Community

Feedback on Apprenticeships for Software Testers

An overview and feedback on an upcoming framework for helping companies create an apprenticeship program for software testers.

Reflections and fun stats from 2021

I started my previous post by saying “2021 was an improvement over the previous year”. This was due, in large part, to the growth and new challenges at work. Here are some more reflections and a few fun stats from 2021 on those new challenges: Growth Growth at Promenade came

CAST 2021 Recap

When I hit publish on my article CAST 2021 is AFK a few weeks ago I said: I’m in an airplane for the first time in years on my way to Atlanta, GA for CAST 2021. CAST is both my first conference in-person and the Association for Software Testing’

CAST 2021 is AFK

I’m in an airplane for the first time in years on my way to Atlanta, GA for CAST 2021. CAST is both my first conference in-person and the Association for Software Testing’s first since 2019. I’m pretty excited to confer safely at an in person conference AND

Came for the training, stayed for the community

When I look back on my nearly decade journey in the testing community, it all started with the Association for Software Testing. I came to the AST seeking their BBST courses, but I stayed for the supportive community of people I met both online and afk. Once Upon a Time

Better Tester Training Materials

Last month the Association for Software Testing (AST) announced a new partnership with Altom, the owner of BBST®, that enables the AST to refresh our curriculum lineup with the new BBST® Community Track and help fund the future growth of the materials. This partnership and refresh are a huge milestone

Not good enough

A month ago someone on LinkedIn thanked a website and the person running it for helping them learn. They recommended others use the site. When people in my network commented on how the site wasn’t any good, I took notice. It reminded me of what Seth Godin said in

I'm Speaking at TestFlix

It’s true, I’m speaking at TestFlix on November 28th, 2020. You should sign up to join; it’s free to register! I recorded and submitted my 7 minute talk on “Using Test Idea Catalogs for Better Testing”. The premise is: Testers can develop a set of tests or

I’m running for the 2020-2022 AST Board of Directors

Elections just opened for the Association for Software Testing’s Board of Directors for which I’m a candidate. If you are a voting-eligible member of the AST I’d appreciate the consideration as I run for my 2nd term. For those who are voting (or possibly just interested) I

My First Term on the AST Board of Directors

The Association for Software Testing (AST), a non-profit professional organization dedicated to advancing the understanding and science of software testing, has announced a call for nominations for the Board of Directors for 2020-2022. This means my two-year term as a director is coming to an end. I feel fortunate and

Late-August updates

August has been crazy busy with a mixture of travel, AST elections, my day job and the annual CAST conference. Some recent updates: Learning * Joined my first TestAutomationU course on WebDriverIO. I already use WebDriverIO v4 but figured since it was using v5 it might be fun to see what

Highlights from CAST 2018

Last week I attended CAST in Cocoa Beach, Florida, which was my second time attending and the first since CAST in Grand Rapids back in 2015. It was a fun experience for a number of reasons including giving my first workshop at CAST and being elected to the AST Board

I'm running for the 2018-2020 AST Board of Directors

I’m running for the 2018-2020 AST Board of Directors this year. I’m asking for your Vote! (If you are an AST member you’ll see an email for voting on August 6th!) If my name sounds familiar to you it could be because I ran and failed to

Lessons Learned from the Contributing to GitHub is For You Workshop

On April 11, 2018 I gave a workshop called Contributing to GitHub is For You is For You (abbreviated as C2GI4U) in Des Moines, IA to the Des Monies Area Quality Assurance Association (abbrevitated as DAQAA). Roughly 36 people signed up for the DAQAA event meetup and of those about

A GitHub Workshop & why Version Control is a Technical Skill

On April 11th, 2018 I’m giving a workshop in Des Moines, IA to the Des Moines Area Quality Assurance Association (DAQAA) called Contributing to GitHub Is for You (join us!) on learning to use git with GitHub. The workshop is based on a presentation I did with Matt Heusser

Rebooting the AST's Webinar Series!

Last year, after failing in my bid to become a Board Member, I agreed to run the AST’s webinar program. Funny thing was I already had a small list of people and topics I wanted to learn more from / about based on conference and podcast talks. (When something intrigues

Appreciating the appreciation

This month I’ve gotten several compliments and positive feedback on how TestingConferences.org has helped them. Some have been speakers, some participants looking for a conference and others have been conference organizers. It’’s a pretty amazing feeling when (in this case) multiple people say they’ve gotten use

Patterns in AST Board Candidate Responses

In my last post I announced my running for the Board of Directors for the Association for Software Testing. Voting for the board starts next week (so watch for AST’s email) but the list of AST Board Nominees now contains each persons Candidate Questionnaire replies, including my own. After

I'm running for the AST Board of Directors

Although it’s not yet time to vote, I’m excited to share that I’m a nominee for the 2017 Board of Directors of the Association for Software Testing (AST) along with some really amazing people. I care about the work the AST provides (some of which I’ll

As the World Turns

“As the world turns” seems like the best way to describe the busy-ness I’ve experienced recently. Feels like I’m forgetting a lot of things and to help I’ve written them down. I’m also feeling goofy so this post might contain a few GIFSs. Work has been

Introducing TestingConferences.org

For the past few years one of my professional goals has been to attend (at least) one testing conference or workshop per year, mostly because it’s such a great way to recharge and learn what other practitioners are doing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a good source of events

An In-depth look at CAST 2015

The Conference for the Association for Software Testing or CAST 2015 was held in Grand Rapids, MI during the first week of August. Since then I’ve been trying to reflect on what I thought, learned, liked and didn’t like. Here is that reflection in roughly 3,000 words.

The idea of a Professional Tester

As rough as traveling can be, one benefit is dedicated time to catch up on reading. I finally got around to a post from Uncle Bob on “Sapient Testing: The “Professionalism” meme” and it captured something I’ve been thinking about for a some time: the label of professional(ism)

Humans and Machines: Getting The Model Wrong

It seems like one of the more prominent and perpetual debates within the software testing community is the delineation between what the computer and human can and should do. Stated another way, this question becomes “what parts of testing fall to the human to design, run and evaluate and what

Shaping Your Identity as a Tester

On Thursday, June 25, 2015 I presented my first webinar called Shaping Your Identity as a Tester that was based on an earlier article I wrote called Blogging for your Career. uTest recorded it and made it part of their uTest University series, you can check it out here. I’

State of Testing Survey 2015

In December of 2013 I mentioned Lalit Bhamare and Joel Montvelisky created a survey for assessing the “state” of the testing community to help the community to get a better understanding of what is going on around the world and help testers improve things. They published their results in a

AST Membership and Learning Goals

It’s official I’m a member of the Association for Software Testing or AST as it’s commonly known. I’ve been meaning to sign up so I can take the BBST Foundations Course, meet some local (or not so local) context-driven testers, perhaps post on their discussion boards

What Testers Need to Learn

Sunday night I attended a live webinar by James Bach entitled “What Testers Need to Learn” that was put on by Tea time with Testers. It seemed like an interesting topic so I joined (it only cost $30). The webinar got off to a slow start thanks to some technical