Jedi Mind Tricks for Testers
Alexandra Schladebeck & Huib Schoots
Bredex, De Agile Testers
“There were a lot of talks that weren’t directly about testing”. This is a real statement from a developer friend of Alex’s who came to Testbash Netherlands. And it’s true. We do talk a lot about things like communication, general problem solving and teamwork. Because the role of a tester in teams has been changing for a while and will continue to do so. We’re coaches, encouragers, quality enablers. And that’s an extra level of difficulty in any team – dealing with the sticky human factors alongside the domain knowledge, risk analysis and testing and quality work we do.
It’s difficult because testers often end up needing strong leadership skills – in teams where they don’t have formal (or informal) authority to do so. And yet we also want to stay away from becoming the quality gatekeepers (again). That path leads to the dark side…
In this webinar, Huib and Alex will take you through some tried and tested Jedi mind tricks to help testers gain the standing they need, for example, ‘the invitation game’, ‘the one place where we should assume’ and the ‘rule of asking three times’. We won’t be advocating for actually manipulating people, but nevertheless, there are concrete steps we can take that can help us if we just believe: do or do not, there is no try.
Key Takeaways:
- Learn to Influence the way other people think! (without being manipulative)
- Concrete steps you can take to become the expert on a wide breadth of things so that everyone wants your opinion.
- How to be the glue that cements the team together for building quality products.
About Me!
I (Alex) am an outgoing and passionate team leader, consultant, software tester and product owner. Communicating with people is my main focus – something i am fortunate to do frequently in my role as Head of Software Quality and Test Consulting at BREDEX GmbH. I spend my time coaching testers and developers, consulting customers and helping development teams to improve their quality. I love working in agile processes, talking about testing and quality, and encouraging communication magic to happen. I no longer describe myself as non-technical, but I still see my role as translating between different groups of people in IT. You’ll usually find me talking about quality and how it affects the whole development process, or about my life goal to make testing more appreciated! I am also a frequent speaker at conferences where i like to share my project experiences and learn from other practitioners. In 2018, I won the MIATPP award.
I (Huib) am a coach, consultant and trainer focused on people and quality. I have over 20 years of experience in IT and software testing. I am curious and passionate, agile and context-driven. In 2015 I became a Rapid Software Testing instructor. I believe that excellent skills, personal leadership and collaboration ultimately makes the difference, I therefore helps people and teams to do their best work, continuously learn and improve. In 2017 I won the MIATPP Award. I works for De Agile Testers, a provider of consultancy and training. I like to inspire people and make them think!