Like everyone else who went by train around Stockholm that day, my trip home was delayed. That did not matter too much however, because I was exhausted and took the opportunity to sleep through a couple of movies. EuroStar 2016 offered a full schedule and close to all of my expectations came true. It also offered a lot of people talking about introversion and extroversion, and as a person leaning more to the introvert side my powers were drained after 2.5 days of listening, taking in new impressions and spinning new ideas in my head which was constantly refilled with more inspiration over these days. On tuesday afternoon you could already see what came to be an informal theme throughout the conference, how the testing role will evolve in a more agile world. Will we become coaches? Will we lean more towards analysis? It was very nice to hear that none, not even the speakers who came from the programmer path, thought that the days of testers where at roads end, and that is always nice to hear.
The keynotes really measured up to my expectations. I was anticipating high quality speeches and I got it. My personal favourite was Liz Keogh who was easy to listen to, as well as funny and highly knowledgeable. Ben Simo was also a great speaker, and his adventures in testing healthcare.gov was very interesting to listen to.
All in all I must say that the programme was very interesting and the speakers kept a very high standard, and I guess that the selection process was very hard. As one whose submission did not get selected, I can only say that hearing all the great great speakers only inspired me to write better abstracts and try again next year.
The social part was a great deal too. Maybe more so this year than the other years I have attended since I was to keep social media and the Test Huddle forum updated on what was going on at the conference as one of the community reporters. It was a little sad that all the social events were fully booked since I had really wanted to attend the test lab party. Maybe it would be good if places were kept for the volunteers and reporters, especially since they are supposed to show the conference experience, and get selected quite late. That said I had a great time meeting both old and new friends. I spent less time solving puzzles in the test lab than I usually do. Instead I took advantage of the comfy sofas in the lab, or the bean bag chairs in the huddle and just talked to people. The comfortable seats in these areas really opened up for some relaxation when your head was spinning with new ideas and impressions. The opening between huddle and test lab was a great addition since it connected the two areas more instead of the former separation.
All in all I have to say that this year’s EuroStar was a very good experience, and I hope that I will be back next year in Copenhagen. Hope you will too.
