The Secret Skill of Testers – Frank Fristred-Petersen

Talk Description

We talk alot about the skills needed to be a good tester, and at conferences we have new talks as the business changes and new skills are introduced or old ones reappear. As testers we are constantly chasing knowledge, to make sure we have the skillset needed to deliver out best effort and ensure the high quality.

But we neglect to talk about one of the most important skills when talking agile testing: communication. How we communicate with all the stakeholders is often key to how succesfull we are. So how come we do not discuss this skill more? What communication skills are needed, and how can we be better at it?

In this talk I will present my story. An introvert tester that has succeeded in this business because I figured out that in order to do my job as an agile tester, I needed to open up and communicate. By telling this story, I will hopefully give other testers som advice on how they can improve their communication skills. I do not presume to know all, and I am sure others are better at communicating than me, but hopefully I can start a discussion by telling my story and give my perspective on the ‘hidden’ skill of testers. 45 minutes No I started my career in the software business as a programmer in 1990, but have since changed track and I have worked with testing since 2001. I am ISEP Practicioner since 2007, and have worked with both waterfall and agile development.

About Frank: I started my career in the software business as a programmer in 1990, but have since changed track and I have worked with testing since 2001. I am ISEP Practitioner since 2007, and have worked with both waterfall and agile development.

In 2009 I started working for LEGO Digital as QA Lead for their online game LEGO Universe. That has since closed down, but I stayed at LEGO and is now QA Lead for the agile development teams we have (some locally here in Billund, Denmark, and others in India).

I have previously spoken at DSTB, a danish software testing conference, about the way we do agile testing at LEGO. I have also spoken at different testing communities here in Denmark on different subjects, all involving testing and is generally very fond of talking about testing.