It’s difficult to put into words just how stark the contrast is professionally for me to compare my situation in the lead up to EuroSTAR 2014 and now in the lead up to EuroSTAR 2015. Last year I was working for a company who were not remotely interested in my professional development, my confidence had been impacted by my inability to affect change in the organisation and I ultimately did not feel I was doing good work. I questioned whether I’d been right to leave London, leave the finance sector and leave development, only to feel like I’d taken a few steps backwards.
EuroSTAR 2014 acted as a catalyst for positive professional change for me as soon after the event I changed my position to one with more of a focus on automation, I moved to the healthcare industry and after some time I started to feel proud that what I was producing was doing some good in the world.
For context here are my blog posts pre and post EuroSTAR 2014:
Looking forward to EuroSTAR 2014
As EuroSTAR 2015 approaches I feel like I belong, thanks to my experiences last year, my professional development and the interaction with the TEST Huddle Community throughout the year.
The Conference
Last year I travelled to Dublin with the intention of becoming a sponge for knowledge and followed gut instinct terms of picking which talks I wanted to attend, it was an unanticipated reward in 2014, so why not treat it as such?
This year things are different, my company are actually helping me attend and at their financial expense so I decided to sit down, decide which problems I want to gain more insight on and base the talks I’ll attend around these issues. So what do I wish to gain a better understanding of?
- Integration testing, how do the best in the business handle this?
- Management, is this a viable next step for me?
- Process improvement, are there any easy wins we’re currently missing?
- Can we make environment setup easier?
With this in mind, here’s what I’m most looking forward to:
Tuesday
For me the highlight has to be Kristoffer Nordstrom’s keynote on Kanban Testing and Lego. Despite the fact I haven’t mentioned anything about Kanban or lego in my aims, Kanban/Lean is the methodology my company follows. Any information on how to do things better here is always welcome, with the added benefit that any improvements I spot can be applied throughout the company, rather than just limited to testing. A potentially valuable talk and given my experience of Kris’s talk last year on gamification, I have high hopes for this one. I was lucky enough to spend some time chatting with Kris in Dublin last year, he came across as a very technically talented individual with out of the box thinking his default setting, I’m expecting more of the same in Maastricht.
Wednesday
Headline day with an absolutely jam-packed schedule of great talks, typical that despite mentioning I want to come back with insights on key problems for my company, the highlight for me is not a keynote but Rob Lambert’s talk on Becoming A Manager. Stepping into management is something I’ve always been pushed toward and I’ve never been able to decide if it is indeed something I should aim for or not. I’m hoping to see if I can gain any further insight as to whether I’d be an adept engineering manager and also any unique challenges to acquiring the position when coming from the test organisation rather than development which is more ‘standard’.
Obviously I have selfish motives for attending this talk as it would involve my career advancement but it is something I feel could be important to my company if I decide the engineering manager route is for me.
Thursday
On Thursday I mostly hope to still be fully functional after the sold out EuroSTAR 2015 awards dinner at the spectacular looking La Caverne. Last year the awards dinner at Croke Park was an exceptional event, based on the location this year I think it’s sure to be a fantastic experience for all.
What I’m most looking forward to on Thursday, other than a rather large cup of coffee is Geoff Thompson’s talk on Test Process Improvement. Reason being I’ve just started attempting to remove what I see as a poor process which wastes up to ten hours of tester time per week. I’m pleased I’ve spotted this and have begun the process of removing it while attempting to keep all stakeholders happy but I can see it becoming complicated, fast. Ownership is going to be the key problem but I’m hoping Geoff will offer me some perception on how I can press on while keeping all parties happy and furthermore identify further process changes which will benefit the company.
The New Additions and the cardinal sin..
One of my biggest regrets from EuroSTAR 2014 was missing the Community dinner, I vowed I wouldn’t make the same mistake again….yet here we are and I’m going to be doing exactly the same thing again! I’ve even just gone and made it worse by looking again at pictures of Chateau Neercanne, I can only imagine how breathtaking it will look in the evening. However, my trip to EuroSTAR 2015 is set to begin at 1AM so I have to prioritise actually making it to Maastricht, then making sure I’m of sound body and mind to take away the most I can from the conference. Hopefully I’ll right this wrong next year!
I’m really impressed by the new sessions TEST Huddle have added to the community huddle. Last year there were definitely a few interesting side discussions going on but I didn’t get a sense the huddle was the central location for this, clearly Maastricht will be different. The couch sessions look an interesting prospect, given the discussion topics, I’m hoping they will be facilitated by an expert in the area.
Lean Coffee is a welcome addition as it’s something I’ve heard a LOT about but have unfortunately never been a part of. I’d be interested to see if this format is something I feel I can bring back to the office and experience whether new ideas are truly generated or whether people play it safe.
The Open Space however is what I’m looking forward to the most, a really intriguing concept that I feel could be very important if attendees grasp the opportunity and will then become a conference staple. Obviously those submitting to speak at EuroSTAR do so months in advance, which means hot topics can easily be missed. With the recent Volkswagen scandal there’s been a lot of blog posts and discussion around the ethics of testing, I can see the Open Space being the perfect opportunity and format to have such a discussion.
I hope you’re all looking forward to the conference this year as much as myself, don’t be afraid to say hello!
