Introduction
I’ve been lucky enough to be able to head down to TestBash this year, only 9 months after I started learning there was a software testing community out there! So here I am in Brighton, typing this post to collect my thoughts before the week ahead!
What’s TestBash?
TestBash is one of the biggest software testing conferences in the UK and is organised by the Ministry of Testing. It attracts testers from all over and has featured many prominent speakers especially from the context-driven testing community such as James Bach and Michael Bolton. You can watch many of the great talks on various testing subjects from years gone by on the Ministry of Testing’s training area, The Dojo.
As well as the 1-day conference, there are also several workshops and training courses in the week building up to it.
My Itinerary
I’ve been very fortunate with help from both work and Rosie Sherry at the Ministry of Testing to sign up for both a 3-day training course on Rapid Software Testing (RST) with Michael Bolton and for the 1-day TestBash main conference. So my week ahead looks like this:
Monday - Wednesday
Rapid Software Testing training course
Wednesday and Thursday nights
Pre-TestBash meetups around Brighton
Friday
TestBash main conference + evening meetup
Saturday
Morning post-TestBash meetup
Preview thoughts
I’m very excited to take the RST course with Michael Bolton and I’m very much looking forward to being challenged in my way of thinking. I hope to learn a lot from it and meet some like-minded testers on the course! I’ve read and heard a lot about the ominous sounding 'dice game' which I’m sure I’ll be playing at work when I get back. I’m expecting to find a lot of themes that I recognise but have never really thought about before and to find new methods, skills and thoughts. Technically this is the first time I’ve really been trained as a tester!
I’m also very much looking forward to the various meetups and getting a chance to make some new friends, talk testing and share ideas! I’m looking forward to the chance to be able to chat with several prominent testers, who I have a lot of respect for. I’m also looking forward to seeing some familiar faces who I’ve met before either from previous workplaces or from the meetups I’ve been to recently.
Finally, I’m definitely excited to attend the main conference on Friday, there are lots of great talks that I’m looking forward to such as 'Building the Right Thing: How Testers Can Help' by Lisa Crispin and Emma Armstrong and 'A Pairing Experiment' by Katrina Clokie which really touch on subjects that I’m currently active in.
Plan
Ok so I’m going to try and keep this blog updated each day of the week in Brighton with my thoughts and experiences from each day. I like doing this because it helps collect my thoughts and I’m keen to share my experience with others so that you might be encouraged to go to your local testing meetups and conferences too!
I hope by the end of this week that I have learnt a great deal and made many new friends. I’m looking forward to sharing the learnings and knowledge I gain from this week for many years to come both at work and at meetups!
Great start to your MOT experience. :) Keep up the daily blogs...will be great to see you at the event and meetups. As for the RST course, one thing I have always been told, go out of your comfort zone, if there is a challenge to be taken, be the first to do it. I did this with James a couple of years back and it was the best thing I ever did, this was my first proper intro into testing...absolutely loved it!! :)
ReplyDeleteThanks and I will do! I look forward to meeting you!
DeleteIf I'm being honest, taking the step of being here and wanting to talk to people would have been out of my comfort zone a few years ago. So I'm definitely keen to keep pushing myself!