Time again for the “State of Testing Survey” from our friends at PractiTest and Tea Time with Testers…good stuff in there about how folks are feeling about the testing industry…enjoy!
“The State of Testing seeks to identify the existing characteristics, practices and challenges facing the testing community in hopes to shed light and provoke a fruitful discussion towards improvement.”
Putting together a good conference program is hard. Ensuring the topics are relevant and attracting talented speakers that people want to hear is only further complicated by the commercial aspects of covering costs and turning a profit for the organizers. Striking the right balance between diversity of topics as well as underrepresented communities while seeking the best speakers presents difficult choices for every selection committee.
I’ve written before about how little of my life experiences has been down to things I can control, like effort and hard work and the rest has just been dumb luck and privilege. So when I first read the following tweet it triggered a reaction in me which isn’t entirely helpful. My feelings of “poor baby” were the first to hit me – here we go again, another “white guy” complaining about some fictitious “lowering of the bar” to meet some conference diversity target.
Now that reaction isn’t entirely fair, but frankly neither is the system, and I also feel that this idea that the “best” talks are what’s represented at conferences is just BS. As a veteran attendee, speaker, and selection committee member at many, many tech conferences, I can assure you that in my experience and opinion, bias and preference plays a great deal in who you see on that stage. So while I might agree with the sentiment in principle, I don’t believe it is always possible in practice.
Hey everyone! It’s time again for my QASymphony/Tekmark annual take on the testing industry and what trends/topics I think we’ll be talking about over the next year. Hope you can make it! Register HERE
“In this webinar, Keith Klain, Head of Software Quality Management at Tekmark Global Solutions, will take a “state of the union” approach to discussing Software Testing trends that will define 2017. Including:
Just back from my first Agile Testing Days in Potsdam, Germany and have to report that I had a really fun time, met some old friends (made some new ones), and participated in some great conversations about software testing. I was there to present my keynote “Lessons Learned in (Selling) Software Testing” about my experiences trying to help large, enterprise tech organizations through agile transitions or various other “test process improvement” initiatives. I had a great time giving the talk and got a lot of good feedback from the conference as well as on Twitter:
Clearly, I owe this person money… 😀
Very excited to be giving a keynote and workshop at the Romanian Testing Conference on May, 10-12th, 2017! The following is the theme and please register here to attend – hope to see you there!
The theme for the conference is “Thriving in testing – remaining relevant“…
Welcome back to episode 38 of Testing In the Pub – Making Better Testers with Keith Klain.
In part two of a two part episode we talk to Keith about how we can help testers and the testing community to improve and keep learning. Keith spends a lot of his time promoting and educating people about better testing practices such as Context Driven Testing and the transition to better testing, particularly in the enterprise. Have a listen as we discuss this and our experiences of older and more traditional ways of working.
Welcome back to episode 37 of Testing In the Pub – Making Better Testers with Keith Klain.
In part one of a two part episode we talk to Keith about how we can help testers and the testing community to improve and keep learning. Keith spends a lot of his time promoting and educating people about better testing practices such as Context Driven Testing and the transition to better testing, particularly in the enterprise. Have a listen as we discuss this and our experiences of older and more traditional ways of working.
If you like what you hear then you’ll be pleased to know that this is only the first part of our discussion. Check back soon for part 2.
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw
As someone who regularly references “thought leaders” in our industry and quotes papers, presentations, and blogs about software testing published in the public view, I generally don’t have a problem with calling things as you see them. I also don’t believe you need to write your slides defensively or worry about misinterpretation to the point of obscuring your message, but if you are going to call someone out by name, you will (and should) be held to a higher standard of communication.
Very happy to be a part of this conference…hope to see you there!
So honored to be a part of this team…look out for more updates soon!
More info HERE