Calling all software testing and IT professionals. I need your inputs and questions that I will ask at the next STPCon software testing conference in San Francisco, CA from April 4 to 7, 2016.
I am going to be moderating a keynote panel with three well known names in software testing, and we will be taking questions from this blog, other social networks, and the audience at the conference.
Please take a look at the members of our panel, think of your question(s), and please submit your questions as comments to this blog post. I appreciate, in advance, any questions you submit, and I promise to try to ask them to our panel when we are live on Thursday, April 7, 2016.
One last note before I introduce you to the panelists. I hope that you not only submit a question, but you also plan to attend. You can see all of the conference sessions, workshops, and keynotes at the official site for STPCon at this link: STPCon Official Site .
Now let’s meet the panelists. I will give you their biography and then share with you some additional information that I know about each of them:
Panelist #1: Smita Mishra
Bio: Smita Mishra is the Founder of PoolWallet – an online expense sharing app and is the CEO and Chief Test Consultant at QAzone Infosystems, which is a software testing organization. She enjoys problem solving. She supports her customers in identifying the risks their applications are carrying and / or passing on further to their end customers, through carefully crafted skills of product development and software testing. She also engages with different forums to assist growth for women in her field and otherwise too.
Smita will speak to the advances in the testing practice, where we are going with outsourcing and services, the changes for women in testing, and how organizations must realize the need for setting the context for strategic growth.
Additional Information: Smita is a well known testing professional across the globe. She has a great following. She has led multiple testing meetups, and recently held a major conference in India, called ThinkTest, where the conference sold out and was overbooked, and included James Bach as the headliner speaker. She was honored with an invite to be part of an expert panel for a Sheroes conference (Sheroes Website) where she spoke about her new product (PoolWallet – PoolWallet Website), women in technology, and work-life balance.
Panelist #2: Dave Haeffner
Bio: Dave Haeffner is the writer of Elemental Selenium (elementalselenium.com), a free, weekly Selenium tip newsletter read by thousands of testing professionals. Dave is also is the creator and maintainer of ChemistryKit (https://github.com/chemistrykit/chemistrykit) an open-source Selenium framework, and the-internet (https://github.com/tourdedave/the-internet) an open-source web application that’s used to help teach test automation. He’s also the author of The Selenium Guidebook (seleniumguidebook.com) — a concise guide that will teach you how to use Selenium successfully. He’s helped numerous companies implement automated acceptance testing including The Motley Fool, ManTech International, Sittercity, and Animoto. He’s also a founder/co-organizer of the Selenium Hangout (an entirely online Selenium meetup), Selenium Conf (the annual conference put on by the Selenium project), and frequently speaks about automated acceptance testing at conferences and meet-ups around the world.
Dave will speak to the advances in tools used for testing, how we have grown in the testing practice, our constraints and our opportunities, and how testing is complemented by the complex growth in tools to support the testing practice.
Additional Information: Dave has established his name to be synonymous with Selenium for several years now. His expert trainings and books have changed the way Selenium is used across the globe. He consistently looks for new ways to leverage the tool and to use automation to increase the success of organizations.
Panelist #3: Damian Synadinos
Bio: Damian Synadinos started testing software—on purpose and for money—in 1993. Since then, he has helped build better software and build software better using various methods and tools in numerous roles at many companies in diverse industries. During the past ten years, Damian has focused primarily on teaching and leading testers and improving processes. Currently, he is the enterprise quality lead of metrics and reporting at a large Midwestern bank, helping to answer questions and tell stories about quality with data. In addition to testing, Damian enjoys improv, golf, poker, gaming, acting, cartooning, and spending time with his family.
Damian will speak to leadership and mentoring of testers in today’s world, how we define measurement and metrics to accurately represent our progress and success, and how to work collaboratively with our stakeholders and partners.
Additional Information: Damian will surprise you with his acting and improvisational experience. When you hear him talk, its like watching a performance. He is engaging with the audience, and it is his belief that this is how you engage not only with audiences, but with your team. He has extensive knowledge in leading teams, and coaching others and his experience with metrics and measurement is extremely exciting to learn.
Thank you so much for your participation and I look forward to seeing your questions for this great team!
Mike W. Lyles 