The Lets Test Conference is the first context driven testing conference in Europe, run by Testers for Testers.
And guess what - I’m going!
I first heard about the conference whilst at the North West Tester Gathering Manchester in November. I had a look into it & decided that was where I wanted to blow my ‘learning budget’ this year. All I had to do was work out the sums & try & sell it to the wife!
I was fortunate enough to be on the Software Testing Club team when the offer a ticket was going begging - I snapped at the chance and as luck would have it, the ticket came my way!
This made the sell that much easier & we’ve tied it into a city break in Stockholm. Its looking like its going to be a great week - fly out on the Friday, have the weekend in Stockholm with the family, put them on a plane on the Sunday & then make my way over to Runo for the conference.
Having not signed up through the official channels (& this being my first conference), I wasn’t aware of what was required of me. A quick nudge from the Organisers made me take a proper look at the conference program - wowsers! I knew there was a great choice, but I hadn’t read it in detail - this was going to be a tough decision!
I think I’ve gone for the low risk option of half day sessions - didn’t want to commit myself to a full day session in case I don’t get on with it & to then feel I’m missing out on another session. I’d feel less guilty walking out of a half day session as opposed to a full day session if I didn’t think I was getting the value I expected.
Eventually the tutorials I settled on were:
- “Critical Thinking Skills for Testers” with Michael Bolton - I’m currently doing a lot of coaching around critical thinking, so I feel it is appropriate to enforce this learning;
“A Test Automation Masterclass for Mobile Phone Applications” with Julian Harty - We’re doing a fair amount of work on mobile devices at my current client site as well as the work I’m doing with uTest. I also see testing in the mobile environment is growing so I want to be part of it!- “Now, Whats You Plan?” with Henrik Andersson & Leo Hepis - How do we handle context changes? What happens to the plan? (I changed my mind when I arrived - the mobile stuff has less prominence for me at the moment)
As for sessions, I’m currently opting for:
- “Charter My Tests” with Markus Gartner - I’m just starting out in the world of ‘formalised’ exploratory testing & writing effective charters is one of my stumbling blocks;
- “Testing Hypnotically” with Alan Richardson - I’m always looking for ways to improve my communication & hey, I’m interested in hypnosis as well! (Maybe the session blurb is loaded with words & sentences to lure me in without me even realising it…)
- “Making the Case for Aesthetics” with Zeger van Hese - Largely because its Zeger (I generally like what he has to say), but I’m also wondering how the fine arts can be intertwined with testing. That said, I don’t know much about fine art!
- “Coaching Testers” with Anne-Marie Charret - Having been on the receiving end of one of Anne-Maries coaching sessions (I’m also interested in coaching other Testers), I’d be interested to see some of what goes into giving a coaching session.
“From Good To Great With xBTM” with Michael Albrecht - As with the chartering tests session, I want to get better at managing & executing effective exploratory testing.- “Making Dialogue effective” with Leo Hepis - working in a agile environment involves a lot of collaboration & communication - why not make sure its effective! (this was another last minute decision change - I really enjoyed Leos other session, so I was interested to see what he had to offer)
Unfortunately I wont make the afternoon session as I have a flight to catch. If I could attend, it would be “So You Think You Can Test” with Huib Schoots as it is all about self improvement & becoming a better Tester (which my blog is all about!)
I’ll be at the conference as a roving reporter for STC & hope to tweet about the tutorials & sessions whilst there & blog about them on my return - that said, I may try & challenge Markus to the fastest blog post whilst at a conference!
Really looking forward to Sweden, Stockholm & the conference - a great start to the month of May!