Tuesday sessions and events at EuroSTAR 2017

[Simina]

Selecting the talks and the activities from the programme is definitely not easy. Choosing one session over the others carries their opportunity costs. I am curious what the other delegates learned today and thus I am inviting you to share your thoughts and lessons from the sessions you attended today.

[Simina]

I will start 🙂

I found Iris‘s thoughts from the opening remarks inspiring. I liked the facets of testing that presented she finds magical.

I share her vision on the magic carried over the testing events, as I witnessed incredible vibe among testers within the community.

I admit I didn’t consider the magic of testing in projects, but that’s there too. Now that I think about it, it was just last week when I noticed something incredible empowering in a release we’ve had just done and realized we are part of an amazing, big industry shift. I can tell now that that was magic.

Both the events and the projects foster creative solutions. Sharing knowledge and experience, that’s also something Iris included in the list.

So, the way I get it, is that the metaphor of magic in testing stands in empowering people, both as individuals and groups or communities, in the bliss of discovering and learning, in change that we trigger.

After these, I think Jasper van Luit‘s keynote fitted in nicely. After all, explaining (and illustrating) what magic is couldn’t be more exhilarating than coming from an illusionist. Clearly, the props have been memorable, but the stickiest idea for me will be that the magic of testing could be the passion for testing. How about that? That’s some food for thought…

So, for you, what is now the magic of testing?

 

 

[Simina]

79BFEEA0-89D5-486F-AA1A-004C5F95C316

[Simina]

I also joined Michael Bolton‘s talk on transforming trainees into testers.

I enjoyed it a lot, I found Michael’s way of delivering his experience report clear, engaging, inspiring. But then again, these were no surprises.

The testing principles he presented seemed to me like an implementation of the rapid testing he teaches, this time towards a different target of students. He presented the story of a practical, real life immersing training with focus on constant feedback and developing critical thinking. For me this is an authentic way to learn about testing. I wish I see more people looking into it and adapting it for the new testers wannabe out there. It’s time to move from training testers by giving them test cases to execute. Get out of the execution mode, said once my testing mentor, let’s make a change towards a learning mindset!

p.s. I appreciated the bikes references in the slides, we are after all in the first Bike City in the world.

[Simina]

[Simina]

Adam Knight‘s talk called The Risk Questionnaire started with a point that I could relate: I also believed for some time that risk is the preserve of the senior, professional testers. Guess what? It’s not.

Besides the story and the questionnaire themselves, I also liked these ideas that I’m taking from this presentation:

• it’s ok to experiment with something to solve a problem; if it’s working replicate it, else discard it;
• like most of other problems in testing, when dealing with risks, it’s not the tool itself that is needed but the value is conveyed in the conversations it triggers
• this book reference: Risk: The Science and Politics of Fear by Dan Gardner

Anybody else who attended Adam’s talk want to share their thoughts?

 

[Simina]

Meeting old friends, making new ones, that’s easy-peasy.

Here  we are some gals from Romania.

 

[Simina]

Well, this is not how I saw the picture  😀

http://www.rre-homes.com/wp-content/uploads/Bent-head-Cat.bmp

[Martin]

Hi Simina,

Yesterday was my last day unfortunately and I am back in my office today, but I’m still with you in spirit.

I had an amazing, fun and inspirational 3 days at the conference. For every session I attended I tried to record key points and an overarching message that I could take back with me to my day job.

I attended Ten Tricks for Effective Accessibility Testing. I loved the clarity and the simplicity with which this session was delivered. I hoped to get 10 tips that I could take back and apply to my testing and that is exactly what was delivered. Please see the slides and ensure that we all apply these techniques so that everyone can use our software.

I also attended Dealing with Testing Debt in an Agile World. This was stimulating and thought provoking. It is important to understand that we probably have more test debt to deal with in an agile process than previously due to the short duration of a test cycle. Then lots of ideas of how we can analyze our test data and metrics to avoid or limit the amount of debt we have.

At some point I will also come back and give me comments for the Monday and Tuesday tutorials I attended which were both brilliant. When I get a few more minutes I will also add my notes for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Have a brilliant last day all you lucky people still in Copenhagen.

Cheers!

Martin

 

[Simina]

Thanks for sharing your takeaways, Martin! Looking for more insights from the sessions you attended.

[Author]

Posts