Growing A Culture of Quality (and Making Testing Fun)

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Simon Prior's profile
Simon Prior

Head of QA @ easyJet

Growing A Culture of Quality (and Making Testing Fun) image
Talk Description
Since joining an airline during a pandemic, myself and the QA teams have been on a journey.
From only being considered valuable to involved once development has been completed and PMs telling us they can't afford us to be involved earlier to now being seen as advocates of Quality and being at the table for discussions about any technical changes.
The transformation has been tough, but we are now reaping the rewards for all our hard work.
 
 This talk will talk through how we embraced the culture shift during the pandemic and used it as a vehicle to embrace a more collaborative way of working, bringing people together to discuss Quality and Testing and show ways to improve how we provide feedback on the products through more inventive ways of testing, changing the way we test for the better.
 
 I'll show how I used my passion for Quality and my external network to engage the QA teams across the company, empower and nurture the existing teams as well as bring new people in to disrupt the status quo and move us forward. Ultimately enabling me to advocate for the teams and raise the awareness of Testing/Quality across the organisation and enabling us to transform the way we work.
 
 Did I mention our Test Parties? Find out more in the talk.
What you’ll learn

By the end of this talk, you'll be able to:

  • Raise the awareness of the testing teams and the work you do
  • Change the culture by building allies across the business who advocate for you
  • Make the day to day work more enjoyable with collaboration and a sense of fun
Simon Prior's profile'

Simon Prior

Head of QA @ easyJet

Simon is heading up the QA teams at EasyJet. In his career he has worked in various roles across IT from C++ developer, Scrum Master, Build Engineer before finally finding his passion in Testing. He's worked in various domains from CyberSecurity, Gaming/Gambling and now the Airline industry. He has a keen interest in finding ways to improve the testing process and ensuring products are released with the highest possible quality. He also loves coaching/mentoring his team to be the best they can, enabling them to use all possible tools and skills to get their job done to the best of their ability Simon is a well known speaker and meetup organiser in the Software Testing world, a Podcast co-host (check out TestingPeers.com) and also a keen advocate for companies to consider Neurodiversity as part of their inclusion programmes. Simon was recently awarded Testing Manager of the Year at the European Software Testing Awards, with a mention to his great people management and contributions to the wider testing community.
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Tags

  • coaching
  • culture
  • leadership
  • quality
  • testbash-uk