Speaking at the Testing Talks 2021 (The Reunion) conference (28 October, Melbourne)

After almost two decades of very regularly attending testing conferences, the combined impacts of COVID-19 and finishing up my career at Quest have curtailed these experiences in more recent times. I’ve missed the in-person interaction with the testing community facilitated by such events, as I know many others have also.

The latter stages of 2020 saw me give three talks; firstly for the DDD Melbourne By Night meetup, then a two-minute talk for the “Community Strikes The Soapbox” part of EuroSTAR 2020 Online, and finally a contribution to the inaugural TestFlix conference. All of these were virtual events and at least gave me some presentation practice.

The opportunity to be part of an in-person conference in Melbourne was very appealing and, after chatting with Cameron Bradley, I committed to building a new talk in readiness for his Testing Talks 2021 Conference.

With the chance to develop a completely new talk, I riffed on a few ideas before settling on what seemed like a timely story for me to tell, namely what I’ve learned from twenty-odd years in the testing industry. I’ve titled the talk “Lessons Learned in Software Testing”, in a deliberate nod to the awesome book of the same name.

I’ve stuck with my usual routine in putting this new talk together, using a mindmap to help me come up with the structure and key messages before starting to cut a slide deck. It remains a challenge for me to focus more on the talk content than refining the slides at this stage, but I’m making a conscious effort to get the messaging down on rough slides before putting finishing touches to them later on.

It’s been interesting to look back over such a long career in the one industry, thinking about the trends that have come and gone, and realizing how much remains the same in terms of being a good tester adding value to projects. I’m looking forward to sharing some of the lessons I’ve learned along the way – some specifically around testing and some more general – in this new talk later in the year.

Fingers crossed (and COVID-permitting!), I’ll be taking the stage at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre on 28th October to deliver my talk to what I hope will be a packed house. Maybe you can join me? More details and tickets are available from the Testing Talks 2021 Conference website.