Part 2 of A Journey into the Modern Testing principles
Don't worry if you missed part 1, you will still get takeaways!
We have a bumper agenda as we have a visiting speaker in the area in Dave Christiansen. Dave is going to give us a short 20 talk titled "Why Devs Suck at Testing and How You Can Help Them"
Were then going to break, do some technical checks and cast with Newcastle, Glasgow and Seattle for part 2 of our conversation on the Modern Testing Principles.
We will end the night with the popular lean coffee, when we get feedback on these events its always about the community and discussion with the attendees. Lean Coffee is a great way of doing just this!
Plan of attack
18:00 - Doors Open
18:30 - Dave Christiansen: Why Devs Suck at Testing and How You Can Help Them
19:00 - Alan Page - Modern Testing Principles & Q&A
20:00 - Lean Coffee
20:30 - Close
Bios
Dave Christiansen is a former tester and test manager who became a web app developer ten years ago. As a tester, Dave created a hands-on course on exploratory testing he has delivered many times in the US. As a developer, Dave has observed patterns in the way developers work that cause them to miss problems that are glaringly obvious the moment a tester gets their hands on the "finished" product. Dave will share these patterns and talk about things a tester can do to get better code out of developers on the first go-around.
Alan Page has been a software tester for over 25 years, and is currently the Director of Quality for Services (and self proclaimed Community Leader) at Unity Technologies. Previous to Unity, Alan spent 22 years at Microsoft working on projects spanning the company – including a two year position as Microsoft’s Director of Test Excellence.
Alan was the lead author of the book “How We Test Software at Microsoft”, contributed chapters for “Beautiful Testing”, and “Experiences of Test Automation: Case Studies of Software Test Automation”. His latest ebook (which may or may not be updated soon) is a collection of essays on test automation called “The A Word: Under the Covers of Test Automation”, and is available on leanpub .
Part 2 of A Journey into the Modern Testing principles
Don't worry if you missed part 1, you will still get takeaways!
In Part two we will webcast between the ever exotic locations of Glasgow, Newcastle and Seattle with Alan. Alan will give us a talk about the modern testing principles before opening it up for Q&A.
Part 2 of A Journey into the Modern Testing principles
Don't worry if you missed part 1, you will still get takeaways!
In Part two we will webcast between the ever exotic locations of Glasgow and Newcastle and Seattle with Alan. Alan will give us a talk about the modern testing principles before opening it up for Q&A.
We have a new Ask Me Anything live webinar on Tuesday 9th April at 8 pm UK time. This time we're talking about Whole Team Testing.
mabl are sponsoring this AMA. mabl is the most reliable codeless UI testing service available, enabling continuous testing with an auto-healing automation framework and maintenance-free test infrastructure. Using proprietary machine learning models to automatically identify application issues, including javascript errors, visual regressions, broken links, increased latency, and more, mabl brings traditional UI testing to the modern age.
Find out more about mabl.
Our host Vernon Richards will be joined by Lisa Crispin to answer all your questions.
One of the cornerstones of agile development is the whole-team focus on building quality into the software. On high-performing teams, everyone takes responsibility for testing, regardless of their official role or self-identified specialities. The DevOps movement has built on this, putting even more focus on delivery teams collaborating with Operations and other teams to build testable infrastructure and enabling continuous delivery.
In this AMA, Lisa will answer questions about how whole-team testing works in practice. If you’re wondering how in the world you get non-testers interested in doing work that they’ve purposely avoided in the past, or interested in newer practices that involve more of the delivery team, such as pair and mob testing, please join in with your questions.
Once you've registered you could ask Lisa any question you might have, here are a few more examples:
When I try to get developers to do testing, they say it’s not their job. What can I do about that?
Other people on my cross-functional team say they want to learn how to do testing. How can I help them learn skills? What skills should I start with?
I’m on a separate test automation team. It’s difficult to automate tests for (name some reason, such as, there are no unique identifiers in the UI). How can I get developers to make the code more testable?
In this session, test lead Sowmya Ramesh will be giving us her thoughts on what it takes to be a test professional, expert and leader through her 'The 10Cs Towards Becoming a Testing Practitioner' presentation.
Sowmya has recently presented at the DevTest Summit in Glasgow and is an active blogger for her employer, 2i Testing.
We will also have lightning talks from Feng Zhu on applying BDD techniques at the discovery phase, such as refinement and Jo Mahadevan on good practices in implementing automated test suites using Gherkin
Plan of Attack:
18:00 - Doors open - Networking
18:45 - Welcome message!
19:00 - Lightning Talk - Feng Zhu
19:10 - Lightning Talk - Jo Mahadevan
19:20 - Sowmya Ramesh - 10 Cs Towards Becoming a Testing Practitioner
20:00- Activity
20:30 - Post Meetup Social (AKA pub)
Synopsis:
Not to be mystified with any connections to the 10 commandments, this session is all about professional development.
The metamorphosis from being a test manager to a testing practitioner has been a personal aspiration which led me to think of the attributes demonstrated by some of highly seasoned professionals I look up to.
Strangely enough, a lot of them seem to start with the letter C – what a ‘co-incidence’ you might say! In this session I wish to share my thoughts on what it takes to be a testing professional commanding respect of peers, someone who has transitioned from an amateur to expert status, one who is considered a leader in thoughts and actions.
As much as this is about technical competence, there are several behavioural aspects expected at such a level in one’s career. I am on an endeavour to understand whether we all have these qualities innately or can we develop some of them through various techniques? Needless to mention all alphabets are welcome to this session! Hope to C you there!
Thanks and Sponsorship:
This venue will both be hosted and sponsored by Scott Logic. Thanks again for your continued support and sponsorship of our Meetup!
About Sowmya:
Sowmya is a testing professional with over 15 years of experience in the IT industry and has worked in a range of business domains in a consultancy environment.
Having started her career as a developer, she found her way into testing and has not looked back since. Apart from testing, Sowmya is deeply interested in the topic of accessibility – hence she considers herself a champion for quality and equality! Currently a test lead, Sowmya has been an active blogger within her company and considers blogging to be one of the best forms of expression in current times. She enjoys interacting with people and believes communication is one of the most important aspects of her professional life.
Outside work, Sowmya is a mother of two young children and a trained Indian classical dancer. Curious, meticulous and tenacious – that’s Sowmya in a nutshell.
Online ONLY - Testing Ask Me Anything - Whole Team Testing - Lisa Crispin
Description changed:
ONLINE ONLY
We have a new Ask Me Anything live webinar on Tuesday 9th April at 8 pm UK time. This time we're talking about Whole Team Testing.
mabl are sponsoring this AMA. mabl is the most reliable codeless UI testing service available, enabling continuous testing with an auto-healing automation framework and maintenance-free test infrastructure. Using proprietary machine learning models to automatically identify application issues, including javascript errors, visual regressions, broken links, increased latency, and more, mabl brings traditional UI testing to the modern age.
Find out more about mabl.
Our host Vernon Richards will be joined by Lisa Crispin to answer all your questions.
One of the cornerstones of agile development is the whole-team focus on building quality into the software. On high-performing teams, everyone takes responsibility for testing, regardless of their official role or self-identified specialities. The DevOps movement has built on this, putting even more focus on delivery teams collaborating with Operations and other teams to build testable infrastructure and enabling continuous delivery.
In this AMA, Lisa will answer questions about how whole-team testing works in practice. If you’re wondering how in the world you get non-testers interested in doing work that they’ve purposely avoided in the past, or interested in newer practices that involve more of the delivery team, such as pair and mob testing, please join in with your questions.
Once you've registered you could ask Lisa any question you might have, here are a few more examples:
When I try to get developers to do testing, they say it’s not their job. What can I do about that?
Other people on my cross-functional team say they want to learn how to do testing. How can I help them learn skills? What skills should I start with?
I’m on a separate test automation team. It’s difficult to automate tests for (name some reason, such as, there are no unique identifiers in the UI). How can I get developers to make the code more testable?
Online Only - Masterclass: How to Test Data Analytics
Description changed:
ONLINE ONLY
This is Data Analytics testing 101! So you've been dumped into testing software that contains some sort of fancy-pants data analytics. The only problem is, you don't/can't/won't(!?) understand it and nobody is going to pay or wait to catch you up to speed. Where do you get started? What can you test about algorithms without any experience or in-depth knowledge? Is it time to give up and start looking for a new job already? Hopefully, there was a resounding No! to that question.
Daniel will address these questions as he was in a similar situation himself only 12 months ago! Traversing such buzzwords as machine learning, data science and predictive analytics we'll take a look at some simple methods, common pitfalls and general approaches that will make sense out of the data. There's nothing better than proving that testers can test more than we're supposed to!
Takeaways
Learn how to follow the data; not the analytics.
Discover some common ways that data can cause headaches.
Find sources of truth wherever you can.
Confirming correctness is hard but finding flaws is easier.
Daniel hunt
Daniel has been working as a software tester at a data analytics consultancy after a brief foray into games testing. He has worked on a huge range of different projects across a number of different sectors, each with an analytics component.
Despite being primarily charged with testing the software that houses the data analytics, Daniel likes to find problems wherever they present themselves. This often means testing analytics without deeply understanding it!
Within the Software Testing industry, we are lucky that we have people who are looking ahead to where our industry is going, how we can add value now and will continue to in the years to come. Alan Page and Brent Jensen’s A&B Testing podcast is one of the best discussions that looks at this very question.
Anyone who has listened to the AB testing podcast will know of the “Modern Testing Principles” in April we are going to explore on what these are, what that means to us as a collective and individually.
To explore the principles we are going to host a round table discussion on the principles Alan and Brent have created.
Plan of Attack
18:00 - Doors Open
18:30 - Round Table Discussions (we will focus on principles 1-6)
20:30 - Pub
May
This is in preparation for May as we will be joined via a live Crowdcast by Alan (Sorry we could not afford a return flight from Seattle!) who will talk to us about the Modern Principles finalising in a Q&A.
As you might be aware this meetup is part of a wider Meetup community (https://www.ministryoftesting.com/ministry-of-testing-meetups) and for May we will be joining with our Glasgow and Newcastle meetups for this very special session.
Link to the AB Testing podcast
https://www.angryweasel.com/ABTesting/
Alan Page
Alan Page has been a software tester for over 25 years, and is currently the Director of Quality for Services (and self proclaimed Community Leader) at Unity Technologies. Previous to Unity, Alan spent 22 years at Microsoft working on projects spanning the company – including a two year position as Microsoft’s Director of Test Excellence.
Alan was the lead author of the book “How We Test Software at Microsoft”, contributed chapters for “Beautiful Testing”, and “Experiences of Test Automation: Case Studies of Software Test Automation”. His latest ebook (which may or may not be updated soon) is a collection of essays on test automation called “The A Word: Under the Covers of Test Automation”, and is available on leanpub .
This event is sponsored by Hays Recruitment. It's with thanks to Finley Hartsuiker for the Hosting and Sponsorship this event
https://www.linkedin.com/in/finleyhartsuiker/
The principles of Modern Testing are:
1. Our priority is improving the business.
2. We accelerate the team, and use models like Lean Thinking and the Theory of Constraints to help identify, prioritize and mitigate bottlenecks from the system.
3. We are a force for continuous improvement, helping the team adapt and optimize in order to succeed, rather than providing a safety net to catch failures.
4. We care deeply about the quality culture of our team, and we coach, lead, and nurture the team towards a more mature quality culture.
5. We believe that the customer is the only one capable to judge and evaluate the quality of our product
6. We use data extensively to deeply understand customer usage and then close the gaps between product hypotheses and business impact.
Online! Masterclass: Strategies to make your automated checks reliable & robust
Description changed:
Online only
Learn how to write automated checks in a way that is fast, reliable, maintainable and becomes a crucial part of your continuous delivery pipeline.
The advantages of automated checks are well known, they save testers working through mundane, manual test cases over and over again to check for regressions. Unfortunately, their disadvantages are also well known, being prone to unreliable results and a high cost of maintainability. Peter will show you how to overcome the pains associated with writing and running automated checks and turn them into an integral part of your continuous delivery pipeline.
Peter shares his experience in writing an automated checking framework using Selenium. He'll describe how a deployment pipeline that utilises this automated checking framework can give important information on releasability. Peter will demonstrate how to structure your code with re-usable and flexible components, making it less prone to flaky results, easier to update and easier to understand. He will also reflect on problems faced during his 9 years of writing automation code and how he overcame these issues.
Takeaways
Learn how to target and integrate your automated checks to be a beneficial slice of your continuous delivery pipeline.
Discover how to boost the reliability, maintainability and usefulness of your automated checks by following a simple set of guidelines.
Be equipped to improve your existing automated checking framework, or start a new framework on the right track.
Avoid the common problems that can plague your automated tests by benefiting from my personal experiences.
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/AutomationStrategiesMC
Peter Bartlett
Peter Bartlett is in the process of transitioning from the Quality Practice Lead at Campaign Monitor, to the Head of Automation in Sydney at PlanIt. Within Campaign Monitor he led a culture change in how quality and testing were viewed and implemented within the organisations and is keen to share this journey for others to learn from. This role involved being the global lead of Quality across 3 products, with responsibilities over an international team of testers. Moving into PlanIt, he will head up a team of test automation experts in tackling tricky problems for clients across a wide variety of industries, office cultures and business sizes. He has over 9 years experience in testing, with strong manual and technical experience, he loves problem solving and finding new and better ways to do things. He is an international speaker.
Testing Ask Me Anything | Testability | Ash Winter - ONLINE ONLY
Description changed:
ONLINE ONLY
We have a new Ask Me Anything live webinar on Tuesday 12th February at 8 pm UK time. This time we're talking about Testability.
Our host Vernon Richards will be joined by Ash Winter to answer all your questions.
Once you've registered you could ask Ash any question you might have around Testability, here are a few more examples:
How do I know when something is hard or easy to test?
What are the principles of testability and what do they mean to my daily work?
Is testability all about systems or are there social and team dynamics at play?
How can I convince my team that investing in testability is worth it?
You can read the announcement for the event and format.
Once registered we encourage you to ask some questions on the topic in advance, ready for the webinar and upvote any questions you'd like to see answered.
The event is free and completely online, click register below to reserve your place and ask some questions!
In this session, test lead Sowmya Ramesh will be giving us her thoughts on what it takes to be a test professional, expert and leader through her 'The 10Cs Towards Becoming a Testing Practitioner' presentation.
Sowmya has recently presented at the DevTest Summit in Glasgow and is an active blogger for her employer, 2i Testing.
We will also have a lightning talk from Jo Mahadevan on good practices in implementing automation test suites using Gherkin.
Plan of Attack:
18:00 - Doors open - Networking
18:45 - Welcome message!
19:00 - Sowmya!
19:45 - Lightning Talk - Jo Mahadevan
20:00 - Activity/Lean Coffee
20:30 - Post Meetup Social (AKA pub)
Synopsis:
Not to be mystified with any connections to the 10 commandments, this session is all about professional development.
The metamorphosis from being a test manager to a testing practitioner has been a personal aspiration which led me to think of the attributes demonstrated by some of highly seasoned professionals I look up to.
Strangely enough, a lot of them seem to start with the letter C – what a ‘co-incidence’ you might say! In this session I wish to share my thoughts on what it takes to be a testing professional commanding respect of peers, someone who has transitioned from an amateur to expert status, one who is considered a leader in thoughts and actions.
As much as this is about technical competence, there are several behavioural aspects expected at such a level in one’s career. I am on an endeavour to understand whether we all have these qualities innately or can we develop some of them through various techniques? Needless to mention all alphabets are welcome to this session! Hope to C you there!
Thanks and Sponsorship:
This venue will both be hosted and sponsored by Scott Logic. Thanks again for your continued support and sponsorship of our Meetup!
About Sowmya:
Sowmya is a testing professional with over 15 years of experience in the IT industry and has worked in a range of business domains in a consultancy environment.
Having started her career as a developer, she found her way into testing and has not looked back since. Apart from testing, Sowmya is deeply interested in the topic of accessibility – hence she considers herself a champion for quality and equality! Currently a test lead, Sowmya has been an active blogger within her company and considers blogging to be one of the best forms of expression in current times. She enjoys interacting with people and believes communication is one of the most important aspects of her professional life.
Outside work, Sowmya is a mother of two young children and a trained Indian classical dancer. Curious, meticulous and tenacious – that’s Sowmya in a nutshell.
In this session, test lead Sowmya Ramesh will be giving us her thoughts on what it takes to be a test professional, expert and leader through her 'The 10Cs Towards Becoming a Testing Practitioner' presentation.
We will also have a lightning talk from Jo Mahadevan on good practices in implementing automation test suites using Gherkin.
Plan of Attack:
18:00 - Doors open - Networking
18:45 - Welcome message!
19:00 - Sowmya!
20:00 - Lightning Talk - Jo Mahadevan
20:15 - Activity/Lean Coffee
20:30 - Post Meetup Social (AKA pub)
Synopsis:
Not to be mystified with any connections to the 10 commandments, this session is all about professional development.
The metamorphosis from being a test manager to a testing practitioner has been a personal aspiration which led me to think of the attributes demonstrated by some of highly seasoned professionals I look up to.
Strangely enough, a lot of them seem to start with the letter C – what a ‘co-incidence’ you might say! In this session I wish to share my thoughts on what it takes to be a testing professional commanding respect of peers, someone who has transitioned from an amateur to expert status, one who is considered a leader in thoughts and actions.
As much as this is about technical competence, there are several behavioural aspects expected at such a level in one’s career. I am on an endeavour to understand whether we all have these qualities innately or can we develop some of them through various techniques? Needless to mention all alphabets are welcome to this session! Hope to C you there!
Thanks and Sponsorship:
This venue will both be hosted and sponsored by Scott Logic. Thanks again for your continued support and sponsorship of our Meetup!
About Sowmya:
Sowmya is a testing professional with over 15 years of experience in the IT industry and has worked in a range of business domains in a consultancy environment.
Having started her career as a developer, she found her way into testing and has not looked back since. Apart from testing, Sowmya is deeply interested in the topic of accessibility – hence she considers herself a champion for quality and equality! Currently a test lead, Sowmya has been an active blogger within her company and considers blogging to be one of the best forms of expression in current times. She enjoys interacting with people and believes communication is one of the most important aspects of her professional life.
Outside work, Sowmya is a mother of two young children and a trained Indian classical dancer. Curious, meticulous and tenacious – that’s Sowmya in a nutshell.
Webinar - Testing Ask Me Anything | Robots in Automation | Jason Huggins
Description changed:
Hi MOT Edinburgh,
Ministry of Testing have a new Ask Me Anything live webinar on Tuesday 15th January at 8 pm UK time. This time we're talking about Robots in Automation.
If you have not attended an AMA its an interactive webinar where an SME speaks about a subject informally and takes questions from the attendees, these free events are great if you want to ask a question that comes to you on the night or submit a question before hand.
Once you've registered you could ask Jason any question you might have around Robots in Automation, here are a few more examples:
Why would a tester need a robot?
What can robots do that Appium or Selenium can’t do?
What are some scenarios where a robot is the right tool for the job?
Once registered we encourage you to ask some questions on the topic in advance, ready for the webinar and upvote any questions you'd like to see answered.
Link to register:
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/amarobots/register
It's just too slow: Mobile application performance testing
Description changed:
Hi MOT Edinburgh,
To kick off our 2019 season we have Doug Sillars giving us his thoughts on Mobile Performance Testing. Doug is a friend of the MOT meetups, having spoken at meetups in Ireland and France.
Plan of Attack
18:00 - Doors open - Networking
18:45 - Doug!
19:30 - Activity/Lean Coffee
20:30 - Post Meetup Social (AKA pub)
Synopsis below
Mobile apps and websites are now the predominant ways that users interact with brands. Research has shown that slow sites and apps lose customer engagement. Despite this, most mobile sites and apps have performance issues that can be easily resolved once diagnosed.
In this talk, we will walk through steps to diagnose network performance bottlenecks in mobile services. We'll discuss real world examples and how they were resolved. Attendees will leave this talk armed with the tools to test, diagnose and resolve the top network performance issues that affect mobile today.
Thanks and Sponsorship
Thanks to the Google Digital Garage for hosting this event.
Sponsorship (Pizza and Liquids) kindly provided by Aaron Hamilton (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aahamilton/) from www.harveynash.com\scotland who is a regular attendee to the MOT Edinburgh events and recruits heavily within testing.
About Doug
Doug is is a freelance mobile performance expert, having helped thousands of developers speed up their mobile apps and websites. A Google Developer Expert and the author of O’Reilly’s “High Performance Android Apps,” Doug has spoken at developer conferences in the US and Europe, and blogs regularly at dougsillars.com. He is currently working as a freelance digital nomad, traveling with his family in Europe.
To kick off our 2019 season we have Doug Sillars giving us his thoughts on Mobile Performance Testing. Doug is a friend of the MOT meetups, having spoken at meetups in Ireland and France.
Plan of Attack
18:00 - Doors open - Networking
18:45 - Doug!
19:30 - Activity/Lean Coffee
20:30 - Post Meetup Social (AKA pub)
Synopsis below
Mobile apps and websites are now the predominant ways that users interact with brands. Research has shown that slow sites and apps lose customer engagement. Despite this, most mobile sites and apps have performance issues that can be easily resolved once diagnosed.
In this talk, we will walk through steps to diagnose network performance bottlenecks in mobile services. We'll discuss real world examples and how they were resolved. Attendees will leave this talk armed with the tools to test, diagnose and resolve the top network performance issues that affect mobile today.
Thanks and Sponsorship
Thanks to the Google Digital Garage for hosting this event.
Sponsorship (Pizza and Liquids) kindly provided by Aaron Hamilton (https://www.linkedin.com/in/aahamilton/) from www.harveynash.com\scotland who is a regular attendee to the MOT Edinburgh events and recruits heavily within testing.
About Doug
Doug is is a freelance mobile performance expert, having helped thousands of developers speed up their mobile apps and websites. A Google Developer Expert and the author of O’Reilly’s “High Performance Android Apps,” Doug has spoken at developer conferences in the US and Europe, and blogs regularly at dougsillars.com. He is currently working as a freelance digital nomad, traveling with his family in Europe.
It's just too slow: Mobile application performance testing
Description changed:
Hi MOT Edinburgh,
To kick off our 2019 season we have Doug Sillars giving us his thoughts on Mobile Performance Testing. Doug is a friend of the MOT meetups, having spoken at meetups in Ireland and France.
Plan of Attack
18:00 - Doors open - Networking
18:45 - Doug!
19:30 - Activity/Lean Coffee
20:30 - Post Meetup Social (AKA pub)
Synopsis below
Mobile apps and websites are now the predominant ways that users interact with brands. Research has shown that slow sites and apps lose customer engagement. Despite this, most mobile sites and apps have performance issues that can be easily resolved once diagnosed.
In this talk, we will walk through steps to diagnose network performance bottlenecks in mobile services. We'll discuss real world examples and how they were resolved. Attendees will leave this talk armed with the tools to test, diagnose and resolve the top network performance issues that affect mobile today.
Sponsors and thanks
Thanks to the Google Digital Garage for hosting this event.
Sponsorship (Pizza and Liquids) kindly provided by Harvey Nash.
About Doug
Doug is is a freelance mobile performance expert, having helped thousands of developers speed up their mobile apps and websites. A Google Developer Expert and the author of O’Reilly’s “High Performance Android Apps,” Doug has spoken at developer conferences in the US and Europe, and blogs regularly at dougsillars.com. He is currently working as a freelance digital nomad, traveling with his family in Europe.
Thinker, Tester, Lawyer, Spy - An exclusive Test Bash Brighton preview!
Description changed:
Hi all,
Were on a bit of a roll at the moment when it comes to speakers. Daniel Shaw who is speaking at Test Bash Essentials on Brighton is going to give us an exclusive preview of his talk.
Plan of attack!
18:00 - Doors Open
18:45 - Daniel Shaw + Activity
20:30 - Pub
Those teams working in an agile fashion will usually bring the tester in as early as possible in the development cycle — often during the planning stages — to find potential problems before they create work to fix. But checking for potential technical problems is only a small part of what the QA team can do in this stage.
The QA team has a wide scope to make the product as good as it can be. This allows the tester to use not just their technical knowledge, but their non-technical knowledge, in their quest for quality.
In this talk, we will be outlining those non technical disciplines that a tester has, from historian to lawyer, and even spy. Testers will come away from this talk full of ideas of questions to ask of their product, while other members of the team will come away with a greater understanding of the knowledge a good tester can bring to the table.
Items covered will include accessibility, data protection, misuse of a product, and being culturally sensitive.
Daniel Shaw
Daniel is a software tester who enjoys talking about QA and what's wrong with everything to anyone who will listen. Daniel is active in the PHP and testing communities, and when he isn't testing and breaking your hard work, he writes quality code. Daniel enjoys writing code following best practices, and never stops learning about them. He loves sharing his findings with others in the community. Previous employers include Xing and the BBC, where he was the test lead for the BAFTA-nominated CBeebies Storytime and the tester for the 30th anniversary version of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy game
Accessibility in Testing - Why you want to and how you can
Description changed:
Accessibility and Usability is becoming more prevalent in a an increasingly competitive world. Customers don't tolerate having to "make do" they want to use software that they can interact with the way the physical world works for them.
Accessibility is becoming more important because:
*We have an aging population, more and more of our users need applications designed for their needs. In 2016 it was stated the EU has 80 million people with a disability, by 2020 this is likely to grow to 120 million.
*From 2009 to 2014, mobile screen reader usage increased from 12% to 82%, a huge increase in just five years. There is a lot of talk about optimizing content for mobile and providing the best user experience possible as mobile device usage increases. The same holds true for mobile accessibility.
*The Equalities Act has required reasonable adjustments to websites for people with disabilities since 2010. The EU Web Accessibility Directive will make this much more stringent for the public sector and will for the first time in UK law specify what technical compliance looks like. Unsurprisingly it looks like Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0.
Synopsis
In this talk Kevin will give a short introduction into why we need to test for accessibility, a deconstruction of WCAG and finally some quick checks that can be used to test for some key accessibility issues.
The practical session will allow you to explore how to use these checks and what to look for, as well as affording you to discuss other aspects of accessibility of interest.
Kevin White is Head of User Centred Design at the Scottish Government and has been looking at Accessibility for over 12 years.
Plan of Attack
18:00 Doors open + Pizza
18:45 Kick off - Kevin White
19:15 Activity
20:00 Pub
This month’s talk comes all the way from NZ! James Farrier who is on a flying visit to (currently) sunny Scotland is going to talk to us about how he us using AI to help predict where to look for potential defects.
James is a Test lead/manager specializing in Automation. James spoken at meetups in NZ and some conferences including a highlight being Selenium conf 2015.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-farrier/
Synopsis below:
There are a number of challenges faced by software testers throughout the industry, including lack of time and test instability. James will discuss how he has created a tool capable of automating the manual processes involved in test automation. He will also go through how he has used AI to help predict risk and how his company utilizes this to help teams create fewer defects.
Thank you in advance to our hosts and sponsors Scott Logic!
Plan of Attack!
• 18:15 - Doors open, Pizza and Drinks
• 18:45 - Welcome and quick introductions
• 19:00 – Testing with AI
• 19:30 - Break
• 19:45 – Lean Coffee
• 20:30 - Pub
Many companies are evolving from Agile to DevOps and as testers we need to adapt and utilise our skills in order to assist the delivery of quality software. Alister Aitken, a Principal Consultant from Edge Testing will be delivering his presentation on 'Testing as a part of DevOps.'
The shift away from contained projects to a more complex landscape of delivery chains impacts all aspects of delivery and creates new challenges for testing and assurance.
As an industry, we have already adapted to agile methods introducing shorter timescales and more frequent delivery; now we need to go a step further and push quality activity out into the full chain as a coherent activity.
Craneware's offices are located on the 2nd floor of the Tanfield building. The main reception is located off Inverleith Row and bus numbers 8, 23 and 27 stop right outside. There will be someone at the main reception to show people where to sign-in and where our offices are.
Plan of action:
6:00-6:45pm - Networking and pizza
6:45-7:00pm - Introductions
7:00-7:30pm - Alister Aitken - 'Testing as part of DevOps'
7:30-7:45pm - Break
7:45pm-8:30pm - Activity
This month’s talk comes from Kyle McEvoy, Director of QA at FanDuel. Kyle is going to explore what a Full Stack Tester means to him.
Synopsis below
You may have heard of the term full-stack developer but have you come across the term full-stack tester?
As a tester, in an organization that provides software as a service, you probably find yourself testing your product features solely via desktop, web or mobile clients. In a lot of circumstances, this is a sound approach but could your team benefit from you being able to test the underlying systems that serve the data to your clients too?
As test leader or community in your organization, what benefits would cultivating such a shift in skillset of your testers bring to your teams and how might this be done and what challenges might you face?
In this talk, Kyle will provide an interpretation of what a full-stack tester is, how this aspect of the software testing role at FanDuel came to be and the benefits it has brought.
This is also a story of challenges faced in helping our testers in becoming “full-stack” and how we overcame them to bring about a higher level of effectiveness and efficiency across our product development teams particularly in such a fast growing organisation and market.”
Thank you in advance to our hosts Royal London at their premises on Thistle Street (St Andrew Square side).
Refreshments will be provided by Ministry of Testing!
Plan of Attack!
• 18:00 - Doors open, Pizza and Drinks
• 18:45 - Welcome and quick introductions
• 19:00 – Full Stack Tester
• 19:30 - Break
• 19:45 – Test Team Roulette: Choose your ideal candidate
• 20:30 - Socialising at a local watering hole
More info on Test Team Roulette: Choose your ideal candidate
https://dojo.ministryoftesting.com/dojo/lessons/test-team-roulette-choose-your-ideal-candidate
This month we will be sponsored and hosted by FanDuel at their premises on the Quarter Mile.
Were going to look at Agility, have you come across any or all of the below challenges?
1. Disparate Agile skills: Distributed Agile team working from three locations lacked a common definition of ‘Done.’
2. Poor application performance: SLA compliance dropped to 64 percent at peak usage.
3. Limited Software Engineering skills: Limiting the programme’s ability to remove technical debts and improve automation.
4. Lack of clear non-functional requirements gathering/testing (NFR/NFT). Impact meant Testing to assess platform performance was ad- hoc and non-value-adding.
If you answered yes to any of these, you need to hear this story about how a team tackled these challenges. A Distributed Agile team working across 3 locations builds, tests and maintains this platform which also includes a comprehensive educational site to educate customers on the value of investing and saving.
The team had a goal to
• Improve time-to-market to acquire new customers faster
• Improve quality, eliminate production issues and improve CX
• Achieve cost efficiency, reduce IT costs and improve profitability
The key differentiators and principles applied were
• A true partnership with our stakeholders
• Going beyond the agreed scope of work
• Timely introduction of tools, technology and processes
The outcome was
• Increase in release cycles (from 9 weeks to 4 weeks)
• Increase in automation
• 25% increase in SLA, focus on innovation, induction of relevant tools and saved significant delivery costs
• Industry award for ‘Best Agile Project’
Along with these benefits, there has been great team ethos, improved customer experience, better skills within the team which has led to a close knit team which is capable of delivering high quality change within reduced timelines and costs.
Plan of Attack!
• 18:00 - Doors open, Pizza and Drinks
• 18:45 -Welcome and quick introductions
• 18:50 – Aim for Agility - Sushant!
• 19:30 - Break
• 19:45 – Lean Coffee
• 20:30 - Socialising at a local watering hole
As always the aim of this meetup is to help foster a test community in Edinburgh to bring people together to talk and learn about good and authentic testing.
For March we have a superb speaker in Gary Davies, Head of Test for Mindtree. Some of you may know Gary from his time in Scotland with App Labs and later with Congizant.
Gary is going to talk to us about a challenge a lot of us face into, how we can manage the transformation from Legacy systems into a modern context.
Synopsis below:
Testing is becoming more of a governance layer in these large scale transitions from legacy application to hosting on the cloud. The new age of continuous testing and continuous automation will of course be fundamental to these programmes, however how does that sit with the rigour of legacy system testing that is required in the most regulated businesses. The executive see the adoption of cloud as a real cost driver and this is where testing becomes an interesting part of the jigsaw.
Areas we will explore:
-Exploring how organisation can manage the transition and transformation from legacy systems to the world of cloud
-The Technology surrounding this
-Managing the role of the business
-Managing the role of the regulator
-Managing the expectation of the executive on cost reduction
-Keeping the BAU running and the business working
Plan of Attack!
• 18:00 - Doors open, Pizza and Drinks
• 18:45 -Welcome and quick introductions
• 18:50 – Gary Davies
• 19:30 - Break
• 19:45 – Lean Coffee
• 20:30 - Socialising at a local watering hole
*Access to the building is from a different entrance than the last time, please use the entrance to the left hand side of the building next to St Andrews Church.
Mini Meetup - RiskStorming - Mapping Risks with TestSphere
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MOT Edinburgh Members we have a great opportunity for you here!
The creator of TestSphere is passing though Edinburgh on his European cycling tour to Test Bash Brighton (I did tell him there are other modes of transport available).
Beren has offered to run a free interactive workshop to demo the Risk Storming technique you can use with TestSphere during his short time in Edinburgh.
Due to the interactive nature of the demo this is limited to 25 attendees.
What is a Risk Storming?
The RiskStorming game is a visual, collaborative method to map your Testing on threats to the quality aspects that matter.
The game consists of three phases:
1. Select a subset of important quality aspect.
2. Come up with risks to the selected quality aspects.
3. Use the rest of TestSphere to create a strategy in function of those risks.
Linked is a blog that explains this in more depth from a workshop at the Agile & Automation days in Krakau.
It is explained much more in depth here: http://thatsthebuffettable.blogspot.be/2017/11/riskstorming-maping-risks-with.html
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