I was invited by @LeadDev organisation to be a part of a webinar where we had a panel discussion on “Building a better testing culture“. I was elated to be a part of this great group pf panelists alongside Thayse Onofrio from Thoughtworks and Marcus Merrell from Saucelabs. We had a spirited and interesting discussion and shared some meaningful ideas on the topic. I would also like to thank our host Amanda Sopkin for her really on-the-nail questions and for directing the conversation, and our organiser Olivia Christian for inviting me and for her support throughout the event!
The webinar panel was live, lasted for 45 minutes and then we had some time for Q&A. There were some great questions and discussions over the LeadDev slack channel as well.
Here is a bit more insight into the event-
The world of software testing is changing under the pressure of ‘speed to market’. The pressure to quickly get products to market means we are starting to see a significant shift towards automated tests during development. This will likely cause socio-technical complexities for orgs and teams currently involved in testing.
In order to be successful through these changes, orgs will need to have a clear strategy and processes in place that will ensure testing is a vital part of the delivery process. In this new age of testing, how can engineering leaders prevent pitfalls such as friction between teams, a culture of blame, and outdated processes?
In this panel, we examined how shift affects traditional testing set-ups, covering what a healthy testing culture looks like and how to avoid the anti-patterns that lead to uncommunicative teams and project bottlenecks. We explored how engineering teams can best work together and how to encourage a shared vision of quality and the importance of efficient and effective tests.
Key takeaways
Define clear roles and responsibilities for quality and testing in your org
Encourage QA to be seen as necessary, rather than inhibiting release times
Understand which tests to automate, and which to not
About LeadDev
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LeadDev has become an essential destination for anyone in tech and engineering who wants to scale themselves and create impact. They provide a range of content that includes articles, thematic content series, video talks and panel discussions, written and delivered by the best voices in engineering.You can register a free LeadDev.com account to gain access to our free engineering leadership content, free online events and our weekly email newsletter.
I am super excited to announce that the DevOpsCon Singapore conference is finally here and I am elated to be a part of the Speaker lineup!
After cancellations and rescheduling in 2020 due to the pandemic, this grand event is finally happening now from 22 to 25 Nov 2021 in an online edition.
My talk that was slated to be part of the 2020 edition remains the same topic which I have worked to enhance this year. Here are a few details of the session –
Title – The What, When and How of Test Automation
Description
Agile means pace and agile means change. With frequent time-boxed releases and flexible requirements, test automation faces numerous challenges. Haven’t we all asked what to automate and how to go about the daily tasks with the automation cloud looming over our heads? Here, we’ll discuss answers to some of these questions and try to outline a number of approaches that agile teams can take in their selection of what to automate, how to go about their automation, whom to involve, and when to schedule these tasks so that the releases are debt-free and of the best quality.
What to automate: regression averse approach, selective approach, sanity automation, max automation approach
When to automate: sprint n-1 approach, continuous automation
How to automate – all-hands approach, shared automation expert, code-averse tool
Let us have a look at the integration of these possibilities, the possible combinations, and what may or may not work.
My session will be held live on Monday, November 22 2021 17:00 – 17:45 SGT
To check out my speaker and session details, click here
For the detailed program and agenda of the conference, see this page
To Register for the event and related details, click here
I was recently invited by Fabian Böck for a chat over on his Youtube channel where he frequently interviews people in tech on various topics of interest in the industry. My talk was focused on how to steer the direction of your tech career. We had a fantastic talk about how to pave learning avenues, set for yourself time to reflect, and how companies should be enabling their workforce. And most importantly, how to ‘Never Feel Stuck’ in where you are – even if you are happy or not and use continuous learning and self improvement to guide yourself to better places!
Here is a link to the video interview-
Fabian’s company Boeck and XOXO works on Tech Conventions x Matchmaking Marketplace x Tech Talks. Check them out for more interesting talks and content!
I was invited to take a MasterClass by the wonderful people at the Ministry of Testing last month. They had a ‘Communities’ theme going on for the month of June 2021 and they loved my talk idea about Leveraging Tech Communities. So we worked around that theme to create a talk on “Grow your Career with Tech Communities”
It sure is going to be a great event with some awesome talks lined up by internationally renowned speakers.
My talk is going to be about “Adopting a Simplified Risk Based Testing approach” which includes a little bit of a story from my past project and a showcasing how to implement a simplified risk based approach on a new project.
The Ministry of Testing (MoT) is definitely the biggest and the most supportive testing community. Having heard so much about their Testbash events conducted world-wide, speaking at one was a long time goal. And I was fortunate enough to be accepted to speak at Testbash Detroit this year. But as things progressed since the beginning of 2020, travels and conferences of any kind were far from possible in light of a the global pandemic of Covid-19. Alas! our dreams were shattered. And though, it was disheartening for sure, the awesome community jumped back from the jolt and got together to bring us all an awesome online event #Testbash Home 2020.
Speakers List – TestBash Home
Preparations began and I too got back to preparing my talk, which I had given up on after the cancellations! Took a couple of weekends sorting out the content and slides. Then we had a call to record the talks with the community members Heather and Diana were ever so supportive and so kind with their emails, scheduling and feedback! This was a wonderful idea to have the talks pre-recorded so that we are not hampered by any technical glitches on the event day, while we speakers get to focus on engaging with everyone and answering questions from the community.
As the day of the event approached, I prepared for my live interview. The event had more than 1000 registrations! Definitely making it the biggest audience I have ever presented to. Though the event began late night hours for my timezone, my talk was at a convenient morning hour. So that is when I joined in. Had a wonderful chat with Richard who was the Backstage boss and handling the entire livestream for the entire 24 hours! Checked on my audio & video etc and also had introductions with James who was the host for that part. And then we were live!
The duration of the talk went great. It was surreal listening to myself presenting, and looking at the live chat and questions coming from the participants throughout the talk. Once it ended, I was back live with my video. Me and James continued to discuss the most popular voted questions asked and I answered them the best to my knowledge. It was amazing to see such great comments and kind appreciation by the listeners in the chats once we were done. #Grateful
Once my talk was done, I could now continue to enjoy the rest of the live event! #Testbash Home was an absolute treat with a mix of great content, discussions, community participation, fun hosts and great conversations! It sure has set the bar really high for all online events in the future. I stayed throughout the next 5 parts of the event and only left late at night when it was absolutely impossible to keep my eyes open 😛
It sure felt like a day away from our regular stay-at-home lives, and felt like we had met up with so many people in the virtual world. Some key highlights of the day were-
Awesome talks by speakers
Black Box puzzles played live with volunteers
99 second talks with many enthusiastic participants, many of whom were presenting for the first time!
The breakout room was so much fun – where you could select your avatar, enter a virtual room and just chit chat (and play with Ralph the dogBoss 😛 )
The breaks in-between parts had the background noise of an actual conference hall with people chattering and plates clanking. It was so soothing to hear (given the times we are in!) A fantastic idea! 🙂
The hosts did an awesome job engaging everyone in informal chats, yoga, discussing shows we are watching, things we are cooking and what not. Considering that it was a 24 hour long event, it sure was a welcome change of pace every few hours.
The short intros of all the MoT community bosses was so much fun to watch and made it very relatable. Now we know the faces behind the names.
Overall, TestBash home was an awesome experience, and I was fortunate to get some great feedback for my first ever Testbash Talk! I also loved the sketch-note of my talk created by Louise Gibbs
Sketch note Created by Louise Gibbs
I look forward to taking it further and engaging with this community in a live Testbash event some day! 🙂
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade! None better example of this than the zingy, sweet lemonade under preparation by this awesome community at @Ministry Of Testing , bringing the ‘testing’ flavors of the entire world right to your home!
Despite cancellations of a number of events due to the ongoing pandemic, this community has come back together to create an amazing online event. I am super excited to be speaking at TestBash Home 2020 – the first online software testing conference by Ministry Of Testing. It will begin on the 30th of April 2020 and run for a full 24 hours into the 1st of May 2020, traveling all timezones so that everyone in our truly global testing community can get involved.
I am honored to be a part of such an awesome line-up of speakers. These hours are going to be packed full of interactive sessions including talks, panels, challenges, plus we’ll relive and reflect on some classic TestBash talks.
I was invited by Ajay Balamurugadas to present a guest talk at his organisation Qapitol QA for their enthusiastic test team. I spoke about Layers of Test Automation to design a robust test automation framework. The topic was well received and the testers in audience showed keen interest and had some good questions! It was a good experience visiting and meeting the team and presenting a short demo of Sahi Pro too!
The testers at Qapitol QA are surely an inquisitive lot with a dynamic attitude and quest for learning. They showed a lot of interest in Sahi Pro as a tool, and also about test automation in general. I like to encourage such talent and help them in any possible way. I wish to continue the relationship and see them again in future events.
I was invited to speak at the DevOps and Agile testing Summit organised and conducted by 1.21GWs on 8th Nov 2019 at Bangalore. It was a great event which brought together many keen minds as delegates and many inspiring speakers. https://1point21gws.com/devops/bangalore/
My talk was on “The Building Blocks of a Robust Test Automation Strategy”. As we know testing teams are faced with a number of questions, decisions and challenges throughout their test automation journey. But there is no single solution for their varied problems! In this talk I outlined a number of strategies that agile teams can follow– be it their selection of what to automate and how much, what approaches to follow, whom to involve, and when to schedule these tasks so that the releases are of best quality.
I am grateful that my talk was so well received and led to great discussions later with many participants. I enjoyed the day and am always glad to be invited by the 1.21GWs team.
A peek into the event – pictures from my session
@Sahi Pro was also a knowledge partner at the event and delegates also got a peek into Sahi Pro via video and brochure handouts.
I am back from the trip to Canada which followed the big day that was #TQ2019. So, I finally have a chance to share my experiences. This event https://kwsqa.org/tq2019/schedule/ organised by KWSQA was special in a number of ways-
It was my first international conference talk 🙂
I was one of the few international speakers at the conference, and the one who traveled the farthest for it!
I was the only speaker presenting 2 talks!
The travel was big too – with tonnes of visa processing, a 24 hour long flight to Toronto and then a bus ride from Toronto to Cambridge (which I nearly missed 😛 owing to the infamous Toronto traffic! )
Day 1 of the event was workshops that were in progress when we reached and we got a chance to informally meet the organizers at the desk. That evening they had planned a Speaker dinner which was a great idea. I got to interact and meet with all the speakers, made some friends and so the next day seemed a little less daunting having so many known faces.
24 Sep was the big conference day. Staying at the same hotel gave me the advantage to get ready at my own pace and be on time for the breakfast. The event began with a brief intro and then split into tracks. The first talk I attended was ‘Lean Coffee Facilitators Training’ by Matt Heusser. My first time hearing him speak. His session was fun and engaging and practical. I did #sketchnotes for the talk and also participated in the activity which was fun!
After that was my own session in the next room, so I hurried to setup and get ready. The best part was that the organisers had planned a 15 minutes gap between each talk for QA/Networking which gave the speakers and the delegates some breathing room and time to get to other sessions.
I talked on ‘The What, When and How of Test Automation’ which was a 45 minutes session. The room was full and there were lots of good questions and participation from the audience. I did feel that I handled it well and the topic as well as the proposed ideas were well received! 🙂 Here are a few glimpses into my talk-
Though I was relieved having just delivered a good talk, I still had one more to go! After that was lunch hour. A few participants from my talk invited me to sit at their table and we had so many discussions about work, testing as well as my travel plans 😛
Then we got back to talks- I also attended a talk on ‘Barriers in Accessibility Testing’ by Albert Gareev which I also #sketchnoted
Post that I rushed to the lightning talks track as I had to prepare for my next talk that was a 15 minute session on ‘Gamify your Agile Workplace’. As I got there I heard Richard Strang talk about ‘Implementing an Agile QA Guild’ and his experiences that were so varied and interesting. Then I got up to speak and since I was talking about an innovation game called speed boat, I had to first draw a big speed boat on the flipchart (with my limited drawing skills:P ) with a room full of people staring! I guess I managed well as the room MC Tina Fletcher (also president of KWSQA) was impressed with my masterpiece 😛 hehe
The session went well – the best bit being our Keynote speaker Damian Synadinos attending as well volunteering for the little game we played. It was an honor and an unforgettable experience. I hope the audience took back something tangible to try out gamification in their agile teams.
With both the talks done, it was now time to relax and network. I stopped by the booths by Oracle and NPM, chatted with fellow speakers and delegates, the organizers and also got real time feedback from the attendees who chose to attend my sessions.
Post the little coffee break was the grand closing keynote by Damian and it really was an experience. He mentioned in his intro that he had some improv experience and he really uses it to the best in his speaking! The talk was funny, intriguing, had loads of content, memorable quotes as well as an activity in which I volunteered! And a big Plus — Damian mentioned me and my talk too! 🙂 🙂 All in all it was an epic performance and really inspiring as a speaker. Kudos to the effort that went behind putting this together.
The best parts were getting to know so many wonderful people like Josh, Bailey and Dani, and getting to meet @Matt Heuser who I have had the chance to work with online. A face-to-face interaction makes things seem so real and people so approachable. He is a gem of a person and so encouraging too. I also made a friend @Emna who came from Tunisia to speak at the event! We roamed the streets of Cambridge and rode buses together and by the end seemed like we have known each other for so long. I surely hope to see her again at a future conference.
The organizers at TQ2019 had really worked hard and their efforts worked out so well with such a grand event pulled off with great ease, smooth flow and right on schedule. They welcomed us with warmth and helped throughout the day. At the end of the day we all got some time to cool off with a Social event where we mingled and got a chance to express our gratitude and say good byes. I would like to personally thank Greame Harvey, Sabina, Rob, Josh Assad ,Jared and Tina Fletcher from the KWSQA committee who were all so helpful and kind.
I am thankful for getting this opportunity and look forward to staying connected with such awesome people. I am also thankful for my supporting hubby who tagged along so that we could make this into a trip – got a chance to explore Toronto, Montreal and Quebec city and of course the majestic Niagara Falls! 🙂
testwithnishi 