Ady Stokes
Freelance Consultant
He / Him
I am Open to Write, Teach, Speak, Podcasting, Meet at MoTaCon 2026, Review Conference Proposals

STEC Certified. MoT Ambassador, writer, speaker, accessibility advocate. Consulting, Leeds Chapter host. MoT Certs curator. Testing wisdom, friendly, songs and poems. Great minds think differently

Chapter Organiser
Ambassador

Achievements

Career Champion
Club Explorer
Bio Builder
Avid Reader
TestBash Trailblazer
Article Maven
Testing Scholar
MoT Community Certificate
MoT Software Testing Essentials Certificate
Scholarship Hero
Insights Spotter Bronze
TestBash Speaker
99 Second Speaker
The Testing Planet Contributor
Chapter Organiser
MoT Streak
Unlimited Member
In the Loop
MoT Ambassador 2025
MoT Inked
404 Talk (Not) Found
Bug Finder
Collection Curator
Glossary Contributor
Meme Maker
Photo Historian
TestBash Brighton 2025 Attendee
TestBash Brighton 2024 Attendee
TestBash Teacher
Cert Shaper
Course creator
Author Debut
A tester's role in continuous quality
Prompting for testers
Cognitive biases in software testing
A software tester's guide to Chrome DevTools
Introduction to software development and testing
Introduction to modern testing
Introduction to accessibility testing
Bug reporting 101
Coding for non-coders
Introduction to JavaScript
Advanced prompting for testers
99 and Counting
TWiQ Host
Chapter Contributor
Pride Supporter
Meme Machine
Inclusive Companion
Social Connector
Open to Opportunities
Found at 404
Picture Perfect
Story Sharer
Neurodiversity Matters
Everyday security testing: A practical guide to getting started
Quality coaching essentials
Kind Click
Supportive Clicker
Encouragement Giver
Encouragement Champion
Goal Setter
Insights Taster
MoT Ambassador 2026
Call for Insights

Certificates

MoT Software Testing Essentials Certificate image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
Awarded for: Passing the exam with a score of 100%
MoT Community Certificate image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
Awarded for: Achieving 5 or more Community Star badges

Activity

Ady Stokes
Ady Stokes
awarded Nataliia Burmei for:
Fantastic job of hosting and your voice sounded great  image
Fantastic job of hosting and your voice sounded great 
Ady Stokes
Ady Stokes
earned:
Eggs, toilet seats and fundamental quality career advice - Ep 125 image
Eggs, toilet seats and fundamental quality career advice - Ep 125
Ady Stokes
Ady Stokes
contributed:
Eggs, toilet seats and fundamental quality career advice - Ep 125 image
Hear honest job-search and career-change stories, pick up confidence-boosting advice from the community, and enjoy the wonderfully weird side-threads that make the MoTaverse feel like home.
Ady Stokes
Ady Stokes
earned:
Thanks for sharing on stage during This Week in Quality. image
Thanks for sharing on stage during This Week in Quality.
Ady Stokes
Ady Stokes
earned:
1.0.0 of Quality Coaching essentials image
1.0.0 of Quality Coaching essentials

Contributions

Eggs, toilet seats and fundamental quality career advice - Ep 125 image
  • Simon Tomes's profile image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
  • Gary Hawkes's profile image
  • Eamon Droko's profile image
  • Nataliia Burmei's profile image
  • Judy Mosley's profile image
  • Preeti's profile image
  • Shawn Vernier's profile image
Hear honest job-search and career-change stories, pick up confidence-boosting advice from the community, and enjoy the wonderfully weird side-threads that make the MoTaverse feel like home.
Some people aren't keen on using the term 'whole team responsibility' image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
Ady Stokes absolutely nails a reason why whole team responsibility matters, even for those that are skeptical of the reality of making it happen and the use of it as a term. "Probably the most i...
Call for Insights becomes badge number 64! image
Excited to see a shiny new badge on my profile today. Call for Insights, which is awarded to members who share their knowledge and experience in a Call for Insights conversation.
The power of being a thought worker is the pause to think before we act image
  • Simon Tomes's profile image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
In conversation with Simon Tomes as part of his Call for Insights series, he put me on the spot with this question. So, Ady, I was thinking for our listeners, a final thought from you is what w...
What is software quality? image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
Transition from reactive quality assurance to proactive quality engineering by embedding shared responsibility throughout the entire development lifecycle
Rainbow vomits and AI Guardrails - Ep 124 image
  • Simon Tomes's profile image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
  • Christine Pinto's profile image
  • Chris Pratt's profile image
  • Nadja Schulz's profile image
  • Judy Mosley's profile image
  • Demi Van Malcot's profile image
  • Shawn Vernier's profile image
Cut through the AI hype, swap real guardrail stories, and laugh at the rainbow-vomit moments along the way.
Leeds Chapter goes into the MoTaverse image
  • Scott Kenyon's profile image
  • Colin Wren's profile image
  • MoT Leeds's profile image
Friday, the 20th of February, is a big day for the Ministry of Testing's Leeds Chapter, which officially joined the MoTaverse with its own page.
TeamEx (Team Experience) image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
TeamEx is basically the collective health, morale or "vibe" of how a team works together. Think of it as like DevEx (Developer Experience), but instead of just focusing on coders, it’s about the whole team. It’s the social and organisational scaffolding that makes working together feel human, reliable, and, dare I say, actually enjoyable.You know a team has good 'TeamEx' when you see: Psychological Safety: Open communication means people aren't afraid to say "I don't know" or "I’ve made a mess of this."  Trust and Collaboration: No silos, no "us vs. them". Just people solving problems and listening to each other's ideas and suggestions without judgment.  Failures as Lessons: When something breaks, the first question isn't "Who did this?" but "What can we learn?"  Feedback as Routine: It’s not a scary annual event; it’s just part of the daily conversation.  TeamEx matters because it supports turning quality from a task into a habit. You can have the best test automation in the world, but if the team doesn't feel safe or empowered to speak up about a risk, that technical work is wasted.When TeamEx is high, testing throughout the SDLC and continuous improvement become part of the team's DNA rather than something tacked on at the end. It’s the difference between a team that’s constantly firefighting with short-term fixes and a team that consistently builds stuff that lasts.It’s not just about individual metrics or how fast one person can work. It’s about how quickly the group recovers from problems, how they make collective decisions, and whether everyone feels engaged, valued, seen and heard.
There's no such thing as a testing mindset image
  • Simon Tomes's profile image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
Depending on the context, we think in different ways
The curse of the live demo… and other testing superstitions - Ep 123 image
  • Simon Tomes's profile image
  • Ady Stokes's profile image
  • Oleksandr Romanov's profile image
  • Gary Hawkes's profile image
  • Clare Norman's profile image
  • Ujjwal Kumar Singh's profile image
  • Demi Van Malcot's profile image
Swap your team’s favourite quality superstitions, laugh at cursed demos and disappearing bugs, and turn “don’t deploy on Fridays” from folklore into smarter release habits.
Feedback for the tester to Quality Engineer gap analysis  image
I had a personal message thanking me for the gap analysis. The person had thought they were not good enough to apply for a role titled 'Quality Engineer'. But after taking the gap analysis, they fo...
Great conversation with Simon image
  • Simon Tomes's profile image
I answered Simon's call for insights and had a great conversation with him all about my goals for 2026, and how I want to make thinking in testing visible, intentional, and teachable. I'm looking f...
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