Agile Testing Days - A Female Developer Among Testers

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The hard facts about "Europe’s greaTEST Agile software testing event!" They look pretty good: a great hotel near Sanssouci Palace, about 100 international speakers, up to nine tracks running simultaneously, at least three keynotes per day, an “Anything Build Party & TestLab” and an “Escape the Room” game, as well as professional event visualization. And anyone who isn’t tired by evening can enjoy themselves at the social events with like-minded people. What could possibly go wrong? At the end of the conference, I can say with a clear conscience, “Nothing.”

Testing methodologies and agile topics were covered

As mentioned earlier, #AgileTD is a conference primarily aimed at testers. For this reason, most of the talks are less technical, with the exception of the Dojo track. Instead, there were many interesting ideas on testing approaches (shortening test runtime through parallelization, in-memory databases, simulating external dependencies in front-end testing, or testing in Docker containers) or general agile topics such as Scrum or self-actualization and participation within the company (“Step outside the team,” Living Documentation, “Learn fundamentals,” “Learn your team’s tune,” “Invest in impact”). 

Personally, I was particularly impressed by all the keynotes I attended. These included, for example, “Music and Testing,” during which approximately 600 attendees sang in a four-part canon. In addition, Alex Schladebeck and Huib Schoots vividly illustrated the parallels between work and communication in an agile team and music. Or “Be more useful: Test Beyond Quality, Beyond Software” by Mike Sutton, with a call to be more than just a worker who tests software. My favorite keynote, however, was “Agile Leadership Lessons” by Selena Delesie. Each slide featured a thought-provoking question or a briefly summarized point that encouraged reflection or agreement; plus interaction with the audience, who were asked to answer the questions themselves—all in all, an incredibly enjoyable, challenging, and exciting keynote.

With so many tracks and talks running simultaneously, I often found it hard to decide which ones to attend. I particularly remember the “Embedded Testing” dojo fondly, as I was able to work with a “real-life” tester to examine software for bugs and inconsistencies, gaining insight into a tester’s workflow not just in theory but in practice. Conclusion: Although we don’t have dedicated testers at punkt.de, but we think and work as if we were testers ourselves. Based on other talks as well, such as “Need for Speed” or “Quality Continuously Delivered,” I can say with confidence that we’re already implementing most of the suggestions (BDD with Behat, performance testing with Gatling, use of dedicated test fixtures).

In addition to the many approaches and ideas for better testing, I also happened to hear about theSpeaking Easyinitiative. On their website, any software tester who’d like to give a talk at a conference can be matched with a mentor who helps with everything from drafting the abstract to preparing the talk. Anyone who wants to be a mentor can also register on the site and will then be matched with someone looking for guidance. I think this is a particularly great idea. Maybe there will be something similar for developers someday, too.

A great event, not just for testers

Overall, I found the ATD’s organization to be outstanding. All the rooms were labeled with the talks taking place there that day; there were rarely any delays (and when there were, they weren’t long); and the breaks were also very well organized and spaced out. I really enjoyed chatting with various attendees or the occasional speaker—or sometimes just listening in—over breakfast and lunch at the hotel. And although the conference wasn’t as technical as I’d expected, I’d recommend it not only to testers but also to project managers, product owners, Scrum Masters, and developers who want to gain insight into testing practices. I’m already looking forward to watching videos and viewing the slides from some of the talks and keynotes so I can reflect on a few questions and punkt.de imagine them. 

And for those who couldn’t make it to #AgileTD, I’ve got a few sketchnotes to give you an idea of just how diverse the topics were.