Thanks to everyone that attended my webinar with AppliTools called “Testing is Not a 9 to 5 Job”. In the next week, AppliTools will be sharing with me the questions that were not reviewed during the webinar. I will plan to answer each of those questions here with another blog update.
Until then, I had promised to provide two things before Monday, March 19th, and I wanted to share them with you below:
Question #1: In the webinar, we discussed crowdsourcing and crowd testing. Which sites would you suggest to learn more about, and participate in, crowdsourced testing?
Answer #1: I personally have used www.uTest.com for the crowd testing that I have participated in. Two other popular sites that I have been the most familiar with have been www.99tests.com and www.passbrains.com. I was researching this weekend and found the following link, which is a very good writeup for their opinion on the top crowd testing sites. You can find the link here: The Top 11+ Most Popular Crowdsourced Testing Companies in 2018. The 11 that were discussed in the article are mentioned below (unsure why uTest is not on this list!):
Crowdsourced testing
Global App Testing
Crowdsprint
Bugfinders
rainforest
Pay4Bugs
Testbirds
Test IO
MyCrowd QA
99tests
UncoverBugs
Bugcrowd
TESTBATS
Question #2: Also, in the webinar, I suggested that even if your company does not have your test team conducting Security Testing, everyone should become familiar with how it works, and some of the tools that are used to conduct security testing. A question from the webinar was — What sites, articles, and tools would you suggest to read and learn more about Security Testing?
Answer #2: There are many leaders in the security testing realm. I will add more to this blog as I get more folks involved. For now, I would like to share with you a blog site from Ken De Souza, who recently did a webinar for Software Test Professionals on security testing and created a quick start list for those wanting to know the basics of security testing. You can find the following about Ken and his site below:
On February 28, 2018, I was honored to be the keynote speaker for the TISQA 2018 Conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
My talk was “Testing is Not a 9 to 5 Job” and I’m happy to share with you the link to the video for all of those that are interested in hearing the keynote.
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
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
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
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!
Through the many years of my career, I have been honored with requests for interviews, articles, and speaking engagements.
In December 2015, I was asked for an interview by Testing Circus. So many great things have happened throughout my life, and I feel this interview captures not only my work within software testing, but also gives the reader some background on things that have happened to me along the way. It also gives some insights and suggestions that I have on leadership, interviewing, growing leaders for the future, and many other great topics.
I hope that you get a chance to read it. You can check it out at the following link:
If you love software testing, a great conference awaits you in October! STPCon is holding our Fall 2015 conference in Boston this year, October 5-8. (Make sure you see the bottom of this article for a REGISTRATION DISCOUNT CODE before you leave!)
I began speaking with STPCon back in 2012. I have been privileged to be part of the sessions, workshops, and even a keynote. Over the past year, I have been fortunate to be part of a community advisory board (CAB) that has reviewed and selected great presentations for the last three events.
A few months ago, I was honored with being named the Director of Strategy for Software Test Professionals (STP). I will be involved in building out the future events for this conference, as well as non-conference events that are coming very soon! I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the conferences that I have been part of over the past couple of years, but there is a special place in my heart for STPCon.
If you are a software tester there is something for you at this conference. We have tracks for hands on testing, test automation, performance testing, mobile testing, and test management. Each track is packed full with great topics, great speakers, and a commitment to impress the audiences.
Just take a look at some of the great speakers we have with us in October:
James Bach will be giving a keynote on Thursday morning. But..wait!! There’s MORE!! James has agreed to spend the day with us at STPCon, conducting four 1-hour sessions across multiple topics.
If you’re a fan of test automation, you will not want to miss Jason Huggins, the father of selenium, as well as Elfriede Dustin, who both will be providing keynotes on Wednesday.
Workshops take place Monday and Tuesday with the following highlights:
The popular test automation track returns with multiple presentations throughout the two days from Joseph Ours, Dave Mamanakis, Benjamin Lamb, Geoff Horne, Ahkil Patel, and Doug Hoffman.
STPCon brings back premier speakers to the event once again:
Smita Mishra delivers two workshops – her tutorial on “Implementing Business Context to Test Heuristics Model”, and “Who’s Your Data” – a new workshop that covers the topic of Big Data, Enterprise Data Warehouse, and the ETL Process
Eric Proegler will give us insights on “Interpreting and Reporting Performance Test Results”
Andy Grabner gives us his popular “Applications Performance Clinic”
Dawn Haynes returns to STPCon to speak on “10 Things Your Stakeholders Need to Know About Testing (but don’t)”
Leonidis Hepis brings back his workshop on “Personality Types: Understanding Ourselves, Understanding Others”
I will be presenting my latest topic “Visual Testing: It’s Not What You Look At, It’s What you See” as a workshop on Tuesday.
We also introduce new STPCon speakers to the workshops: Johanna Rothman, Mary Thorn, Carsten Feilberg, Ilari Henrik, Ben Kelly, and Robin Goldsmith.
One-Hour Sessions take place on Wednesday and Thursday. There are so many great speakers lined up:
James Bach, Paul Grizzaffi, Smita Mishra, Damon Synadinos, Mark Tomlinson, Jim Trentadue, Melissa Tondi, Matthew Eakin, Mary Thorn, Andreas Grabner, Doug Hoffman, Michal Stryjak, Carlo Cadet, James Sivak, Wayne Ariola, Joseph Ours, John Ruberto, Manoj Pahuja, Dave Mamanakis, Justin Rohrman, James Pulley, Bradley Baird, Jessica Ingrassellino, Bob Small, Silvia Siquera, Craig Ayres, Terri Chu, Bill Nicholson, Geoff Horne, Anthony Kless, and Alexander Podelko
You must check out each of the presentations and descriptions at:The STPCon Website .
So what are you waiting for? Have you signed up yet? Are you ready to come?
Well… let me give you one more incentive…
If you register with my discount code “STPF15LYLES” you get an extra 10%
Early Bird registration ends in August – maximize your savings and we will see you in Boston!
I have been speaking at conferences and events for several years now. But this past week (Aug 4-6, 2015) was an awesome experience.
I was honored to be invited to speak at two conferences during the same week. At both of the conferences, I shared my topic “Visual Testing: It’s Not What You Look At, It’s What You See”. In this topic, we reviewed how that our eyes sometimes see something that our brains do not notice. Many times these things are right in front of your face, yet you don’t see it. We talked about how the brain works, and how that testers can improve their skills by noticing their “Inattentional Blindness”.
I started my week in Grand Rapids, Michigan at the CAST 2015 conference. After speaking there on Wednesday, August 5, I then jumped on a plane and headed to Washington, DC, where I would then speak at the Agile 2015 conference on Thursday, August 6.
If you’re interested in what I was speaking, you can view the slides on slideshare at the following link:
Mike W. Lyles 