workshops and it also employs examples to explain the flows
    • Time is effectively used as the group can concentrate on users and users journeys rather than get bogged down on implementation details at the early stages
    • Common language and shared understanding of the requirements can be achieved among stakeholders. As a minimum (Dev,QA and PO) engage in this exercise
    • The identified scenarios can become excellent candidates for automated tests especially through the cucumber feature files

    Speaker

    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Head of Quality Assurance
    I am someone who is passionate about testing and approaches testing with a holistic view. I have over 17 years of experience in the IT industry, working as a tester, developer and a trainer. I believe in the power of people and collaborating to build a safe environment where the teams can thrive and work on creating great software. I enjoy teaching and getting involved in community activities like speaking at conferences, delivering workshops. I am one of the tutors in the Coders Guild and a core member of Synapse QA-a testing community. Also, a keen advocate of Women in Tech initiatives and a global ambassador! When I am not working, I love spending time with my kids and enjoy writing short stories.
  • Stuart Day
  • Vernon Richards
  • Fast Track Coaching Skills For Testers
    Stuart Day, Vernon Richards
    Activity

    Fast Track Coaching Skills For Testers

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Stu & Vernon

    Experience the core fundamentals of coaching: Unconditional positive regard, active listening and powerful questioning. Attendees split into smaller groups, and each group will rotate through each activity.

    Instructions:

    Unconditional positive regard

    Work through each provided scenario and come up with 3-5 reasons a reasonable person would make those choices.

    Active Listening

    Spend 3 mins listening to your partner talk about one of the provided topics. You are not allowed to ask any questions. As you listen, think about:

    • How are you showing your interest?
    • Where is your attention?
    • What isn’t being said?
    • How are they communicating?

    Powerful Questions

    Similar to the last exercise, except now you can ask questions!

    Wrap-up:

    Coaching is about helping people generate solutions for themselves. How well you can help people do that will depend on three things.

    • How much you believe they can create their own solution
    • The amount of space they have to explore what’s happening in their world
    • What new perspectives open up for them

    Resources:

    Four links to additional resources that expand the topic and themes of your workshop.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Believing people can solve their problems prevents you from making premature judgements and providing solutions
    • Listening to understand is more potent than listening for a chance to speak
    • Open questions are powerful and there to help the coachee, not you as the coach
    • We can use all three skills outside of explicit coaching sessions

    Speakers

    Stuart Day
    Stuart Day
    Head of Quality - Dunelm
    Software delivery professional with over 23 years of experience as an advocate of delivering high-quality value to customers at speed. I am a Quality Coach, Cert. Agile Coach and international speaker with a wealth of experience in both Agile, Digital and Business Agility transformation. I have a real passion for people and their success. Focusing on enabling and supporting their personal development and their career journeys. Currently, I am the Head of Quality at Dunelm Soft Furnishings, building a Culture of Quality and enabling continuous quality throughout the organisation’s technology landscape
    Vernon Richards
    Vernon Richards
    Quality Coach / Senior Quality Engineer
    I’m a Quality Coach & Tester that helps orgs, teams & individuals understand the relationship between quality & testing to help them build better products & deliver more effective services. I’ve been testing since 2002 starting with video games on PS2, Xbox & PC. It may not sound like a real job but it’s the truth! By day I’m a Senior Quality Engineer at a health tech night I run Abode of Quality. Here is one of my core values: “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude (& how you’re thinking) about the problem.” - Captain Jack Sparrow (the part in brackets was my addition though!) I believe that quality & testing problems are actually people problems in disguise! Often the cause of these problems is misaligned goals, different perspectives, low empathy for colleagues, and the list goes on. Using my coaching skills in the quality & testing space, I believe the most effective way to serve the business, is to help teams & individuals gain new perspectives about themselves & their teammates.
  • João Proença
  • Observability in Automated Testing
    João Proença
    Activity

    Observability in Automated Testing

    What

    Activity

    Description

    In this activity, we will explore ways to evaluate how observable your test automation environments are. Each of our working contexts is different, so it’s important to understand what are the key characteristics of an observable system and what are the strengths/limitations of your own underneath those.

    Usually, we think about observability as being product (and production) related, but it is also very important in other areas of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), namely in test automation, which we will focus on in this exercise.

    Consider the following key characteristics, as coined by Abby Bangser and Charity Majors:

    1. The only way to ask new questions is to keep the original raw data available and queryable.
      1. raw events
      2. no pre-aggregation
    2. Empower creative and shared exploration based on business context.
      1. oriented around the lifecycle of the request
      2. batched up context
      3. exploration over static dashboards
    3. Make data easy to add details to and easy to query.
      1. structured data
      2. arbitrarily wide events
      3. schema-less-ness
      4. high cardinality dimensions

    Instructions

    • Create a table like the one below for your test automation system:
    Observability Characteristics Strengths Limitations
    Keeping original raw data
    Creative and shared exploration
    Easy to add details and query data
    • Fill out what are the key strengths of your system for each key characteristic.
    • Now, focus on the limitations for each characteristic. What are the main factors that are keeping you from fulfilling those ideals
    • Review your Strengths and Limitations and think about what are the top 3 small experiments you may run in your organisation to potentially overcome the limitations and turn them into strengths. Write them down!

    Wrap-up

    Keep in mind that observability in the context of test automation relates to how well you are able to ask questions of your test runs without having to write new code and run it in your automation. A prime example of where observability matters the most in test automation is in how well you are able to find out why a test failed in a specific run, which implies having the right data available and being able to navigate it with success.

    It is easy to overlook observability beyond production systems, as we stated above, and that tends to make us underestimate the cost of not having observable systems when we are thoroughly testing our software.

    Key Takeaways:

    • True observability is achieved when you are able to ask new relevant questions of your system without having to ship new code.
    • Observability is important throughout the whole SDLC, not just in production.
    • Use small experiments over the data that you produce and / or the way you explore that data to uncover the impact it has in understanding test failures and your feedback loop.

    Resources

    Observability — A 3-Year Retrospective (Charity Majors)

    A journey to truly understanding Observability (Abby Bangser)

    Learning Outcomes

    • True observability is achieved when you are able to ask new relevant questions of your system without having to ship new code.
    • Observability is important throughout the whole SDLC, not just in production.
    • Use small experiments over the data that you produce and/or the way you explore that data to uncover the impact it has in understanding test failures and your feedback loop.

    Speaker

    João Proença
    João Proença
    Quality Engineer
    João Proença comes from Lisbon, Portugal, and is a Quality Engineer at Ada Health. He has assumed various roles throughout his career in the past 16 years, including quality assurance, development, customer support and marketing. Finding innovative solutions for difficult problems is what drives him the most, so he is always eager to talk about how professionals are overcoming testing challenges around the world. Outside of IT, João is passionate about songwriting, movies and football. You’ll see him tweet about all of these topics using the @jrosaproenca handle.
  • Dan Ashby
  • The Pen Game
    Dan Ashby
    Activity

    The Pen Game

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Dan Ashby

    In this adaptation of “The Pen Game” lateral thinking game, the challenge enables the audience to test “the system”, giving them control of testing their ideas.

    Instructions:

    OBJECTIVE: The objective of this activity is to discover the variables within the system that produces “yes” and “no” responses.

    RULES:

    • You need to discover the patterns that cause a yes and a no
    • You can control the system to test the variables that you discover within the system, to see if that variable affects the pattern.
    • You can also control the output (i.e. ask the  system to produce a “yes” or to produce a “no”)
    • We have a 20-minute time limit for this exercise.

    Wrap-up:

    To wrap up, we’ll debrief on the activity: How difficult was it? How much fun was it? What other variables can we think of in retrospect? Did anyone take testing notes and want to share?

    This activity offers a great example of investigative testing. Testing can be difficult, but it can also be fun and exciting!

    Learning Outcomes

    • Identifying the variables of the system
    • Converting ideas and hypotheses of each variable into a test idea (describing how you’d control the system in order to prove or disprove your hypothesis)
    • Discovering information about the system from your testing
    • Understanding the value in taking testing notes

    Speaker

    Dan Ashby
    Dan Ashby
    Director of Quality Services
    Proud father. Quality and Testing enthusiast, teacher, coach, mentor and servant leader. Director of Quality Services @ Ada Health. I blog at: danashby.co.uk and I'm a co-founder of the MoT Essentials (formerly the Software Testing Clinic). I love being involved in the testing community (and other communities)!
  • Beren Van Daele
  • RiskStorming
    Beren Van Daele
    Activity

    RiskStorming

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Claire Reckless & Beren Van Daele

    The RiskStorming session format is a wonderful way of generating a visible Test Strategy as a team that focuses your strategy to answer the following questions:

    1. What is important to our product?

    2. What risks could impact these important aspects?

    3. What can we do, as a team, to make sure they don't happen?

    Instructions:

    1. Understand the product under test well enough

    2. Take the 25 Quality Aspect TestsSphere cards and pick the 6 most important ones within 10 minutes

    3. Take sticky notes and add 2-3 risks per chosen TestSphere card within 10 minutes

    4. Take the other TestSphere cards and match risk mitigating activities for each Risk within 10 minutes

    Wrap-up:

    By the end of the activity, you’ll have a much better understanding of what quality actually means for your product or epic as well as what could potentially harm it. Not just you, but everyone on the team understands how they can prepare, defend and explore against risks which could severely impact the project. Quality becomes clear to everyone and everyone’s responsibility.

    Resources:

    Learning Outcomes

    • You will work as a team to discuss and describe a Test Strategy
    • You will work out a proposal to convince your manager which forces you to focus on business value and risk
    • You will use TestSphere as a tool to uncover unknown-unknowns and strengthen your strategy

    Speaker

    Beren Van Daele
    Beren Van Daele
    Businessman

    I lead a company: Isle of IT

    Together with like-minded people who value communication and transparency above all else, we wish to grow a company that enables people to be themselves. Experts to the outside, a fellowship on the inside.
    Each member has the freedom to pursue their own merit, whatever that looks like, while also bearing a responsibility to the continuation and growth of the company. With full transparency, we aim to facilitate communication between members to find a balance that makes sense for themselves.

    I am a Consultant:
    I am a consultant who shapes software delivery teams to improve on their work and their understanding of quality. Once a Software Tester, sometimes a Product Owner, I travel around, meeting software crafters all across Europe to learn from and teach.

    I create things:

    • TestSphere, a testing card game that inspires and supports knowledge sharing
    • RiskStorming, a workshop that focusses the team on quality and risks
    • RiskStormingOnline.com is RiskStorming for the remote world.

    I do conferences:

    • BREWT is peer workshop for testers. (organiser)
    • ITMatters is a conference for Diversity and Inclusion in IT (support)
  • Lena Nyström
  • Would Heu-Risk it? - Lightning Mode
    Lena Nyström
    Activity

    Would Heu-Risk it? - Lightning Mode

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Lena Wiberg

    Would Heu-risk it - Lightning mode lets you reflect on situations in your past work life and how you could use heuristics like these cards to explore your own, your team’s and your application’s strengths and weak spots.

    Instructions:

    Pick a random card

    Go to https://www.pejgan.se/WHRI

    Click the “random card” link in the top menu bar. This is your card.

    Individual reflection (10 minutes)

    Think of, and write down a few sentences about what this card means to you and a time in your work life when it was relevant.

    (Tip: If you can’t think of a time, try to imagine a situation when it would have been)

    Questions you can use to spark ideas:

    • Is this something I come across a lot?
    • What does this card mean to me?
    • How does it apply to my current scope?
    • If not, how could I imagine using it?

    There are three different categories of cards. You might have to think slightly differently depending on the category:

    Traps: A time when you fell into this trap, or you observed someone else fall into it?

    Tools: A time when you, or someone else, used this. What was the result?

    Weapons: A time when this was a problem in a project you worked on.

    Group reflection (15 minutes)

    Share your reflections around the table and add your thoughts to each other’s cards and reflections.

    If the discussion sparks new ideas and thoughts - add these to your reflection.

    As a group - summarize the discussions and reflections you had.

    Demo (5 minutes)

    Share the group reflections in the larger group.

    Did you learn something new?

    When could you use this in your team and/or own work?

    Wrap-up:

    Reflecting on our work, our strengths and weak points can be intimidating, but it’s the way we grow and become better. Using focal points like for example Would Heu-risk it, TestSphere, can help trigger new thoughts and discover new perspectives. Sharing and discussing in a group, hopefully diverse, is a great way of adding more angles and seeing things we were unaware of ourselves.

    Learning Outcomes

    • How to uncover strengths and weak points (your own, your team, your application)
    • How you could use games or focal points to come up with new ideas
    • How using reflection as a structure can help you unblock yourself and grow new skills
    • How sharing in group can add new perspectives

    Prerequisites

    Resources:

    Speaker

    Lena Nyström
    Lena Nyström
    Engineering manager, Author and Public Speaker
    Lena has been building software since 1999. After a decade of coding they found their heart in testing and that is close to their heart even today when they focus on building organisations and growing people rather than the software itself. Continuous improvement is a core value and they believe we should all strive to keep up to date and challenge ourselves, our assumptions and the way things are done. Lena is the author and creator of "Would Heu-risk it?" (card deck and book), avid blogger, speaker and workshop facilitator. On top of that, Lena combines skills learned through the years in their day job as Engineering Manager. Lena lives outside of Stockholm, Sweden with teenage kids, partner and way too much games, sewing machines and books.
  • Dana Aonofriesei
  • Play Cards and Create a Test Automation Strategy
    Dana Aonofriesei
    Activity

    Play Cards and Create a Test Automation Strategy

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Dana Aonofriesei

    Test automation strategies require collaboration, overcoming challenges and dealing with unknowns. We will simulate this by playing a cards game.

    Instructions:

    Game on! (20 minutes)

    Each group will receive a card deck (with Strategy, Challenge and Joker cards) and a given business scenario for test automation.

    Each group member picks a Strategy card from the deck.

    Discuss in the group how you will implement in your test automation strategy the approaches recommended by each Strategy card or why the recommendation is not needed in your strategy.

    Write down notes for each card (implementation details, concerns, opportunities).

    Time to spice things up! (15 minutes)

    Each group has to extract at least 2 Challenge cards and 1 Joker. If you dare, pick more cards.

    Discuss in the group how you will address those challenges or incorporate the crazy ideas suggested by the Joker.

    Write down notes for each card (implementation details, concerns, opportunities).

    Wrap-up:

    During the activity you have the opportunity to share your knowledge as well as learn from others and hopefully the opportunity to challenge the test automation status quos.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Create a brief test automation strategy
    • Apply your existing knowledge to a new use case and with a new group
    • Learn about new approaches to be considered in test automation

    Speaker

    Dana Aonofriesei
    Dana Aonofriesei
    Director of Engineering
    I started my career in Software Development 9 years ago and during this time I tried different roles and assignments, as Quality Assurance Engineer, Software Analyst, Scrum Master, Head of Product Quality, Engineering Manager in areas like banking, eprocurement, trust economy. I love working with teams, driving teams and individuals towards results and solving problems. A few keywords that describe me: sports, croissants, cheese, good coffee, competitive, positive.
  • Louise Gibbs
  • Experience Driven Accessibility Testing
    Louise Gibbs
    Activity

    Experience Driven Accessibility Testing

    What

    Activity

    Description

    One challenge testers face when doing accessibility testing is a lack of understanding of accessibility needs. It is hard to appreciate the challenges users can face without any first-hand experience of a disability. This activity is aimed at helping testers to better appreciate the challenges users with accessibility needs might face when using a software application.

    For this activity, we will be completing a series of online questionnaires. Sounds simple? To make things more interesting, we will be using the disability simulator chrome extension to help us experience the challenges some users face when using a software application. We will then attempt to complete the same form but with the aid of accessibility tools to help us understand how a user might attempt to use an application, and learn how websites can still be inaccessible even with the aid of accessibility tools.

    Speaker

    Louise Gibbs
    Louise Gibbs
    Senior Automation Tester
    Louise is a Senior Automation Tester at PebblePad. Her main job is to review and maintain the automated tests that are run overnight, and investigate the causes of any failures. She has also worked for companies in the e-commerce, scientific research and automotive industries, and runs a personal blog at louisegibbstest.wordpress.com, where she talks about her experiences as a software tester. She enjoys improving her testing skills and her main method for achieving this is by speaking to other Testers and discussing ideas.
  • Alex Reynolds
  • Start a New Habit
    Alex Reynolds
    Activity

    Start a New Habit

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Alex Reynolds

    The first step into defining new behavior and habit is to understand where we are now and have a clear view of the present moment. The Habit Map is a perfect way of identifying our regular habits, and the likely actions we are to take through the course of the day. By understanding this it allows for a clearer intention to be set for a new habit, one that is more realistic, bounded by data and more likely to be achieved.

    Instructions:

    Identify (10 mins)

    Discuss as a group the habits you would like to start, this could range from learning, to starting a new hobby, introducing a new mechanism at work, or ensuring time for self care.

    Map (15 mins)

    Create a Habit map of existing habits, identifying those that are value add activities and those that are waste activities and the impact they have on cognitive load.

    Set an intention (5 mins)

    Define an intention for your new behavior and share with the group showing what you have learned about your habits and what you hope to gain from this new one.

    Wrap-up:

    By exploring your own habits,and  developing a map of the things that you do on a regular basis, provide you with a powerful insight into current behaviours and can support your personal development by identifying areas you want to make change. This will lead to creating a new positive habit (such as a learning habit) and define a clear intention to achieve it.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Habit mapping is a useful tool to understand behaviour.
    • We can use Habit Maps at an individual, team and wider level.
    • Habit Mapping can lead us to alter behavior in a more scientific manner.
    • Habit Mapping allows us to set clear intentions for new behaviour.

    Speaker

    Alex Reynolds
    Alex Reynolds
    Quality Engineering Community Lead at Lloyds Bank
    Quality Engineer in Lloyds banking group, who started off life as a software engineer working on Radar Systems and made the logical move into the finance industry! Alex leads the QE Community in Lloyds bank with over 600 members and an active community of testers and quality engineers. Alex has a love of learning and helping people to learn and develop their own careers. He also has a keen interest in Mindfulness and Meditation and has been practicing for over 25 years. He was one of the founding members of the Mindfulness and Meditation Community in LBG 3 years ago which now boasts over 2500 members.
  • Julia Pottinger
  • API Automation Activity
    Julia Pottinger
    Activity

    API Automation Activity

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Julia Pottinger

    Select the things you would include in your automated tests for a specific API and then select one of those tests to write an automated script for using supertest.

    Instructions:

    API Link - <TBD find API for Activity>

    Part 1 - 10 mins

    Using the API above and the guide on ‘how to decide which tests you should be automating for your API’ that was shared in the Next Level API Automation talk, create a list of scenarios that:

    1. Would be included in your API automation
    2. Would not be included in your API automation and why

    Part 2 - 15 mins

    1. Clone the repo that was used in the API automation workshop https://github.com/jpott77/api-automation-supertest
    2. Select one of the tests that you would include in your API automation and write the code to automate it

    Demo - 5 mins

    • Share what you would include or not include in your API automation and why
    • Share the automated test you wrote for the API

    Wrap-up:

    API automation as with all other forms of test automation requires some thought and planning to ensure that you reap the intended rewards. API automation is valuable in the way it can speed up tests, help test at an earlier phase in the SDLC without the need for GUI’s and increase the scope of tests as API-level tests are specifically designed to verify that all system components function as intended.

    This activity should have allowed you to think about why you automate certain scenarios over others and give you practice with writing automation scripts.

    Learning Outcomes

    • How to automate APIs in JavaScript
    • API testing checklist
    • How to decide what should be included in your API automation

    Speaker

    Julia Pottinger
    Julia Pottinger
    Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks

    Julia Pottinger is the Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks with expertise in manual, automated and API testing and training which has helped companies enhance the quality of their software through improved test coverage, faster time to market, increased process efficiency and optimized use of resources.

    Julia is passionate about sharing her knowledge and experience and contributes to the testing community through writing articles, and delivering testing content on Test Automation University as well as her Youtube Channel and blog. She also conducts testing bootcamps for persons interested in entering the field of QA.

    Links

    Youtube Channel

    Blog Website

  • Gareth Waterhouse
  • Storytelling for Testers - The Activity
    Gareth Waterhouse
    Activity

    Storytelling for Testers - The Activity

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Gareth Waterhouse

    This activity will involve you writing and sharing stories, gathering feedback about the story and then applying that feedback and tips to a new scenario to (hopefully) achieve a greater impact.

    Instructions:

    Write up/plan out your story (5 minutes)

    This will involve you writing up the bug that you have just found and wish to tell a developer on your team, if you’re struggling to think of one, we will have examples that can be used :)

    Share your story (5 minutes)

    Share your story with people in the group and talk them through the bug as you would a developer on your team.

    Feedback on the stories (5 minutes)

    We’ll go around the group, and give 1 piece of advice about writing stories, was there something you particularly liked about one of the stories? Or something that could be improved upon perhaps?

    Create a scenario-based story (10 minutes)

    On the table, there will be cards with “scenarios”. The aim here is to use the feedback in the previous stage and write up a story based on that scenario.

    Share your story (5 minutes)

    Those that feel comfortable can share their scenario-based story with the group and get some quick feedback on them.

    Wrap-up:

    There are a number of ways you can structure a story, it very much depends on who you are telling it to, and what you want to get out of it. Bearing these things in mind when creating your story, or telling your story, will help you get the most out of it and hopefully achieve a positive outcome.

    Resources:

    Learning Outcomes

    • Start with Why - Why are you telling this story? Identify what you want to get out of it to help you shape the story.
    • Think about Who - Who are you telling this story to? What information is important to them? What information isn’t important to them?
    • Think about How - How are you going to tell this story? Will visual aids help? Is it a quick conversation?
    • Stories are powerful - They can make the listener(s) feel empathy and hopefully help you achieve the outcome you wanted.

    Speaker

    Gareth Waterhouse
    Gareth Waterhouse
    Principal Test Engineer
    Seasoned Tester with over a decade of experience, father of two and Sunderland fan (please don't hold that against me). Always looking at ways to develop others. Regularly blog about things that I think may be of interest.
  • Robbie Falck
  • Create a High Level Visual Ways of Working
    Robbie Falck
    Activity

    Create a High Level Visual Ways of Working

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Robbie Falck

    Learn how to create a high-level visual Ways of Working (WoW) strategy outlining the key responsibilities and activities that QAs undertake before, during and after a sprint.

    Instructions:

    Brainstorm (20 minutes)

    Brainstorm the activities and responsibilities that QAs undertake within an agile sprint. Split these activities into 3 sections: before a sprint starts (shifting left), during a sprint and after a sprint (shifting right). You’ll be able to get ideas from a real work example of a WoW that Robbie and his team built.

    To do this, you will need to interact with the others doing the activity with you, brainstorm ideas together, ask questions as to how other people work and together learn and agree on what responsibilities should go into your WoW. You’ll be taking notes as you go.

    Mindmap (10 minutes)

    Reflect on your brainstorming notes and start to build a high level visual representation of your WoW. You’ll be given a sprint timeline outlining the 3 states of before, during and after a sprint and start creating your mindmap from there.

    Demo (5 minutes)

    Show your WoW to your other team members and how you have gone about structuring your WoW. See how others have done it and learn from what they have deemed important in their WoW mindmap.

    Wrap-up:

    You should now have a good high level idea of the activities a QA is responsible for throughout an agile sprint and how your team differs and can learn from others. You’ll have a great template to take home and continue to work on a more indepth strategic WoW with your own team.

    Learning Outcomes

    • You will have identified and analysed activities that QAs undertake within a sprint cycle.
    • You’ll have learnt from others on how they go about involving QAs and generate ideas that might help your team going forward.
    • You’ll have made a start on a WoW that you can take home and build on with your team.

    Speaker

    Robbie Falck
    Robbie Falck
    QA Lead
    South African / British QA Lead with over 10 years experience in QA and software development across multiple industries. Conference speaker, blog writer and bug smasher! Currently a QA Lead at Moneybox, in London.
  • Lewis Prescott
  • The Most Awesome User-focused Dashboard
    Lewis Prescott
    Activity

    The Most Awesome User-focused Dashboard

    What

    Activity

    Description

    Curated by Lewis Prescott

    Design the best user-focused dashboard you’ve ever seen.

    Instructions:

    Complain (5 mins)

    Vent and explain what is wrong with testing/monitoring dashboards today? What value do they hold and who are the people who actually look at the dashboards?

     

    Generate ideas (10 mins)

    What should be on a user dashboard? Add your ideas and headings to the board.

     

    Make it pretty (10 mins)

    Draw and colour in the charts, graphs and metrics.

     

    Demo (5 mins)

    Walk us through the most awesome user-focused dashboard. What are the most important metrics to display on a dashboard which represents the user?

    Wrap-up:

    Creating a user-focused dashboard helps us focus on why we are building software and keeps the core things the user really cares about. Comparing current dashboard metrics and visuals with the user focused aspirational view will be an interesting comparison.

    Learning Outcomes

    • Dashboards help visual metrics of user data
    • We can create user-focused dashboards
    • Metrics can be boring without colour and charts to bring them alive
    • Dashboards are only useful if they are monitored regularly

    Speaker

    Lewis Prescott
    Lewis Prescott
    QA Lead
    I'm an experienced QA Lead at Cera Care (one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies), having worked across different industries including Healthcare, Non-profit, Retail and PropTech. I am also a course author on Test Automation University & Udemy, sharing my knowledge is a passion of mine.
    AMA Bar

    This is the place to come to chat with speakers, community members and get those burning questions answered.

  • Julia Pottinger
  • AMA: API Automation with Julia Pottinger
    Julia Pottinger
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: API Automation with Julia Pottinger

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

     

     

    Speaker

    Julia Pottinger
    Julia Pottinger
    Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks

    Julia Pottinger is the Head of Training and Development at QualityWorks with expertise in manual, automated and API testing and training which has helped companies enhance the quality of their software through improved test coverage, faster time to market, increased process efficiency and optimized use of resources.

    Julia is passionate about sharing her knowledge and experience and contributes to the testing community through writing articles, and delivering testing content on Test Automation University as well as her Youtube Channel and blog. She also conducts testing bootcamps for persons interested in entering the field of QA.

    Links

    Youtube Channel

    Blog Website

  • Dana Aonofriesei
  • AMA: Test Automation Strategy with Dana Aonofriesei
    Dana Aonofriesei
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Test Automation Strategy with Dana Aonofriesei

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Dana Aonofriesei
    Dana Aonofriesei
    Director of Engineering
    I started my career in Software Development 9 years ago and during this time I tried different roles and assignments, as Quality Assurance Engineer, Software Analyst, Scrum Master, Head of Product Quality, Engineering Manager in areas like banking, eprocurement, trust economy. I love working with teams, driving teams and individuals towards results and solving problems. A few keywords that describe me: sports, croissants, cheese, good coffee, competitive, positive.
  • Kiruthika Ganesan
  • AMA: Example Mapping with Kika Ganesan
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Example Mapping with Kika Ganesan

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Kiruthika Ganesan
    Head of Quality Assurance
    I am someone who is passionate about testing and approaches testing with a holistic view. I have over 17 years of experience in the IT industry, working as a tester, developer and a trainer. I believe in the power of people and collaborating to build a safe environment where the teams can thrive and work on creating great software. I enjoy teaching and getting involved in community activities like speaking at conferences, delivering workshops. I am one of the tutors in the Coders Guild and a core member of Synapse QA-a testing community. Also, a keen advocate of Women in Tech initiatives and a global ambassador! When I am not working, I love spending time with my kids and enjoy writing short stories.
  • Petros Plakogiannis
  • AMA: Athens Meetup with Petros Plakogiannis - Day One
    Petros Plakogiannis
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Athens Meetup with Petros Plakogiannis - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    Meetups are an essential part of our Testing community. Run by dedicated and passionate testers, Meetups are a great place to network and learn and can be great fun. We love our Meetups so much we've invited three of our international Meetup hosts to share their experiences of running a meetup and give you an opportunity to learn what it's like attending a meetup or running your own. In this session, you'll be able to meet Petros, learn about his story and ask him anything about the famous Athens Meetup.

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar.

     

    Speaker

    Petros Plakogiannis
    Petros Plakogiannis
    Test Team Lead
    Petros Plakogiannis lives in Greece. He has graduated from the University of Piraeus and the Technological Educational Institute of Crete. He has been working professionally as a software tester for 12 years, with strong focus on automated testing using various tools like QTP, Selenium, Protractor, Cypress etc. He also has a significant experience in white box testing, application testing (desktop, web, and mobile), and security testing. He travels a lot and supports customers onsite by providing information regarding automation testing. Petros is also the main organizer of the Ministry of Testing Athens meetups and is very active in the testing community.
  • Thomas Shipley
  • Luke Masterman
  • Samer Naqvi
  • AMA: A Career in Consulting as a Tester - Global Logic with Thomas, Luke and Samer - Day One
    Thomas Shipley, Luke Masterman, Samer Naqvi
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: A Career in Consulting as a Tester - Global Logic with Thomas, Luke and Samer - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Topics

    Description

    A Career in Consulting as a Tester

    Have you ever considered working as a consultant? The opportunity to learn from multiple clients as you help them achieve their quality goals. Or perhaps you have worked with consultants in the past and want to understand how to get the best from them in your team.

     

    Come talk to us - GlobalLogic - about the highs and lows of consulting as a QA. How we help clients with tight deadlines, ambitious projects and occasionally tricky customers. Even if you are not considering a career in consulting there is a lot we can learn from each other about the management of projects, people and quality expectations. All valuable skills to explore and take back to discuss with your team.

     

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speakers

    Thomas Shipley
    Thomas Shipley
    Head of QA @ GlobalLogic
    Hi. I am Thomas Shipley and I work in Quality Advocacy. My career is focused on understanding what others in a team are doing. The impact of planned work, managing the expectations of stakeholders and analysing development changes. By asking questions of a team I can better understand the impacts of these changes. Understanding more I begin to coach teams. Sharing my expertise in testing with the team so they can start thinking more like testers themselves. I mentor, pair, persuade and promote towards my goal of shared quality ownership. Sometimes this is challenging but often worth it!
    Luke Masterman
    Luke Masterman
    Test Architect
    Worked in test automation for 9 years covering all aspects of functional testing
    Samer Naqvi
    Samer Naqvi
    Senior Delivery Consultant
    I am an Test Architect/SDET with over 16 years of experience in QA focusing on test design, processes, automation and leadership . I am currently working as a Practice Lead in HSBC via Global Logic. I have spoken at various different conferences with the aim of spreading QA best practices.
  • Ola Omiyale
  • AMA: useMango with Ola Omiyale - Day One
    Ola Omiyale
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: useMango with Ola Omiyale - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Ola Omiyale
    Ola Omiyale
    Customer Relationship Executive
    Currently helping companies speed and scale up their testing through codeless test automation. An adovcate for individuals with different skillset's participating in the test automation process!
  • Clare Norman
  • AMA: Quality Coaching with Clare Norman
    Clare Norman
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Quality Coaching with Clare Norman

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Clare Norman
    Clare Norman
    Quality Assurance Analyst
    I am a colourful tester based in beautiful North Wales. I fell into testing around 5 years ago and I've never looked back. I love the blend of logic and creativity required. I love to make sketchnotes of the talks I listen to within the testing community as a way of bringing some colour into testing. I love the human aspect of testing. In particular I love reading about psychology and working to understand how people use software. I'm currently the sole tester in my company and experimenting with some aspects of quality coaching has allowed me to have a bigger impact on quality than testing alone.
  • Arlémi Turpault
  • AMA: Postman with Arlemi Turpault - Day One
    Arlémi Turpault
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Postman with Arlemi Turpault - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from activity, challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Arlémi Turpault
    Arlémi Turpault
    Head of Developer Advocacy
    Arlémi Turpault leads Developer Advocacy at Postman, an API platform used by 25M+ people around the world. He started his career as a software engineer doing research and development for Augmented Reality solutions, then naturally turned to developer relations as a deep advocate for great user experiences and access to knowledge. Based in London (UK), and when not interacting with other community members, he can be found reading fantasy books or pretending to be a guitar hero on Rocksmith.
  • James Bent
  • AMA: Virtuoso with James Bent - Day One
    James Bent
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Virtuoso with James Bent - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    James Bent
    James Bent
    VP of Solution Engineering
    James Bent is the "go to" Solution Engineer at Virtuoso, with a vast and detailed knowledge of automation. He keeps things simple even when talking about the most technical of topics or dealing with dynamic applications.
  • Andy Wyatt
  • AMA: Sauce Labs with Andy Wyatt - Day One
    Andy Wyatt
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Sauce Labs with Andy Wyatt - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Andy Wyatt
    Andy Wyatt
    Manager Solutions Engineering, EMEA
    Having over 30 years’ experience of working in IT, Andy has worked all over the world for organisations large and small and across nearly every vertical. Specializing in Application Development and Testing for more or less the whole of that period, it is in the last 8 years that Andy has focused solely on the cloud testing of digital applications across mobile and web platforms. This period has seen the dramatic transformations in mobile technologies across iOS and Android platforms and Andy has helped many organisations to solve the problems encountered by their development and testing teams in order to provide the best end user experiences that leverage the ever- increasing processing power available in mobile technologies.
  • Hilary Weaver
  • AMA: Detroit Meetup with Hilary Weaver-Robb - Day One
    Hilary Weaver
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Detroit Meetup with Hilary Weaver-Robb - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    Meetups are an essential part of our Testing community. Run by dedicated and passionate testers, Meetups are a great place to network and learn and can be great fun. We love our Meetups so much we've invited three of our international Meetup hosts to share their experiences of running a meetup and give you an opportunity to learn what it's like attending a meetup or running your own. In this session, you'll be able to meet Hilary, learn about her story and ask her anything about the famous Detroit Meetup.

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar.

    Speaker

    Hilary Weaver
    Hilary Weaver
    Sr. Quality Engineer
    Hilary Weaver is a Sr. Quality Engineer near Detroit. She is a mentor to her fellow testers, makes friends with developers, and focuses a lot on API testing, and diving into the code as a tester. Hilary has always been passionate about improving the relationships between developers and testers, and evangelizes software testing as a rewarding, viable career. She runs the Motor City Software Testers user group, working to build a community of quality advocates. Hilary tweets (a lot) as @g33klady, and you can find her thoughts and experiences in the testing world, at g33klady.com.
  • Simon Prior
  • AMA: Culture of Quality with Simon Prior
    Simon Prior
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Culture of Quality with Simon Prior

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Simon Prior
    Simon Prior
    Head of QA @ easyJet
    Simon is heading up the QA teams at EasyJet. In his career he has worked in various roles across IT from C++ developer, Scrum Master, Build Engineer before finally finding his passion in Testing. He's worked in various domains from CyberSecurity, Gaming/Gambling and now the Airline industry. He has a keen interest in finding ways to improve the testing process and ensuring products are released with the highest possible quality. He also loves coaching/mentoring his team to be the best they can, enabling them to use all possible tools and skills to get their job done to the best of their ability Simon is a well known speaker and meetup organiser in the Software Testing world, a Podcast co-host (check out TestingPeers.com) and also a keen advocate for companies to consider Neurodiversity as part of their inclusion programmes. Simon was recently awarded Testing Manager of the Year at the European Software Testing Awards, with a mention to his great people management and contributions to the wider testing community.
  • Conor Fitzgerald
  • AMA: Cork Meetup with Conor Fitzgerald - Day One
    Conor Fitzgerald
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Cork Meetup with Conor Fitzgerald - Day One

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    Meetups are an essential part of our Testing community. Run by dedicated and passionate testers, Meetups are a great place to network and learn and can be great fun. We love our Meetups so much we've invited three of our international Meetup hosts to share their experiences of running a meetup and give you an opportunity to learn what it's like attending a meetup or running your own. In this session, you'll be able to meet Conor, learn about his story and ask him anything about the famous Cork Meetup.

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar.

    Speaker

    Conor Fitzgerald
    Conor Fitzgerald
    Engineering Manager - Quality
    Conor Fitzgerald is a Quality Advocate with over 15 years of experience. He is passionate about whole team testing and working with teams on quality improvements. Currently, he is working as an Engineering Manager(Quality) for Poppulo| FWI in Cork, Ireland. He has spoken at a number of conferences in recent years, including SoftTestDublin, TestBash, OnlineTestConf, AgileLeanInternational, Romania Testing Conference and RebelCon. Conor is an active member of the test community and is a Co-Founder of the Ministry of Testing Cork. Previous positions included Test Consultant, Test Lead/Manager, and Automation focused roles. These positions were held in a wide variety of industries from embedded systems to financial systems with companies ranging from startups to large multinationals such as Intel. Occasionally blogs at conorfi.com and frequently tweets at @conorfi.
  • Alex Reynolds
  • AMA: Power of Habit with Alex Reynolds
    Alex Reynolds
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Power of Habit with Alex Reynolds

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Alex Reynolds
    Alex Reynolds
    Quality Engineering Community Lead at Lloyds Bank
    Quality Engineer in Lloyds banking group, who started off life as a software engineer working on Radar Systems and made the logical move into the finance industry! Alex leads the QE Community in Lloyds bank with over 600 members and an active community of testers and quality engineers. Alex has a love of learning and helping people to learn and develop their own careers. He also has a keen interest in Mindfulness and Meditation and has been practicing for over 25 years. He was one of the founding members of the Mindfulness and Meditation Community in LBG 3 years ago which now boasts over 2500 members.
  • Marie Cruz
  • AMA: Performance Testing 101 with Marie Drake
    Marie Cruz
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Performance Testing 101 with Marie Drake

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Marie Cruz
    Marie Cruz
    Developer Advocate
    Marie Cruz is currently a Developer Advocate at k6.io and Grafana Labs. She is a tech blogger at testingwithmarie.com and an accessibility advocate. She is also an online course instructor at Ministry of Testing and Test Automation University.
  • Robbie Falck
  • AMA: Visual Ways of Working with Robbie Falck
    Robbie Falck
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Visual Ways of Working with Robbie Falck

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Robbie Falck
    Robbie Falck
    QA Lead
    South African / British QA Lead with over 10 years experience in QA and software development across multiple industries. Conference speaker, blog writer and bug smasher! Currently a QA Lead at Moneybox, in London.
  • Conor Fitzgerald
  • AMA: Cork Meetup with Conor Fitzgerald - Day Two
    Conor Fitzgerald
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Cork Meetup with Conor Fitzgerald - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    Meetups are an essential part of our Testing community. Run by dedicated and passionate testers, Meetups are a great place to network and learn and can be great fun. We love our Meetups so much we've invited three of our international Meetup hosts to share their experiences of running a meetup and give you an opportunity to learn what it's like attending a meetup or running your own. In this session, you'll be able to meet Conor, learn about his story and ask him anything about the famous Cork Meetup.

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar.

    Speaker

    Conor Fitzgerald
    Conor Fitzgerald
    Engineering Manager - Quality
    Conor Fitzgerald is a Quality Advocate with over 15 years of experience. He is passionate about whole team testing and working with teams on quality improvements. Currently, he is working as an Engineering Manager(Quality) for Poppulo| FWI in Cork, Ireland. He has spoken at a number of conferences in recent years, including SoftTestDublin, TestBash, OnlineTestConf, AgileLeanInternational, Romania Testing Conference and RebelCon. Conor is an active member of the test community and is a Co-Founder of the Ministry of Testing Cork. Previous positions included Test Consultant, Test Lead/Manager, and Automation focused roles. These positions were held in a wide variety of industries from embedded systems to financial systems with companies ranging from startups to large multinationals such as Intel. Occasionally blogs at conorfi.com and frequently tweets at @conorfi.
  • Dan Ashby
  • AMA: SDLC with Dan Ashby
    Dan Ashby
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: SDLC with Dan Ashby

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Dan Ashby
    Dan Ashby
    Director of Quality Services
    Proud father. Quality and Testing enthusiast, teacher, coach, mentor and servant leader. Director of Quality Services @ Ada Health. I blog at: danashby.co.uk and I'm a co-founder of the MoT Essentials (formerly the Software Testing Clinic). I love being involved in the testing community (and other communities)!
  • Gareth Waterhouse
  • AMA: Storytelling as a Tester with Gareth Waterhouse
    Gareth Waterhouse
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Storytelling as a Tester with Gareth Waterhouse

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Gareth Waterhouse
    Gareth Waterhouse
    Principal Test Engineer
    Seasoned Tester with over a decade of experience, father of two and Sunderland fan (please don't hold that against me). Always looking at ways to develop others. Regularly blog about things that I think may be of interest.
  • Lewis Prescott
  • AMA: User Driven Test Reports with Lewis Prescott
    Lewis Prescott
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: User Driven Test Reports with Lewis Prescott

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Lewis Prescott
    Lewis Prescott
    QA Lead
    I'm an experienced QA Lead at Cera Care (one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies), having worked across different industries including Healthcare, Non-profit, Retail and PropTech. I am also a course author on Test Automation University & Udemy, sharing my knowledge is a passion of mine.
  • Hilary Weaver
  • AMA: Detroit Meetup with Hilary Weaver-Robb - Day Two
    Hilary Weaver
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Detroit Meetup with Hilary Weaver-Robb - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    Meetups are an essential part of our Testing community. Run by dedicated and passionate testers, Meetups are a great place to network and learn and can be great fun. We love our Meetups so much we've invited three of our international Meetup hosts to share their experiences of running a meetup and give you an opportunity to learn what it's like attending a meetup or running your own. In this session, you'll be able to meet Hilary, learn about her story and ask her anything about the famous Detroit Meetup.

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar.

    Speaker

    Hilary Weaver
    Hilary Weaver
    Sr. Quality Engineer
    Hilary Weaver is a Sr. Quality Engineer near Detroit. She is a mentor to her fellow testers, makes friends with developers, and focuses a lot on API testing, and diving into the code as a tester. Hilary has always been passionate about improving the relationships between developers and testers, and evangelizes software testing as a rewarding, viable career. She runs the Motor City Software Testers user group, working to build a community of quality advocates. Hilary tweets (a lot) as @g33klady, and you can find her thoughts and experiences in the testing world, at g33klady.com.
  • Richard Adams
  • AMA: Threat Modelling with Richard Adams
    Richard Adams
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Threat Modelling with Richard Adams

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Richard Adams
    Richard Adams
    Senior Quality Engineer
    After my first full time job as a games tester, I've had a varied career from Gameplay Systems Designer to Software Engineer for security systems with a couple of roles in between. I've since returned to testing as I have a huge passion for testing and just love finding bugs! As well as being a Senior Test Engineer, I am also a Cyber Champion within my organisation. This means that I help drive good security practices and in particular I love getting the team involved in threat modelling. I also get free training on all things security! Out of work I love gaming and carrying on my interest in threat modelling, I have also created a card game called Threat Agents.
  • Andy Wyatt
  • AMA: Sauce Labs with Andy Wyatt - Day Two
    Andy Wyatt
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Sauce Labs with Andy Wyatt - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Andy Wyatt
    Andy Wyatt
    Manager Solutions Engineering, EMEA
    Having over 30 years’ experience of working in IT, Andy has worked all over the world for organisations large and small and across nearly every vertical. Specializing in Application Development and Testing for more or less the whole of that period, it is in the last 8 years that Andy has focused solely on the cloud testing of digital applications across mobile and web platforms. This period has seen the dramatic transformations in mobile technologies across iOS and Android platforms and Andy has helped many organisations to solve the problems encountered by their development and testing teams in order to provide the best end user experiences that leverage the ever- increasing processing power available in mobile technologies.
  • James Bent
  • AMA: Virtuoso with James Bent - Day Two
    James Bent
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Virtuoso with James Bent - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    James Bent
    James Bent
    VP of Solution Engineering
    James Bent is the "go to" Solution Engineer at Virtuoso, with a vast and detailed knowledge of automation. He keeps things simple even when talking about the most technical of topics or dealing with dynamic applications.
  • Nithin SS
  • AMA: Hidden Logic of Thinking for Testers with Nithin SS
    Nithin SS
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Hidden Logic of Thinking for Testers with Nithin SS

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Nithin SS
    Nithin SS
    Head of QA
    Nithin is the founder of Synapse QA, a community space of test automation professionals and software quality advocates. He has nearly a decade of experience in the IT field with a focus on test automation delivery of web and mobile-based applications. Nithin actively runs test automation workshops, helps other professionals share their thoughts and knowledge in the Synapse QA community, and works as Engineering Manager, QA at Fave.
  • Lena Nyström
  • AMA: Would Heu-risk It? with Lena Wiberg
    Lena Nyström
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Would Heu-risk It? with Lena Wiberg

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Lena Nyström
    Lena Nyström
    Engineering manager, Author and Public Speaker
    Lena has been building software since 1999. After a decade of coding they found their heart in testing and that is close to their heart even today when they focus on building organisations and growing people rather than the software itself. Continuous improvement is a core value and they believe we should all strive to keep up to date and challenge ourselves, our assumptions and the way things are done. Lena is the author and creator of "Would Heu-risk it?" (card deck and book), avid blogger, speaker and workshop facilitator. On top of that, Lena combines skills learned through the years in their day job as Engineering Manager. Lena lives outside of Stockholm, Sweden with teenage kids, partner and way too much games, sewing machines and books.
  • Ola Omiyale
  • AMA: useMango with Ola Omiyale - Day Two
    Ola Omiyale
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: useMango with Ola Omiyale - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi

    Speaker

    Ola Omiyale
    Ola Omiyale
    Customer Relationship Executive
    Currently helping companies speed and scale up their testing through codeless test automation. An adovcate for individuals with different skillset's participating in the test automation process!
  • Thomas Shipley
  • Luke Masterman
  • Samer Naqvi
  • AMA: A Career in Consulting as a Tester - Global Logic with Thomas, Luke and Samer - Day Two
    Thomas Shipley, Luke Masterman, Samer Naqvi
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: A Career in Consulting as a Tester - Global Logic with Thomas, Luke and Samer - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Topics

    Description

    A Career in Consulting as a Tester

    Have you ever considered working as a consultant? The opportunity to learn from multiple clients as you help them achieve their quality goals. Or perhaps you have worked with consultants in the past and want to understand how to get the best from them in your team.

     

    Come talk to us - GlobalLogic - about the highs and lows of consulting as a QA. How we help clients with tight deadlines, ambitious projects and occasionally tricky customers. Even if you are not considering a career in consulting there is a lot we can learn from each other about the management of projects, people and quality expectations. All valuable skills to explore and take back to discuss with your team.

     

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from the activity or challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speakers

    Thomas Shipley
    Thomas Shipley
    Head of QA @ GlobalLogic
    Hi. I am Thomas Shipley and I work in Quality Advocacy. My career is focused on understanding what others in a team are doing. The impact of planned work, managing the expectations of stakeholders and analysing development changes. By asking questions of a team I can better understand the impacts of these changes. Understanding more I begin to coach teams. Sharing my expertise in testing with the team so they can start thinking more like testers themselves. I mentor, pair, persuade and promote towards my goal of shared quality ownership. Sometimes this is challenging but often worth it!
    Luke Masterman
    Luke Masterman
    Test Architect
    Worked in test automation for 9 years covering all aspects of functional testing
    Samer Naqvi
    Samer Naqvi
    Senior Delivery Consultant
    I am an Test Architect/SDET with over 16 years of experience in QA focusing on test design, processes, automation and leadership . I am currently working as a Practice Lead in HSBC via Global Logic. I have spoken at various different conferences with the aim of spreading QA best practices.
  • Arlémi Turpault
  • AMA: Postman with Arlemi Turpault - Day Two
    Arlémi Turpault
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Postman with Arlemi Turpault - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask our awesome sponsors those burning questions you got from activity, challenge, or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Arlémi Turpault
    Arlémi Turpault
    Head of Developer Advocacy
    Arlémi Turpault leads Developer Advocacy at Postman, an API platform used by 25M+ people around the world. He started his career as a software engineer doing research and development for Augmented Reality solutions, then naturally turned to developer relations as a deep advocate for great user experiences and access to knowledge. Based in London (UK), and when not interacting with other community members, he can be found reading fantasy books or pretending to be a guitar hero on Rocksmith.
  • Petros Plakogiannis
  • AMA: Athens Meetup with Petros Plakogiannis - Day Two
    Petros Plakogiannis
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Athens Meetup with Petros Plakogiannis - Day Two

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    Meetups are an essential part of our Testing community. Run by dedicated and passionate testers, Meetups are a great place to network and learn and can be great fun. We love our Meetups so much we've invited three of our international Meetup hosts to share their experiences of running a meetup and give you an opportunity to learn what it's like attending a meetup or running your own. In this session, you'll be able to meet Petros, learn about his story and ask him anything about the famous Athens Meetup.

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar.

    Speaker

    Petros Plakogiannis
    Petros Plakogiannis
    Test Team Lead
    Petros Plakogiannis lives in Greece. He has graduated from the University of Piraeus and the Technological Educational Institute of Crete. He has been working professionally as a software tester for 12 years, with strong focus on automated testing using various tools like QTP, Selenium, Protractor, Cypress etc. He also has a significant experience in white box testing, application testing (desktop, web, and mobile), and security testing. He travels a lot and supports customers onsite by providing information regarding automation testing. Petros is also the main organizer of the Ministry of Testing Athens meetups and is very active in the testing community.
  • Christian Baumann
  • AMA: Test Automation with Christian Baumann
    Christian Baumann
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Test Automation with Christian Baumann

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Christian Baumann
    Christian Baumann
    Principal Software Tester
    Christian is a principal software tester with 15+ years of experience in the field. He has successfully held different roles in the context of testing: Test Automation Engineer, Agile Tester, Test Team Lead, Test Project Manager and Exploratory/ Functional/ Manual Tester. During his career he worked with various test (automation) tools such as Cucumber, Selenium, Watir and others using programming languages like Java, Ruby and C#, but also applied certain development/ testing methodologies such as Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). Furthermore he successfully applied different manual testing techniques, such as Agile Testing, Rapid Software Testing (RST), Black Box Software Testing (BBST), Exploratory Testing (ET) and Session Based Test Management (SBTM) or ISTQB. Christian is strongly driven by his context, always searching for the best fitting solution for a given situation. He´s able to understand business´ and people´s problems, and is always eager to learn and improve himself, while staying curios, open minded and willing to share his knowledge.
  • Stuart Day
  • Vernon Richards
  • AMA: Quality Coaching with Vernon Richards & Stuart Day
    Stuart Day, Vernon Richards
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Quality Coaching with Vernon Richards & Stuart Day

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speakers

    Stuart Day
    Stuart Day
    Head of Quality - Dunelm
    Software delivery professional with over 23 years of experience as an advocate of delivering high-quality value to customers at speed. I am a Quality Coach, Cert. Agile Coach and international speaker with a wealth of experience in both Agile, Digital and Business Agility transformation. I have a real passion for people and their success. Focusing on enabling and supporting their personal development and their career journeys. Currently, I am the Head of Quality at Dunelm Soft Furnishings, building a Culture of Quality and enabling continuous quality throughout the organisation’s technology landscape
    Vernon Richards
    Vernon Richards
    Quality Coach / Senior Quality Engineer
    I’m a Quality Coach & Tester that helps orgs, teams & individuals understand the relationship between quality & testing to help them build better products & deliver more effective services. I’ve been testing since 2002 starting with video games on PS2, Xbox & PC. It may not sound like a real job but it’s the truth! By day I’m a Senior Quality Engineer at a health tech night I run Abode of Quality. Here is one of my core values: “The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude (& how you’re thinking) about the problem.” - Captain Jack Sparrow (the part in brackets was my addition though!) I believe that quality & testing problems are actually people problems in disguise! Often the cause of these problems is misaligned goals, different perspectives, low empathy for colleagues, and the list goes on. Using my coaching skills in the quality & testing space, I believe the most effective way to serve the business, is to help teams & individuals gain new perspectives about themselves & their teammates.
  • Louise Gibbs
  • AMA: Exploratory Accessibility Testing with Louise Gibbs
    Louise Gibbs
    Ask Me Anything

    AMA: Exploratory Accessibility Testing with Louise Gibbs

    What

    Ask Me Anything

    Description

    The AMAs will be happening in the Circle Bar and each session will be split into three 20-minute sessions.

    This is your opportunity to ask the speaker those burning questions you got from their workshop, talk, activity or challenge. Or just come in and say hi!

    Speaker

    Louise Gibbs
    Louise Gibbs
    Senior Automation Tester
    Louise is a Senior Automation Tester at PebblePad. Her main job is to review and maintain the automated tests that are run overnight, and investigate the causes of any failures. She has also worked for companies in the e-commerce, scientific research and automotive industries, and runs a personal blog at louisegibbstest.wordpress.com, where she talks about her experiences as a software tester. She enjoys improving her testing skills and her main method for achieving this is by speaking to other Testers and discussing ideas.

    Next TestBashes

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    You’ll find the slides at the bottom of each talk in the ‘Resources’ section.

    Will there be a TestBash UK in 2023?

    Yes, we already have a date for it, and you can buy tickets now.  More details on the TestBash UK 2023 event page.