I’m not new to the scene. I’ve been in testing since the year 2000. I remember the run up to Y2K, though perhaps I was lucky enough not to have to test for it.
I’ve lived through many iterations of testing. Including it dying, evolving and coming back to life! The resurrection is here!
What I do know is that it’s been a whopping 25 years and I’m still here. I’ve watched our space evolve. Some for better, some for worse. Some is just the way of the world.
I’ve seen the evolutions we’ve been through. I’ve experienced the frustrations. I’ve tried to convince people of what I see. Sometimes succeeding, often not.
What is clear, is evolution is necessary. And maybe as I get older, gain a bit more wisdom, gain a sense of confidence within myself, and realise life is short, I’ve come to the conclusion that life is too short not to pursue being audacious.
What does being audacious mean in the context of Ministry of Testing?
As professionals, we’ve long felt like second-class citizens. I want to be audacious and believe that we can be at the center of building amazing products.
With the rise of AI and developers fearing their roles with writing code, I believe there’s an opportunity for quality engineering professionals to step up and take a leadership role. Is it audacious to believe that potentially that the best engineering leaders may come from a quality background?
The language I use involves saying that the MoTaverse is the center of the testing universe. It’s audacious language, that I believe in the possibility of.
The learning opportunities to advance our craft are not good enough. And yes, we want MoT Certification to replace ISTQB as the de facto standard. It’s audacious to believe that we can do that.
But learning is not just about certifications, of course we know that. We audaciously believe we can refine our community-led approach to learning and career advancement to an extent that every industry will want a MoTaverse.
We believe we can innovate and build the best tech related community in the world. Not just the best testing and quality engineering community. But the best community in the world. It’s audacious to believe it, it’s even more audacious to say it out loud. We believe we can be a model for others to aspire to replicate.
Just imagine all the other professions wishing they had a community like ours? It’s audacious thinking!
We are a small bootstrapped team on a small budget. It’s audacious to believe in the change we believe we can create.
But we can’t be audacious alone.
And if anything else, we’ve never needed each other more than we do now. We need to be audacious together. To lift one another up. To participate. To see the value in everything we are pulling together.
What’s audacious to you may not be audacious to me. And that’s ok.
Showing up at a meetup could be audacious.
Making your first contribution to the MoTaverse could feel audacious too.
Standing up and doing your first 99 second talk or writing your first article could be audacious too.
For me, being a female, neurodivergent 5x mother CEO is something I want to feel more audacious about.
You define what is audacious. Recognise it and know there is a community here ready to cheer you on.
This is my ask to you. To software testers. Quality engineers. Test managers. Engineering managers. Product managers. Recruiters. Tool vendors. Test consultancies.
Let’s be audacious together.
Support what you want to see exist in this world. Contribute. Drop into This Week in Testing. Attend or start a meetup. Come to TestBash. Attend Leading with Quality. Upgrade to Professional Membership.
So that we can support you and the wider community.
