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Some of my stuff in or for other places.

Books

Articles

Resources

 Interviews

Podcasts

    Talks 

    2023-06-28 Ministry of Testing, Norwich

    2022-12-10 Agile Testing Alliance Global Testing Retreat

     

    2022-11-16 BCS Testing, Diversity, AI Conference

     

     

    2022-10-20 MoT API Challenge in Python

    2022-10-14 Hands-on for CAST 2022 Webinar

     

    2022-01-14 EC Utbildning & 2022-01-25 MoT Cambridge

    2021-05-21 AST Career Day

     

    2020-12-28 QA Daily Inspirational Talks

     

    2020-05-20 OnlineTestConf

     

    2019-11-25 CEWT #7

     

    2019-11-14 Cambridge Agile Exchange

     

    2018-08-29 SoftTest Ireland

     

    2018-09-23 CEWT #6

     

    2018-03-13 UKSTAR

      


    2018-01-28 CEWT #5

     

    2016-11-06 CEWT #3

    2016-04-09 MEWT #5

    2016-02-28 CEWT #2

    2015-11-04 EuroSTAR

    2015-07-10 UKTMF

    2015-07-04 CEWT #1

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    Meet Me Halfway?

      The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book,  Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide  responses to common questions and statements about testing from a  context-driven perspective . It's being edited by  Lee Hawkins  who is  posing questions on  Twitter ,   LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST  mailing list  and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to  contribute  by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me?   --00-- "Stop answering my questions with questions." Sure, I can do that. In return, please stop asking me questions so open to interpretation that any answ...
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    Can Code, Can't Code, Is Useful

    The Association for Software Testing is crowd-sourcing a book,  Navigating the World as a Context-Driven Tester , which aims to provide  responses to common questions and statements about testing from a  context-driven perspective . It's being edited by  Lee Hawkins  who is  posing questions on  Twitter ,   LinkedIn , Mastodon , Slack , and the AST  mailing list  and then collating the replies, focusing on practice over theory. I've decided to  contribute  by answering briefly, and without a lot of editing or crafting, by imagining that I'm speaking to someone in software development who's acting in good faith, cares about their work and mine, but doesn't have much visibility of what testing can be. Perhaps you'd like to join me?   --00-- "If testers can’t code, they’re of no use to us" My first reaction is to wonder what you expect from your testers. I am immediately interested ...
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    The Best Programmer Dan Knows

      I was pairing with my friend Vernon at work last week, on a tool I've been developing. He was smiling broadly as I talked him through what I'd done because we've been here before. The tool facilitates a task that's time-consuming, inefficient, error-prone, tiresome, and important to get right. Vern knows that those kinds of factors trigger me to change or build something, and that's why he was struggling not to laugh out loud. He held himself together and asked a bunch of sensible questions about the need, the desired outcome, and the approach I'd taken. Then he mentioned a talk by Daniel Terhorst-North, called The Best Programmer I Know, and said that much of it paralleled what he sees me doing. It was my turn to laugh then, because I am not a good programmer, and I thought he knew that already. What I do accept, though, is that I am focussed on the value that programs can give, and getting some of that value as early as possible. He sent me a link to the ta...
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    Beginning Sketchnoting

    In September 2017 I attended  Ian Johnson 's visual note-taking workshop at  DDD East Anglia . For the rest of the day I made sketchnotes, including during Karo Stoltzenburg 's talk on exploratory testing for developers  (sketch below), and since then I've been doing it on a regular basis. Karo recently asked whether I'd do a Team Eating (the Linguamatics brown bag lunch thing) on sketchnoting. I did, and this post captures some of what I said. Beginning sketchnoting, then. There's two sides to that: I still regard myself as a beginner at it, and today I'll give you some encouragement and some tips based on my experience, to begin sketchnoting for yourselves. I spend an enormous amount of time in situations where I find it helpful to take notes: testing, talking to colleagues about a problem, reading, 1-1 meetings, project meetings, workshops, conferences, and, and, and, and I could go on. I've long been interested in the approaches I've evol...
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    Not Strictly for the Birds

      One of my chores takes me outside early in the morning and, if I time it right, I get to hear a charming chorus of birdsong from the trees in the gardens down our road, a relaxing layered soundscape of tuneful calls, chatter, and chirrupping. Interestingly, although I can tell from the number and variety of trills that there must be a large number of birds around, they are tricky to spot. I have found that by staring loosely at something, such as the silhouette of a tree's crown against the slowly brightening sky, I see more birds out of the corner of my eye than if I scan to look for them. The reason seems to be that my peripheral vision picks up movement against the wider background that direct inspection can miss. An optometrist I am not, but I do find myself staring at data a great deal, seeking relationships, patterns, or gaps. I idly wondered whether, if I filled my visual field with data, I might be able to exploit my peripheral vision in that quest. I have a wide monito...
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    ChatGPTesters

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    Vanilla Flavour Testing

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    Build Quality

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    Postman Curlections

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    Express, Listen, and Field

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