Lecture Series

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2022 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Josh Assad

Topic:
One of the biggest questions in anyone’s career is how it will progress.  There are generally two natural courses most professions will grow into; Technical mastery or people management (sometimes both, along a spectrum, but that is a topic for another day).  For testers, the path to people management is a little less clear than it was in the pre-Agile days of testing departments and QA Managers.  However there is still a very strong case for growing testers into Engineering Managers, Directors and beyond.

In this talk I will share my journey from Tester to Engineering Manager, and highlight the skills you use as a tester today that managers leverage every day too.  If you’ve ever wondered if people management was a destination on your career journey, this talk is for you!

Bio: 
Josh Assad has been working in the software industry for over 20 years across many domains such as physical and cyber security, mobile technology, e-learning, and dev-ops/infrastructure.  A tester first, Josh has always been passionate about quality, which has extended from products to processes & people.  He has naturally taken to people-leadership roles where he strives to create cultures of innovation, safety and trust to empower those around him to do their best work.

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2022 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Laveena Ramchandani

Topic:
How often have you heard that ‘Yes this is important, but we don’t have the capacity right now’ or ‘sure let’s put it in the backlog’?
This is something we should not brush off or take lightly. Accessibility testing is vital especially when your product is a user facing application.
We need to be socially aware as a team and build quality towards our product with making it more accessible.

At least 1 in 5 people in the UK have a long term illness, impairment or disability. Many more have a temporary disability. A recent study found that 4 in 10 local council homepages failed basic tests for accessibility.

This is quite vital and the sooner we as testers can advocate this into our teams, we make our product more accessible, reduce the risk of bad product reviews, reputation and also be more socially aware. Let’s shift left and make accessibility testing built-in our teams. 

Takeaways
1. Understand why accessibility testing is important? 
2. How I adapted accessibility mindset? 
3. How to coach team and bring accessibility into your teams? 
4. Demonstrate various tools available to perform accessibility testing

Bio: 
I am an experienced Testing Consultant with a comprehensive understanding of tools available for software testing and analysis. I am an energetic, technical-minded professional seeking a position as a Product Experience Analyst. I would really like testers out there to get involved with data science testing as there is a lot of opportunity and a great area to bring testing in. My aim is to provide valuable insights that have high technical aptitude, and unyielding commitment to work. Being able to inspire more individuals out there in the world be a great achievement.

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2021 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Bailey Hanna

Topic:
“So, what’s your testing process like at *insert company name here*?”. We’ve all been asked this question. It comes up all the time when you tell someone that you work in testing and who you work for. People want to know what your cookie cutter process is for testing at your company; either out of genuine curiosity, a search to find a fit for their skills or to find issues in it that they think you could solve by changing “just one thing”.

What happens when the answer is “we don’t have one.”? In the tech industry things are changing every single day, and every individual has their own skills and experiences that they bring to the table, so why would we have one specific process for our entire organization?

In this talk, we will discuss what it looks like to have a constantly evolving test process within a company, and to have multiple teams within a development org working with different processes and workflows. We will discuss how we all stay on the same track, how we discuss our successes (and our failures), and how we use individual and team strengths to have an organic, and changing process that still keeps us all moving forward and working together.

Bailey Hanna: 
Bailey Hanna is a passionate and driven quality advocate with experience in a variety of testing roles. She enjoys using her background in software engineering and knowledge of risk assessment, risk mitigation and exploratory testing skills to prepare and execute appropriate testing strategies for new and existing projects within multiple teams. She also speaks at quality and development conferences about quality/testing as well as team communication and collaboration. When she’s not thinking about all things quality related, she likes to spend her time outside, reading books, or really doing anything away from her laptop!

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2021 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Gerie Owen and Peter Varhol

Topic:
The nature of technical skills is undergoing a radical change. Testers need to be aware of a dramatic shift to being a generalist, and be prepared to redefine their career.

The last ten years have seen a great number of changes in the testing profession, such as widespread automation, agile, DevOps, and test-driven development. And yet we are only in the early stages of a profound transformation in testing skills and the roles testers will play in delivering quality software.

Today many testers are asking what knowledge and skills are needed to have a successful career in an era where testing means many different things. While no one has a crystal ball into the future, it is possible to look at current trends and make educated analyses of what the future of testing and test activities may look like.

This presentation describes groundbreaking research on the advantages and limitations of flexibility in problem-solving, and how that relates to how individual employees may be asked to work in the future. It focuses on how these changes in worker expectations will affect testers, from skills needed to attitudes and outlooks. Some may even reject the title of tester.

Takeaways:

1. Attendees will understand the changes affecting the testing profession today and in the future.
2. How changes to testing are impacting how we do our jobs.
3. How testers can prepare for new ways of thinking about their work.

Gerie Owen: 
Hi, I’m Gerie Owen. I’ve been a software testing manager in various domains including insurance, financial services, energy and transportation.

I’m Certified Scrum Master, Conference Presenter and Author on technology and testing topics. She enjoys analyzing and improving test processes and mentoring new QA Leads as well as bringing a cohesive team approach to testing.

I’m excited about my role as QA Architect at Medullan because I bring my passion for and experience in quality assurance, quality engineering and testing along with my background in health education to make a difference in the people’s lives. Quality is critical because heath matters.

Peter Varhol:
Peter Varhol is a well-known writer and speaker on software and technology topics, having authored dozens of articles and spoken at a number of industry conferences and webcasts. He has advanced degrees in computer science, applied mathematics, and psychology. Currently he is technical evangelist for Gurucul, specializing in AI, Big Data, and analytics. His past roles include technology journalist, software product manager, software developer, and university professor.

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2021 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Blake Walters and Graeme Harvey

Topic:
We can measure activity, we can measure delivery, but when we measure the performance of our engineering teams, are we measuring the things that really make a difference? And, if not, how can we succeed in the tricky challenge of measuring every task an engineer does so that it creates a positive outcome for the business?

Join Blake Walters and Graeme Harvey who will be discussing how you can measure the performance of your engineering teams using the metrics that matter most.

We will cover:

• Business metrics
• Velocity metrics
• Morale metrics

Bio: 
Blake is the Director of Engineering for Growth and Data at CircleCI, working remotely out of his home in Longmont, CO. He’s a product engineering focused leader, working with teams supporting CircleCI’s user journey and customer data needs. Outside of work, he’s a husband and a dad, an avid amateur photographer, a serious car nut, and spends what little free time he has left playing as many video games as possible.

Graeme is the Engineering Manager for the Data Insights team at CircleCI, based in the Kitchener-Waterloo region. He brings a storied history from his experience across software quality, automation development, and agile team management backgrounds to help his teams perform at their best. Beyond work hours, Graeme spends much of his time with his family, and occasionally mountain bikes and plays ultimate frisbee.

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2021 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Joel Montvelisky

Topic:
These past months, since the world went into Pandemic State, have been unique in many ways, bringing important changes to the way we work and live in general.  The overall results of this pandemic were and still are disastrous.

But, everyone who knows me keeps telling me I am a stubborn optimist, and so I can still see a number positive outcomes from the current situation.

In this talk, I will go over five Testing related lessons that we will be able to keep using (hopefully) once COVID is long gone:
– Around the Clock and Around the World Testing
– Collaborative processes
– Transparency based Management
– All-Team testing
– Coordinating Automatic and Manual testing

In the session we will:
– Learn how working apart in distributed teams can help development teams get feedback faster and release functionality at higher speeds than ever before.
– Learn how to build a collaborative process that can increases communication despite physical distance to create more value and bring new ideas to the table
– See how managers can lead their teams better and create a team-work atmosphere by establishing transparency inside their teams.
– We will go over steps to ensure managers are not harming the independence of their individual contributors or falling into the ugly trap of micromanagement.
– Understand better why the all-team-testing approach makes sense and can help the team release faster.

Bio: Joel Montvelisky is a Co-Founder and Chief Solution Architect at PractiTest.

Joel has been in testing and QA since 1997, working as a tester, QA Manager and Director, and a Consultant for companies in Israel, the US and the EU. Joel is a Forbes council member, a blogger with the QA Intelligence Blog, and is constantly imparting webinars on a number of testing and Quality Related topics.

In addition, Joel is the founder and Chair of the OnlineTestConf, and the co-founder of the State of Testing survey and report.

Joel is a conference speaker, presenting in various conferences and forums worldwide, among them the STAR Conferences, STPCon, JaSST, TestLeadership Conf, CAST, QA&Test, and more.

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2021 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Topic:
Have you wondered how testing and quality work in various organizations that have offices in the region? Our June Meeting will be a Modertated Panel on the topic “How Do Things Work Where You Work?” where you will get to hear from a group that is assembled from some of those organizations.

Moderator: Rob Bowyer

Panelists:

• Jenna Zhang (D2L)
• Shane Gautreau (Square/Cash App)
• Geoff Sherritt (Google)
• James Spere (Masterclass)

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2021 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Ali Hill

Topic:
Testers are often labeled as bottlenecks in continuous delivery environments. In a world where companies are aiming to release frequently, what value can testers provide their team? How can they learn to drive a culture of continuous improvement to assist their team in releasing high quality software?

Being a great tester and being able to perform the testing activity is vitally important. But if that’s all that testers focus on, then they can often find themselves acting as more of a blocker than an enabler within the team. Despite the fact that companies have either adopted or are moving towards an Agile and DevOps cultures, teams are still exhibiting behaviours more commonly associated with Waterfall development processes. Work is thrown over the wall by developers and test results are thrown back.

How, then, can testers use their skills to help bake quality into their teams processes and therefore the software being developed?

Testers can help their team get the most out of their automated tests. Automation tells us much more than whether a code change has introduced a bug. The metrics these tests produce can be monitored and help drive process improvements.

They can also get involved in more activities around the design of the functionality being developed. Testers can coach other team members on the types of tests they should write in order to provide the team with fast feedback on whether they have introduced any problems with their latest changes.

In this talk I will draw upon my own experiences of working as a tester within teams living DevOps cultures and share the value-add activities I have practiced and how these helped the team develop a quality culture and strive for continuous improvement.

Testing is about way more than carrying out the testing activity. Testers can play a key role in accelerating quality releases and helping to bake quality into their processes and the software they are producing.

Takeaways:
– How testers can add value to their teams and assist in delivering high quality software by acting as quality coaches and building a quality culture.
– Activities that teams can perform (such as testing ideas or designs) to prevent bugs from ever entering the software being developed.
– How to extract the most value out of the team’s automated tests and produce metrics that can be used to continuously improve the team’s processes.

Bio: Ali is a Continuous Delivery Consultant currently working for digital transformation consultancy ECS. He began his career as a software tester and went on to spend five years in various software testing roles. Passionate about quality, he has always focused on how to improve his teams’ processes to allow them to deliver quality software for their customers. Although Ali is now working in the DevOps space, he continues to use that passion for quality to drive a quality culture within his team. Ali is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and can be found on Twitter at @ali_hill91 where he is an active member of the testing community.

As the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact our daily lives, we are making our 2021 KWality Talks available online for free.

Register: Online Using Eventbrite, Zoom link will be included in registration confirmation email

Location: Online

Time: Stream will start at approximately 11:55 am. Meeting starts at 12:00 pm. Meeting ends at approximately 1:00 pm.

Speaker: Laveena Ramchandani

Topic:
I have heard from other senior testers around the world that they know of data science teams but no testers testing the models, how do we have enough confidence what is produced is good enough? A model is a statistical black box, how to test it so we understand its behaviours to test is properly. Main aim would be to help inspire testers to explore data science models. I’d like to share how I explored the world of data science when testing a model and how we can apply that if we find ourselves in this situation. It is an emerging area for testers and exciting. I’d like to invite you to my talk where, we will go through my journey of discovering data science model testing and find the following takeaways useful not just for testing a data science model but day to day testing too.

Takeaway:
1. Have a better understanding of what data science is.
2. Know how we can test models.
3. Know what existing skills we already have that we can apply in a data science team.
4. Leave with resources to help our teams’ better structure itself to have confidence in the data produced.
5. We’ll look at what did or didn’t work

Bio: I am an experienced Testing Consultant with a comprehensive understanding of tools available for software testing and analysis. I am an energetic, technical-minded professional seeking a position as a Product Experience Analyst. I would really like testers out there to get involved with data science testing as there is a lot of opportunity and a great area to bring testing in. My aim is to provide valuable insights that have high technical aptitude, and unyielding commitment to work. Being able to inspire more individuals out there in the world be a great achievement.