August 2019 RoundUp of All Things MoT

It's been a scorcher of a month in the Ministry of Testing world, the weather has been pretty good too!  We hope you all survived with cool beverages, ice cream, sorbet and plenty of awesome content. 

The Club

A few selected discussions from The Club that we thought you might find interesting.

• Career Progression In Software Testing: How Did You Get To Where You Are Now? - posted by heather_reid. From stepping on to new ladders to climbing them, there are many ways to progress in your career, how did you progress?
• What do you and don’t you add to a regression suite? - posted by melissafisher. This, of course, depends on your company and their priorities but some excellent food for thought in this post.
• Power Hour - Exploratory Testing - posted by simon_tomes. From introducing exploratory testing to deep dives and tools, Simon and Elizabeth provided an excellent range of answers in this Power Hour.
• When someone says they want to learn #Automation, I have to ask WHY. WHY do you want to learn automation? - posted by nufenix. Do you want to learn automation for the right reasons and will you regret your decision if it's for the wrong reasons?
• Ask Me Anything: Communities of Practice - posted by heather_reid. A fantastic list of resources and the conversation is still going strong from our most recent AMA, join in!

The Club Ninja

Each month we select one of our Club users to be our Ninja of the Month.  Our Club Ninja this month is Luke Liu.

MoT News 

Being Uniquely Me at Ministry of Testing by Heather Reid
By having the freedom to be uniquely me, I genuinely feel like I bring a better version of myself to work every day, even if that version of myself sometimes needs coffee before opening emails.

Tester's Start Your Engines - TestBash Is Coming to the Midwest
That’s right folks, TestBash is coming to Detroit for the first time on 23-24th April 2020. The Ministry of Testing team is excited to be partnering with Hilary Weaver-Robb to bring you the next edition of TestBash.
 

The Dojo

Last year we said farewell to the Super Testing Bros hosting our podcasts.  We wanted to make sure our podcasts would be fun, relevant and full of useful insights. We thought; who better to know what’s useful and relevant than members of our community?  This August, we finally have the first episodes of the new Ministry of Testing Podcast! 

• The first 2 pilot podcasts from our MoT podcast challenge:
  • Michael Lang meets Theresa Neate to discuss all things DevOps
  • Carlos Kidman meets Angela Riggs to discuss test automation and the culture of quality
• A new TestBash Playlist “Great First Time Speakers at TestBash” with 25 great TestBash talks given by first-time speakers, some of who have gone on to become international speakers including:
  • Is Test Causing Your Live Problems? - Gwen Diagram
  • Getting The Message Across - Beren Van Daele
  • How to Get Automation Included in Your Definition of Done - Angie Jones
  • A Tale Of Testability - Rob Meaney
  • Context-Driven Security - Bill Matthews
  • First 100 Days as the Only and First Tester in a New Company - Kim Knup
  • And more! If you’re a first-time speaker and have something to share, make TestBash the first conference you speak at by submitting an abstract to our continuous call for papers!
• A new episode of Testers’ Island Disc podcast Episode 27 with Christian Kram on the challenges of training 
• An engaging AMA with Lee Marshall on Communities of Practice
• Another heartwarming Scholarship Story: My Fulfilling Experience at TestBash Netherlands 2019
• Some great new articles in the Testing Planet 2019:
  • Test Mobs In Practice: Keep Experimenting by Jan Jaap Cannegieter and Michel van ‘t Zant
  • Navigating A Career Path In Software Testing by Melissa Eaden

September Online Events

Masterclass: Onboarding testers: Growing your new hire with AJ Larson
Onboarding is a painful process in just about any industry.  In an industry where the answer to most questions is a well justified “it depends” how do we bring the next generation of QA professionals up to speed effectively and efficiently? We will explore the potential of training materials, pair testing, strengthening the team culture, and above all, how to help our testing disciples know the product almost as well as we do. 


Future Events

Just a quick sneak peek at what events are coming up in the next few months

• Masterclass: Onboarding testers: Growing your new hire with AJ Larson - 1 hour - 8pm UK Time - 10th September 2019
• TestBash Germany - 2 days -Thursday 12th  - Friday 13th September 2019 
• TestBash Manchester - 2 days - Wednesday 2nd - Thursday 3rd October 2019  
• Test.bash(); - 1 day - Friday 4th October 2019
• TestBash Australia - 2 days - Thursday 24th - Friday 25th October 2019 
• TestBash New Zealand - 1 day - Tuesday 29th October 2019 
• TestBash San Francisco - 2 days - Wednesday 6th - Thursday 7th November 2019 
• TestBash Brighton - 2 days - Thursday 26th - Friday 27th March 2020
• TestBash Detroit 2020 - 2 days - Thursday 23rd - Friday 24th April 2020