In The Observatory, the MoTaverse community shows up to share links they are reading all the time.
The value is not only in the links shared in the moment, but also in the accumulation of links that become searchable knowledge over time.
There are currently 3044 searchable links.
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🎉 Featured link of the week:
Testing the Untestable: Building a strategy for testing AI — Stuart Thomas
For decades, software testing relied on a single truth: same input, same output, every single time. You wrote an assertion, it passed or failed, and the result meant something.
Generative AI broke that truth. Ask an LLM-powered feature the same question twice and you may get two different answers, not wrong, not right, just… different.
10 links from the Observatory this week:
What I learned from Suzanne Kraaij's MoTaCon talk! — Lisa Crispin
“The Fear Factor in Software Testing: Recognize it, address it, transform it” – this is how Suzanne Kraaij entitled her MoTaCon talk. Another way to look at it, for me, is “fear-based testing vs. risk-based testing”. This talk was an eye-opener for me! I think many of us experience fear-based testing without realizing it. Certainly I never thought of this common situation from Suzanne’s perspective, though after watching her talk, it seems obvious!
When Quality Engineering Creates Chaos: Lessons from my Workshop at Leading with Quality 2026 — Barry Ehigiator
Quality Engineering promises shared ownership, faster feedback, and greater delivery confidence. But when organisations change roles and practices without redesigning the surrounding system, QE can create confusion rather than improvement.
Justice Department’s First-Ever Criminally Charged Super-Intelligence Assisted Music Streaming Fraud — Justice.gov
Jamie McDonald, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that MICHAEL SMITH was sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in a scheme to defraud music streaming platforms and musicians of royalty payments. On March 19, 2026, SMITH pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl, who imposed today’s sentence.
10 Career Traps (Thoughtful People Fall Into) — John Cutler
In this post, I’m going to share ten career traps thoughtful people often find themselves ensnared in.
I’ve found myself in every one of these traps over the years, so I speak from experience. I’ve also watched some of the most thoughtful (and experienced) people I know fall into them, even when they “knew better.” Or perhaps partly because they knew better. As sports coaches sometimes say, we go where we’re looking.
ASOS links data breach to social engineering attack, credential theft — Bleeping Computer
UK fashion retailer ASOS confirmed that a recent data breach was caused by a social engineering attack in which hackers stole an employee’s login credentials and used them to access information on third-party platforms used by the company.
How to test for Cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities - Kasturi Rajamanikkam | WonderProxy
Search bars are everywhere. As a routine, we test for valid and invalid keywords, empty states, and long strings to see if we can break the layout. These are some of the essential QA checks that ensure UI stability. But treating the search bar as just another input/text box leaves a massive gap in your test coverage.
How to Test a ChatBot — Kristin Jackvony
It seems that every website now has a chatbot, so it’s probably only a matter of time before you will be asked to test one. But testing a chatbot is different from testing traditional software, since the chatbot’s answers will vary.
Every meeting is a monster (so make it a fun one) — Luke Lattimer-Rogers
On the surface the workshop was about ensemble testing: getting a diverse group of people in a room to test together, and making it fun on purpose. But the more I thought about it afterwards (and about the RCA and QMS workshops I went to the same day), the less it felt like it was only about testing. The things that make a testing party work are the things that make any group session work. Mob testing, root cause analysis, three amigos, pre-planning, even the pizza at 1630 on Friday afternoon.
Reading the room — Jesper Ottosen
“Reading the room” is the ability to sense what is happening in a room and knowing how and when to react appropriately. To me it’s a key testing skill that could be reframed as: 1) understanding the customer needs and 2) reacting depending on the situation. Like the old poker song goes “know when to hold them – know when to fold them” (hence the image above). Working with Goal-aligned test strategies for years it’s is all about linking the business narrative to actual testing activities – spotting the true story of the stakeholders.
AI Norms & Values, Part 1 of 3: How We Do Business at Honeycomb — Charity Majors
It's been a year since Honeycomb issued its AI mandate. Charity reflects on what that produced, why AI isn't special (it just amplifies what's already there), and shares the first of three new documents on Honeycomb's AI norms and values: how we do business.
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