Back at work after spending last week in Brighton delivering part of a workshop on Leading with Quality for the Ministry of Testing and then hung out at Test Bash 2025. I had a great time hanging out with old friends and meeting a lot of new people and actually got to listen to the talks which frankly, is a luxury I don’t typically get being from being a speaker.

Delivering my part of the Leading with Quality workshop was fun and a little hectic trying to get all the content and discussions into an hour slot, but I think we got there and the feedback has been great (so far). My part was about getting (and keeping) a seat at the table for testers which started with WHY testing doesn’t typically get involved in decisions that affect time, money, or people. Testing is a function of risk management, and the value proposition is context dependent so the quickest way to undermine testing’s credibility (and your own) and common mistakes I see testers make are:

• Not understanding or speaking the language of your project…
• Making testing personal…
• Word policing…
• Not having a pragmatic approach to quality and risk…
• Not actively listening to the team, management, or your clients…

Your ideal form of influence is first to help people see their world more clearly, and then to let them decide what to do next – risk management is your objective, not testing.

As for the rest of the conference, the highlights of the week included “A day in the life of a Quality Lead” a great experience report from Elizabeth Zagroba. I am probably biased, but I have always enjoyed Elizabeth’s open and frank delivery of her talks and I would highly recommend her blog being on your “must read” list and comb through the backlog for great writing on glue work, ET, and check out her Friends of Good Software conference.

I always love when I get to see new speakers or folks giving their very first conference talk, and amongst the multiple first-timers, Demi Van Malcot gave a great talk about continuous quality and the various forms it takes when trying to implement the model. She did a fantastic job despite having a lot of technical difficulties at the start which would throw off a lot of veteran speakers, so great choice MoT and hope to see her speak again. (BTW, I think Dan Ashby is owed a quarter…)

By far, the best talk of the conference was Joep Schuurkes and his presenting of the test and development approach being used in the Dutch Municipal Elections of 2026. Aside from having the best flow chart on defect management I’ve seen in a long time, Joep went into great detail about how agile techniques were being applied, whether or not the worked, the implications of working in public, and some real practical examples and advice on how to get such an important project done right.

I have to admit, at times I was left wondering what decade I was in while listening to a lot of the talks, which is probably a function of being in this business for so long but also by the lack of investigation and curiosity of our community. I love it when people new to testing discover something on their own or come to conclusions that are aligned to the years of research and resources available on testing, but the lack of fresh takes or ideas was a little depressing.

All in, it was a great couple of days learning about some new stuff in our business, confirming some things I already knew, and mostly just feeling really grateful for the friends I have in this business (go and buy a Risk Storming deck!)…enjoy!