A shy persons guide to speaking up with Claire Reckless

I was always really shy as a kid, all my school reports said 'really quiet, needs to be more confident'.

As an adult, in almost every job I've had, I've received feedback around confidence, and again, being "too quiet". 'Needs to speak up more in meetings' was a common one until a few years ago.

To add to this, I've had a number of experiences during my career that made me even less likely to say something when it was needed. So, as a tester in an agile team, how do I do a job where it's necessary for me to overcome this and speak up, ask questions, challenge people, tell people news they might not want to hear?

Well, with great difficulty. That's how.  But I've recognised it, owned it, worked on it, argued with it, got angry with it and well, got a bit better at it. I'll talk about some things I've done to try to break down those internal barriers which caused me to stay silent.  I'll look at what I learned from my experiences,  and what you and your leaders can do to empower yourselves and make everyone's voice is heard.