What's been happening in the testing, QA and quality engineering community? Let's go! 🛥️
Career Growth
- If there's one career-focused article you read this year, this is it! Ady Stokes shares Lessons Learned From 20 Years Of Software Testing. It includes advice such as continuous learning is vital, negative testing doesn't require a negative mindset, find a thriving community of testing practice and so much more!
- Myself and Rosie Sherry hosted a Test Exchange last week. A small group of us realised it's important to talk and not just rely on asynchronous chat. Talking can lead to action! Thanks to everyone who joined the interactive session. Ben Dowen raised a good point about the rise of AI, that it's more likely we'll see greater diversity in how folks get into testing — a trend we should welcome and monitor.
- Kulas Angeles shares four reasons why testers feel lesser than developers and what we might do about that. 🤝
- The Changing World in Life, IT, Software Testing and Artificial Intelligence by Lisa Perrett.
- Do you have senior testers to support career progression? asks Paul French.
- Need to convince your manager to invest in your training and development? We've updated the MoT membership page with a fresh list of what's available with a professional membership.
Community
- Congrats to MoT Athens for inspiring the next generation of software testers. Great work, Eleni Karakizi, Eirini Kefala and Petros Plakogiannis. 🏆
- Aj Wilson is doing cool things with UN Women UK. I mention this as there's much to learn outside of our testing community. What communities are you involved in and what impact do they have?
- If you're new to the community, say hi on the introductions thread. It's a good way for folks to connect with new members. 😃
- There are plenty more meetups to visit. Belgium, Coventry and Sheffield were recently added, alongside Munich and Athens.
- C is for [...]. The community are gathering to add their words to the software testing glossary. See how it's taking shape and add your ideas.
- After many requests, we've restarted our Slack, but this time we're doing things differently. Read Return of the Ministry of Testing Slack.
Career Moves
- Are you open to work? Could you share and let folks find you?
- Callum Akehurst-Ryan, Melissa Fisher and Kate Paulk are looking for their next opportunities. Do you know them from their many community contributions, could you write a recommendation on their LinkedIn profiles? ⭐️
Leadership
- Daniel Knott shares 5 Things Every CEO Must Know About Testing.
- What if you are not around? Jesper Ottosen investigates the risks of not planning for time off.
Strategy and Approaches
- "Distractions that interrupt flow, discourage collaboration and delay and interfere with feedback prevent developers from doing their best work." argues Nočnica Mellifera. Are You Delivering on Developer Experience?
- When should testing happen? Callum Akehurst-Ryan reminds us that testing doesn't just happen at the end.
- I like the simplicity of this Quality Engineering diagram from Brienna Ransom.
- Akhyar Kamili has a goal to be more precise in software modelling. Find out what they've discovered so far.
- What goes on in QA team meetings? We gathered thoughts from the community.
Accessibility
- Scout has been researching accessible image viewers on the web and struggled to find one that passes all the WCAG criteria (at least for AA). Connect via Slack if you have thoughts on this.
- In the era of Accessibility Testing by Kinga Witko.
Exploratory Testing
- What is exploratory testing? How do I do exploratory testing? What exploratory testing tools should I use? What dummy sites can I use for manual exploratory testing? This collection hopes to have answers to all your exploratory testing needs. The Community's Guide to Exploratory Testing.
Mobile Testing
- Beth Marshall recommends Gabrielle Earnshaw's article on the cost of mobile testing. Are you over-testing your mobile app?
AI in Testing
- Bug congrats to the AI in Testing Champions. Your involvement in 30 Days of AI in Testing is commendable. 🏆
- How could you use data scrapping to support your testing efforts? Check out this tool from Natalia Demianenko.
- The gravitational mass of The Testing Planet has attracted some of the best shining stars and what a fantastic sight we have! On Thursday, the 25th of April 2024, from 2 to 5:30 PM (UK Time), we'll be beaming directly to your screens via LinkedIn and YouTube and everyone is welcome. Join in. It's all about AI in Testing!
- "In this episode, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory chat with Valli Senthilnathan about how she and her team test AI voice and chatbots. She shares how she got started testing these bots, and the unique challenges they present." Testing AI Voice and Chatbots | Episode #22.
- Sargam Panwar is new to security testing and its relationship with AI.
Automation
- What percentage of your testing efforts involve automation? Test automation gets a lot of our attention, but does it get adopted as much as we think? Ministry of Testing has started to collate Testing Trends. Check out the first edition, available exclusively to professional members.
- Imma Six would like your advice on visual testing.
- What technical information do you like to capture?
- Hear automation stories you can relate to thanks to Jenny Bramble, Michael Larsen and Gunesh Patil.
- Automation, Security, and Other Vegetables by Daniel Gold.
- How does maintenance make a difference to automation frameworks? Christian Baumann offers his advice.
- What's been happening in the world of automation? Find out via Episode One of The Testing Planet plus thoughts on several community polls about automation with Nataliia Burmei and Ashutosh Mishra. 🪐
- Congrats to Chrissie Johnson and Vidhi Rathi for earning MoT Certificates in Test Automation. 🎉
Tool Selection
- Jessica Lam shares a comprehensive list of questions to ask before selecting a tool.
API Testing
- Exciting news for two wonderful community members! Marie Cruz and Lewis Prescott have released a new book, Contract Testing in Action. 📕
Have a good week.
— Simon Tomes, part of the Community Team at Ministry of Testing
Gather with the testing community. Join an event, Slack and The Club.
🗓️ Events
New events are always added, so keep checking the events page for up-to-date info.
- Munich Meetup Tue 23 Apr
- Episode Two: The Machine Thu 25 Apr 🪐
- Episode Three: The Toolsmith Thu 23 May
- Belgium Meetup Tue 28 May
- Athens Meetup Thu 30 May
- Coventry Meetup Thu 06 Jun
- Sheffield Meetup Thu 13 Jun
- TestBash Brighton 2024 Thu 12 Sep - Fri 13 Sep
📖 Industry News
- Test Automation in Agile: Advanced Strategies and Tools — Deepika Kale
- Flaky tests: How to avoid the downward spiral of bad tests and bad code — Nick Moore
- Why should you choose a test management tool that integrates natively with Jira?— Francisco Viana
✏️ Calls for Contributions
- Write for us ✍️
- Contribute to The Testing Planet 🪐 We're looking for presenters, anchors, navigators and more!
