London Tester Gathering Workshops competition!

The London Tester Gathering Workshops are approaching and they are shaping up nicely.

To read a little bit about previous days have a look at these posts:

London Tester Gathering Workshops - Stephen Janaway
Lessons From The Black Ops Testing LTG Workshops! - Dan Ashby
Using games to aid tester creativity - John Stevenson
Focused Awareness - Simon Knight
Experiences of LTGW Workshops 2015 - Dan Ashby
LTGW2014: resources from our workshop - Carlos Ble
Announcement: Workshop & ebook: “Fast Feedback Using Ruby” - Stephan Kamper

Taking a page out of Richard's book I've decided to have a competition for 3 tickets to the Workshops.*

To enter you have to fill out the form:

• Explain why you want to attend.
• If there is a particular workshop you're interested in? And why?
• What do you think is missing from the Workshops?
• After the workshops write a blog post about the experience.

The form.

Not all the questions are mandatory.
* The competition is for a single ticket so there are 3 chances to win.
** Travel/accom. is not part of the competition. You will need to arrange and fund that yourself.
*** I have not needed to purchase these tickets as I organise the workshops.
**** Competition ends midnight on the 30th April.

Are you coming to Agile Testing Days 2015? Will a 15% discount code help?

Want to come to Agile Testing Days 2015? Will a 15% discount code help?

“Embracing Agile for a Competitive Edge - Establish leadership by delivering early, rapid & iterative application releases” is the Motto of this Year’s Agile Testing Days. We proudly present the 7th edition of Europe’s greatest agile event of the year!

Check out the program here.

Check out last year's.


15% Speaker Discount Code: TonBru_015
The code is combinable with other speaker codes!!

I'm going to.....

So taking John's example I thought I'd share my plans for this year so far.

• I'm attending Test Bash 3 in Brighton in March.
• I'll be running a tutorial and giving a talk at Romanian Testing in May.
• Steve Green, Alan Richardson, James Lyndsay and I will be running Black Ops Testing in London in June. 
• I'll be running a workshop at CAST in New York in August.
• I'm organising (with Skillsmatter) and running a workshop at the Tester Gathering London Workshops in London in October.
• The London Tester Gathering will continue this year running roughly once a month.
• I am a judge for the Software Testing World Cup.

As far as I'm aware there are still tickets available for all but get in quick.

NB. Tickets not needed for the #TesterGathering

Photos from #ltgw2013

Pictures from the London #TesterGathering Workshops.


Skillsmatter photos - 

Google + 

Facebook 

Carlos Ble photos -

Google + 

A few photos I took

Have you seen what is happening at The Wesley?

In a few weeks Agile Tour London 2013 will be upon us.

Agile Tour London is a conference, a part of the Global Agile Tour. Since its conception in 2008, it has become a hugely successful worldwide event spanning 30 different countries. The idea is simple yet powerful: create a world-wide network of local agile events open to everyone interested in Agility: From Confirmed Agile Practitioner to Agile Newbie.
Global Agile Tour has come to London for the first time this year. This event for agile enthusiasts is an international conference composed of several excellent Lectures and Workshops given by Speakers from the UK and abroad. You can check the program to discover all the talks.
The London edition will happen the Friday 1st November 2013 in The Wesley Hotel close Hudson Station and Saint Pancras.
The registration is open with regular tickets at the price of £100 Follow the @agiletourlondon on twitter and in linkedIn with the Agile Tour London Group

Check out the program!

Theory of Constraints and Agility
Craig Strong and Daryn Holmes

Agile Leadership
Alex Cuva

Discovering Scrum: An Introduction
Peter Stevens

Xanpan — a personal take on all things Agile
Allan Kelly

Frameworks: supporter and mischief-makers of Agile Development
Oliver Szymanski

So long, and thanks for all the tests
Seb Rose

The future is Agile
David Tanzer

The Emperor's New Clothes: Meaningful Interactions in Stressful Situations
Portia Tung

How to Develop Great Scrum Master
Ángel Medinilla

How to be agile in a waterfall company
Dror Helper

Code Dojo
Nigel Runnels-Moss
(Bring your laptop and your favorite IDE!)

XP at Unruly
Rachel Davies

Personal continuous improvement — a myth?
Brindusa Axon

Agile UX, Is Agile from Mars and UX from Venus?
Carl Myhill and Steve Hayes

Methodology Patterns: a Different Approach to Create a Methodology for Your Project
Giovanni Asproni

When TDD goes awry: Useless tests, infesting mocks and other horrors
Uberto Barbini

Change how you change
Tony Bruce

« We Do Agile ». Why Is It Difficult for Solution Centers to Be Agile?
Ernst Perpignand

Flow - an agile method for Devops
Steve Arnold


Not a day you want to miss. See you there.

Reasons to be at Nxt Gen Testing

Program

• Interesting case studies ranging from Mobile Testing to large organisations adapting their testing to their new agileness.
• Me!
• You can meet.
• You can discuss.
• Talkers with all kinds of different experiences and contexts.
• Attendees from all over the world.
• You can share.
• You can learn.
• You can teach.
• I'll be there!
• Interesting round tables ranging from testing in the cloud to the future of testing.
• First time talkers as well as experienced talkers.
• A good range of topics.

I went to Mile High Agile 2013 and I liked it.

I went to Mile High Agile 2013 and I had a interesting time.

The Keynote was from Joe Justice who spread the word about Team Wikispeed: building a 100 MPG car using Agile & Lean methods
You get the drift of the talk from the title, it was great to see how far they've come using these methods and also how they are able to help others using the methods.

The Keynote was filmed but I don't know what happens with the recording, whether or not it's put online for public viewing.

Find out more about wikispeed.

I managed to catch Paul Rayner's DDD Workshop which I enjoyed.  I think it gave a good introduction and a few take aways to think about.

We worked through a exercise and we were working out our domain model.  I won't write down too much detail as I don't want to give it all away.

Paul's was the only session I managed to catch as I spent a lot of the day in the coaches clinic.

The coaches clinic is a great idea and the basic setup is that people can drop by a booth and book in some time with a coach to talk about about pretty much anything agile related.

Whether it is issues they are experiencing or things they are unsure of and so on.

I enjoyed the clinic and it was interesting to talk with people who needed help with some different areas.  I hope I was able to help with some things to take away and think about.

Some of the things we discussed ranged from whether or not to use Scrum or Kanban to how to get more out of Product Owners. 

While I didn't make many of the conference talks I definitely feel my time was well spent.

My thanks to Pete Behrens for inviting me to be a part of the clinic.

My own talk was at the end of the day and it was still a pretty full room which I was surprised about purely because usually some people have left by the last talk.

My talk was about Change and the Prezi is available.

I caught a glimpse of the feed back forms and it was a mixed bag which is pretty good, in my experience it's hard to have a talk that is going to reach everybody the same way.


I do wish that the people who didn't get much out of talks would offer more feedback.  It seemed like the people who got something out of the talk offered comments and the people who didn't just marked down a score and left it at that.
That makes it very hard to improve.

All in all a good day, had a lot of different conversations, hopefully gave some people some things to think about in both the clinic and my talk and met a lot of really dedicated people.

My thanks to agile Denver and all the volunteers for bringing me along for the ride.


After the conference I got to meet Lisa Crispin's donkeys , Ernst and Chester.

Matt Barcomb was also Lisa's guest and it was great to be able to spend time with Matt, Lisa, Bob (Lisa's husband) and Lisa and Bob's extended animal family.

It was great to meet Matt and I'm looking forward to his (and Jim Holmes's) session at Eurostar.

My thanks to Lisa and Bob for inviting us (my wife and me) over. They are fantastic hosts and we had a great time.

 Matt and Lisa

My wife Marisol

Reasons to be at TestBash 2.0

Program

• I'll be there!
• Talkers from all over the world.
• Attendees from all over the world.
• You can share.
• You can learn.
• You can teach.
• Did I already mention I'll be there?
• You can meet.
• You can discuss.
• Ministry Of Testing put on good events.
• You can talk authors of a number of books:
•  Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams
• The Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar: How Self-education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success
• Bepaal je koers! Toekomst en Trends in Testen
• Brighton is a great place to visit.
• It's cheap!
• There's a get together the night before.
• Apparently some people feel the need to run (for no reason) so there's a joint run in the morning.
• There's a leancoffee.
• There is a chance to do some really short talks.
• Good way to do your first talk.
• Good way to raise a point.
• Good way to start discussion.

Check out Make The Most Out Of TestBash 2.0

Don't miss out, you'll be grumpy if you do!

Reasons to come to Agile Dev Practices

Program Overview

1. I'll be there.
2. Good mix of sessions.
3. Good mix of tutorials.
4. Good range of subjects.
5. Did I mention I'll be there?
6. Good range of workshops.
7. My colleague Ant will be there.
8. 25% off with code ATDC4P_025.
9. Potsdam/Berlin is great.
10. Markus can sign 'ATDD by Example: A Practical Guide to Acceptance Test-Driven Development' for you.  
11. You can talk to Gaspar Nagay, main contributor of the open-source .NET BDD tool, SpecFlow. 
12. Ellen can sign one of her books for you.
13. You can talk to Chris Matts and Olav Masssen.
14. Díaz & Hilterscheid have put on a great event.
15. You can talk to people who make software from all over the world, share your stories. 
16. You can teach.
17. You can learn. 

There are more reasons, what am I missing?

London Tester Gathering - Thurs 7th February - The Shooting Star

The February London Tester Gathering will be on Thursday 7th February at The Shooting Star.

Address:
125-129 Middlesex St, London E1 7JF

The plan:
We have a room from 6:00pm onwards

Talks:
Are we negative people? - Tony Bruce

Being a SDET at Skype - Martin Hall

  Sponsorship:









RSVP:

Hope to see you there.

Cheers and Kind Regards

Tony Bruce.

London Tester Gathering - Tues 15th January - The Shooting Star

The January London Tester Gathering will be on Tuesday 15th January at The Shooting Star.

Address:
125-129 Middlesex St, London E1 7JF

The plan:
We have a room from 6:00pm onwards

Talks:
Weeknight Testing Q&A
Net-A-Porter are hiring.

Sponsorship:
Net-A-Porter
http://www.net-a-porter.com

Hope to see you there.

http://www.meetup.com/agiletesting/events/95777622/

Cheers and Kind Regards

Tony Bruce.

London Tester Gathering - Thurs 11th October - The Shooting Star

The October London Tester Gathering will be on Thursday 11th October at The Shooting Star.

Address:

Function Room 125-129 Middlesex Street London E1 7JF 0207 929 6818

The plan:

We have the function room from 5:30pm onwards.

Talks:

Intro to Project Partners

Extending the page object pattern with widgets and

reflection - Rob Fahey

Sponsorship:

Project Partners, part of the Hydrogen Group

RSVP: http://linkd.in/UaSXyN

Hope to see you there.

Cheers and Kind Regards

Tony Bruce.

What is the most important skill a tester can have and why?

Last year I was at Eurostar helping out with asking attendees a question, video is up now.

Thanks to Huib Schoots for the question.

A while back I wrote a blog post with a similar theme.
At the EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference in Manchester, after another very successful conference, we asked you, the software testing community, one question....

London Tester Gathering - Weds 22nd August - The Shooting Star

London Tester Gathering - Weds 22nd August - Shooting Star

The August London Tester Gathering will be on Wednesday 22nd August at The Shooting Star.

Address:

Function Room 125-129 Middlesex Street London E1 7JF 0207 929 6818

The plan:

We have the function room from 5:30pm onwards.

Talks:

Who we are - Levy Associates

Why do we need SDETs (Software Developers in Test)? - Kostas Mamalis & Kingsley Hendrickse

Sponsorship:

Levy Associates

RSVP

Hope to see you there.

Cheers and Kind Regards

Tony Bruce.

Photos from past Gatherings

Testing Today - What are the main challenges?

I'm on the 'Testing Today' panel at the Next Generation Testing Conference on Wednesday 23rd May.  We'll be discussing the main challenges to testing today.

What would you ask?


Panel 1: Testing Today - What are the main challenges?
Moderator: Dr Richard Sykes
Panelists include: Stephen Janaway, Nokia; Tony Bruce, Tony Bruce Consulting Ltd; others TBA

Topics to be debated include:-

•  Testing in the cloud
•  Testing mobile applications
•  Testing Big Data migrations
•  Games Testing
•  Non-software systems testing

Case Study: Mobile Testing - That's Just a Smaller Screen, Right?
Stephen Janaway, Nokia

Panel 2: New Tools and Techniques
Moderator: Susan Windsor, Gerrard Consulting
Panelists include: Andy Redwood, JP Morgan; Claudia Badell, Universidad de la República, Uruguay; Jenny Martin, Collaborate Solutions Ltd; Paul Gerrard, Gerrard Consulting; Bertrand Meyer, ETH Zurich/ Chief Architect, Eiffel Software

Topics to be debated include:-

•  The role of test automation today
•  Test automation tools and a quick guide to their relative merits
•  Where does Automation fit in an Agile project?

Keynote: Can Tests be Truly Automatic?
Bertrand Meyer, ETH Zurich/ Chief Architect, Eiffel Software

Case study: 10 Key Behaviours for a Successful Agile Tester
Colin Weaver, DB Consulting
A successful Agile transformation requires a different mindset and ethos for the project team from traditional waterfall projects. Using real-life examples, this presentation focuses on the behaviours that help contribute to an individual being a successful Agile Tester.

Panel 3: All about Agile
Moderator: Niels Malotaux, Malotaux Consulting
Panelists include: Taheerah Atchia, Late Rooms.com; Liz Keogh, Lunivore; Steve Tulk; Colin Weaver, DB Consulting; Steve Watson, Reed Business Information

Topics to be debated include:-

•  Building a QA Team for the Agile Age
•  Quality Management in an Agile Context
•  Agile Project Scaling
•  Can Agile and Waterfall teams work together on the same project?

I'll be speaking at....and attending....

I'm speaking at Belgium Testing Days with Adrian Rapan about different project scenarios and how we did, wished and would now deal with them.
There will be a lot of awesome stuff going on.

And I'm speaking at CAST 2012 on change. Again there will be a lot of awesome stuff happening.

I'll be attending Lets Test and running/hosting/whatever is needed at a Tester Mega Gathering.

I've booked myself onto Agile Coaching Skills with Rachel Davies. Rachel is one of the authors of Agile Coaching. Course should be fun and is being run through Skillsmatter

Two talks, two weeks in two timezones.

Recently I was lucky enough to be part of talks at STPCon and at The Next Generation Testing conference. STPCon was in Addison, Texas and NGT is in London, England.

The first talk was with Adrian Rapan and was a mix of our different experiences on projects, in different environments and how we dealt with them and in some cases how we would now deal with them with a bit more experience under our belt.
It seemed well received and generated a lot of questions and I believe we were able to offer some suggestions to people who were in attendance on how to deal with some situations.  I'm also pretty sure some people were expecting something different so while the majority seemed to walk away with something useful, others didn't, can't please everybody.
It was a hour and 15mins look which seemed to fly by and I liked that we could have a high level of audience participation, it was fun to be able to discuss issues and draw questions and suggestions from people.

It was also great to be able to meet a lot of people.  Pete wrote some pretty good blog posts about STPCon and the people there so I'm not going to bother, also, I'm very lazy.

The second talk was about the project I am currently on and we talked about moving from Waterfall to agile and being 6 months into it.  It was a team presentation and as such I presented with some of my colleagues; Richard Wadsworth and Andy Jutton.  As becoming agile is very much about teamwork, communication and collaboration with all areas of development I thought it a good idea to include people who didn't specialise in testing. Richard is Release Manager and Andy is the Architect.

We discussed all aspects such as physical location of desk/team mates and moving everyone closer, attempting BDD and CI to name a few.  We also talked about what worked for us and why as well as what didn't and why.
It was very much a discussion on the past and how things were, the present and how things are now and the future, what we wanted to continue improving on and what we wanted to try.
A lot of questions were asked and there was a lot of discussion after so it also seemed very well received.

I had a great time presenting both talks with some very talented and professional people who for some reason seem happy to spend time with me.

I do however probably need to plan a little bit better as I arrived back from Dallas on a Monday, went to work on Tuesday and presented at Next Generation Testing on Wednesday.  This is not something I'm used to so it was a odd couple of days and I would totally do it again.

Thanks to STPCon for accepting us and Next Generation Testing for inviting me to talk and allowing us to attempt a 3 person presentation.