Conference

I was originally going to call this “Speak for Yourself” but I found an Amazon book of the same title, so instead I went for my second point which was “Learning in Public” (which is what we do when we engage in public speaking)

In this workshop I will provide hints and tips for improving your public speaking. Sharing, based on my experience, what works for me, etc. etc.

I will discuss some conventional wisdom on public speaking, because we have to, it’s a law or something. I will also share a few secrets, and unconventional exercises that I use to prepare. The Q&A sessions will allow attendees to have their most pressing questions answered (at least that’ the plan).

I spoke at the Nordic Testing Days 2017 in Tallinn, Estonia. I’m doing three different sessions, so I’ll be busy..

• Tutorial - “Java For Testers - 1 Day Hands On” - June 7th
• Keynote - “Creating yourself as a tester - make your own testing path” - June 8th
• Workshop - “Just Enough JavaScript to Be Dangerous” - June 9th - 10:30 - 12:30

Keynote - “Creating yourself as a tester - make your own testing path”

Let’s Test 2017

I will speak at the Let’s Test 2017 in Stockholm on May 15th - 16th 2017 and present Evil Tester’s Testing Games of Evil Testing.

What exactly is a “Testing Game”?

Some people would have you believe it is an off the shelf card game involving wiggly lines, or a ‘fun interactive’ conversation game telling stories, or some other ‘game mechanism’ related to logical reasoning. Or perhaps a party game with dice, optional blindfolds, and random plastic paraphernalia, but never knives. Other people might show you a board game or two, perhaps for 1-4 players of ages 12+ or any age but with adult supervision, two or more dice and possibly involving kittens.

OdinSTAR 2017 - EuroSTAR and NCS Oslo May 11th 2017

EuroStar in collaboration with the Norwegian Computer Society, are hosting a one day conference on 11th May in Oslo.

OdinSTAR 2017

I presented a workshop, and a keynote.

• Keynote: Real World Automating To Support Testing
• Workshop - Title: “Technical Web Testing and Automating From the Web Developer Tools”

Keynote: Real World Automating To Support Testing

Very often we talk about “Test Automation” when we should be talking about how we automate to support our test strategy and testing process. We can support our strategy and process by tactically automating tasks or by adopting a more strategic approach to our automated execution. In this talk we will explore the difference between automating tactically and strategically so you don’t get fooled by tactics that look like strategy. We will also cover concepts that help you create robust and easy to maintain automated solutions, and the techniques to implement those concepts, to support your all testing: regression, functional, performance, end to end, and exploratory.

Fusion Meetup in Birmingham March 2017

At the Fusion Meetup in Birmingham on March 23rd I presented a deep dive talk in how we automate applications to support testing.

I was told the meetup was for developers. I took that to mean that I could go as technical and quickly as I want. So I did.

Title: A Technical Deep Dive into Practical Test Automation

Synopsis:

In this talk I’m going to focus on the technical aspects of ’test automation’, using examples of approaches from a variety of Agile projects where we automated APIs, and GUIs. You’ll learn about the use of abstractions and how to think about modeling the system in code to support automating it. Also how to use these abstractions to support stress testing, exploratory testing, ongoing CI assertions and the testing process in general. I’ll also discuss the different styles of coding used to support automating tactically vs automating strategically.

Test Focus Groups - London March 2017

At the Test Focus Groups] March 2017 held near Heathrow, London, I hosted the three Devops and QA sessions.

The sessions were recorded so hopefully I will be able to link to more material in the future. I didn’t make many notes because the discussions were pretty fluid and flowed well.

Devops

I hosted a “Devops and QA” session. We had a mix of participants ranging from people who were actively working on DevOps and people who were interested.

UKStar 2017

I spoke at the UKStar 2017 London, 27th - 28th February 2017.

This was a ‘conversation’ session. A new type of session that UKStar are trying out. Basically - take two speakers who submitted complimentary sessions. Let them talk for 15 minutes each and have a conversation amongst each other and the audience to discuss the topic.

The topic I submitted was “What does technical enough mean?” and the conversation is titled “Automation and people”

TestBash Netherlands 2017

I will speak at the TestBash Netherlands on January 2017 and present How to misuse ‘Automation’ for testing, fun and productivity.

We often hear about how ‘test automation’ can go wrong, which is all fine and dandy for the pessimists in the audience, and balancing feel good positive case studies exist for the optimists. But what about the anarchists? What about the rule breakers? What about the pragmatists? In this talk Alan will explain how to ‘misuse’ the ‘automation’ tools you’ve heard so much about, because you need to get things done. You’ve no doubt heard that ‘Cucumber is not a test tool’, and you’ve no doubt noticed that people use Cucumber during their testing. It’s misuse cases like this that we will celebrate, and as a bonus, you’ll learn what Cucumber ‘really’ is. We’ll look at other tools; to find out their true nature and how you can turn it to your personal advantage. To further groom you for success, we’ll explain the mental models which give you guilt free flexibility in your approach. If you’ve ever wanted an ‘expert’ to quote to give you permission to use the tools how you want, this is the talk for you.

TLDR; Map resolutions every day. Evaluate if you are living the purpose you set. Go deep with your current knowledge and it will allow you to adopt the trends when they become strong influences on your work.

At SyncHerts January Meetup I presented a 5 minute Lightning Talk.

The Lighting Talk

SyncHerts January 2017 Meetup

This is the first time I’ve been able to attend a SyncHerts Meetup, which is one of the ‘just outside’ London, but ‘close enough’ to home, that I should be able to attend more regularly.

I’ll be presenting a 5 minute (with max 7 slides) talk on “Automating Tactically vs Stragically”.

Looking forward to talking, drinking ‘soft drinks’ because I’ll be driving, and networking.