Excellent software engineering, great testing, and awesome quality are rooted in true craftsmanship. At the Greatest Quality Convention, we connect everyone interested in software quality. We share ideas, learn from each other, and grow together as a community.
It is all about you, folks! Join us, share your experience, and exchange thoughts with likeminded people across disciplines. Imaginative speeches and interactive sessions act as an inspiration for your personal collaboration at the event. We hold the event in English to reduce communication barriers welcoming an international delegation.
Dirk is a scholar and writer. He heads the Consumer Culture Research Unit at the University of Hildesheim and recently spent three years as a visiting professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. Called a "quality expert" by the Swiss Newspaper "NZZ am Sonntag", Dirk's book "Quality! On the Art of Discovering Well-Made Things, Choosing Wisely and Living Delightfully" (published by Brandstätter in 2021) received a broad media coverage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As an expert on cultural aspects of economics, Dirk is a frequent speaker and keynote speaker. He lectured at the invitation of universities, companies, ministries, non-governmental organizations, and cultural institutions worldwide. You find him on his website https://inventur-blog.de
After a brief sketch of the most common misconceptions of quality, I will offer five criteria that define quality in a general sense. I will emphasize that quality is best understood as a notion relative to concrete circumstances and open for future developments. The main point of my talk will be the recent cultural shift from a purely functional approach to a more inclusive perspective on quality that encompasses both aesthetic and ethical dimensions. After all, quality is not just something that can be tested, but also an attitude that needs to be cultivated.
- Quality is relative to concrete circumstances and open for future developments. - Quality is not just functional but also encompasses aesthetic and ethical dimensions. - Quality is not just something that can be tested, but also an attitude that needs to be cultivated.
Evelina Rimkute is an experienced Test Manager working in IT projects within the banking and insurance industry. She is specialised in shift-left quality models, E2E test coordination, and test management in large projects. Evelina has a vast experience in SAFe, Agile, Kanban and Waterfall development models. As an active participant in social life, Evelina encourages women to support each other in their career path and various life situations. She is a co-leader of Lean In Switzerland, part of the global Lean In community with more than 1,500 members and 24 circles that get together to exchange views, network and host inspiring events. Apart from Evelina’s daily work and Lean In activities, she is a book and nature lover, a self-published author (Questions and thoughts for every day), hosting her own podcast (Footprints of an expat) and a lifelong learner who enjoys bringing valuable ideas to the daylight. https://evelinarimkute.ch
Diversity. Inclusion. Quality Assurance. Innovation. Software development is a space where holistic solutions are required to identify, understand and realise ideas. The ability to connect and empower minds from multiple backgrounds and know-how promises enormous possibilities to co-create and co-innovate. Unsurprisingly, for this to happen, we also need to create and maintain environments, where people are accepted, integrated and given a place at the table. Unfortunately, the way to balanced team spirit, inclusion and collaboration is way more winding and complex as it looks at a first glance. Everyday people could face microaggression, lack of involvement or empowerment and various traps of biases. In my talk I explore an idea, that anyone, who wears a quality assurance hat, plays a vital role in getting others to be proactively involved, in creating bridges between silos in organisational culture. I call this the quality with diversity.
- The importance of creating diverse and inclusive environments for quality assurance and innovation in software development - Holistic solutions and connecting minds from diverse backgrounds can lead to co-creation and innovation - Balanced team spirit, inclusion, and collaboration are essential but can be complicated due to microaggressions, lack of empowerment, and biases
Sophie studied mathematics at university which did not go as planned. She finished with a diploma, nonetheless. Serendipity brought her into agile testing – and she has never looked back. She now works happily as a test automation engineer at cronn GmbH, a Bonn based IT company. After years of successfully hunting bugs, lately she’s also been working her way into Java backend development so she can cut out the middle person and introduce the bugs herself. In her free time, she enjoys doing ballet and SUPing (in non-lockdown times) or knitting and baking (in lockdown times). No stranger to the universe’s gut punches, she is passionate about improving awareness and communication about mental health and self-care.
There’s a tiny little monster that lives inside my ear. The monster likes being mean. It keeps whispering to me, telling me that I don’t know anything about nothing, that I am bad at everything I have ever tried my hand at, and that I can’t do anything right. If presented with evidence to the contrary, it says that every single one of my achievements happened because I was lucky that nobody realized that I am actually very stupid. It’s mean, but sadly quite convincing. Does that sound familiar? The monster is called impostor syndrome and many people have met it. It makes life hard, never being able to fully trust in your intelligence and your abilities, never being proud of what you worked for, and constantly fearing that you might be found out as a fraud. In your professional life especially, you must be able to sing your own praise. Job interviews, performance reviews, meetings with a potential new client: all of these are situations in which saying “Here I am; this is what I can do, and that’s why I deserve what I want from you” is a key ability. Truth be told, you even must be able to lay it on a little thick. No easy feat when the monster tells you the exact opposite. I still suck at this but … Whoops, that was the monster talking again. Shut up, monster! Let’s try again: I have, over the years of living with the monster, found a few handy tips and tricks how to deal with it. It is not gone and probably never will be, but it is tamed, and I can say with - at least some, hard earned - confidence that I know how to advocate for myself. And I would like to share these tricks with you. Welcome to “Tooting your own horn 1.01”. I’ll be your guide.
- Impostor syndrome is a common phenomenon in which individuals doubt their own abilities and fear being exposed as frauds. - It can make it difficult to advocate for oneself in professional situations. - It is important to learn how to deal with it and advocate for oneself in a confident manner.
Alex is a whirlwind of enthusiasm for quality, agility and humans. She started out in testing and had an interesting and varied career as a product owner, consultant and team leader before becoming a part of the management team at the beginning of 2020. She spends her time communicating with people! A typical week involves working with customers, teaching and coaching testers and developers about quality, being an agile leader, working on strategy and developing her team to fulfil their potential. She keeps up to date on her favourite topics by supporting and consulting for teams and customers. Alex is a frequent speaker and keynote speaker at conferences about agility and quality from her experiences in projects and with customers, and she was awarded the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person award in 2018. In her free time she loves doing sports, playing music and being an auntie. She describes herself as an explorer and loves discovering places, cultures, perspectives and people.
Everything is always changing, and that's pretty scary sometimes. What will our work and our field look like in the future? What skills or roles will we need? What challenges will we face and what solutions can we start to identify? In this talk I’d like to do some triangulated crystal ball gazing from two perspectives. At heart, I’m a tester. For three years I’ve also been a CEO. From my passion for testing and my experience of business and people in organisations, I’ll look at what factors are at work now, what known unknowns we have and what kinds of effects will they have on how we work and the roles of testers and software professionals. Alongside musings about the future, I’ll talk about concrete activities on an individual and company level to best prepare ourselves for this nebulous future.
- The talk discusses predicting the future of testing and software development. - The speaker provides their perspective as a tester and CEO. - The talk focuses on potential changes and challenges and offers practical advice for preparation.
Alex "TripleSeven" Bauduin is a 56 year old globetrotter. He has worked in consulting companies, gaining experience in several fields (medical, manufacturing, aerospace, pay TV, and data warehousing, to name a few) in different countries (Switzerland, France, Spain, Canada, etc.). His career started in the space industry, where he discovered his passion for aerospace, working on military and civilian projects. At times he was diverted from aerospace, but his passion drove him to become an airline pilot, to really understand how the instruments he programmed and integrated worked in a cockpit. In his latest challenges: Organizing flight simulator testing in a lean production environment. Specifying and testing a short-range anti-aircraft defence system. Integrating and testing electrically powered aircraft. He works with milling machines, creates blueprints, does accounting and finance, software development, electronics design and industrial robots, and it's always fun for him to use an oscilloscope, an avionics bus analyzer, debug in assembly language or perform stall tests on a Boeing 777!
So you've tested your system: All the tests are green. That's pretty good news. Your system is integrated with other systems. Now we have to test a system of systems. Everything is good, so we can go into production: 3 planes crashed killing 349 people. What happened? An incomplete and unclear user guide could be the cause of this death toll. Automation could also be a cause. Or something else. In my talk, I will highlight the danger of automation, the complexity of systems-of-systems testing, the importance of "validation" in V&V, and why human relationships and communication are essential to creating a product that meets the needs of end users. Here's part of my story: I've been an airline pilot, test pilot and SW/HW engineer in aerospace. Name is Alex "TripleSeven" and I will transport you into my world for an hour.
- Simply having all tests pass is not enough to guarantee a system's safety in production. - Testing a "system of systems" adds complexity and potential points of failure. - The dangers of relying too heavily on automation without proper human oversight.
Michael Bolton is a consulting software tester and testing teacher who helps people to solve testing problems that they didn't realize they could solve. In 2006, he became co-author (with James Bach) of Rapid Software Testing (RST), a methodology and mindset for testing software expertly and credibly in uncertain conditions and under extreme time pressure. Since then, he has flown over a million miles to teach RST in 35 countries on six continents. Michael has over 30 years of experience testing, developing, managing, and writing about software. For over 20 years, he has led DevelopSense, a Toronto-based testing and development consultancy. Prior to that, he was with Quarterdeck Corporation for eight years, during which he managed the company's flagship products and directed project and testing teams both in-house and around the world. Contact Michael at michael@developsense.com, on Twitter @michaelbolton, or through his Web site, http://www.developsense.com.
If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. ---Confucius “I break the software.” “Cannot reproduce.” “We need a week to regress the new build.” “We have to do automation.” “It works!” From time to time, testers say things that they don’t mean and fail to say things they do mean. Sometimes that happens as a slip, and sometimes as a habit. Usually there’s no malice or intention to confuse or mislead deceive, but our clients may be misled nonetheless. Worse, we can even deceive ourselves Words are powerful tools for understanding and clarifying and communicating ideas. Like all tools, words must be used skillfully to achieve their purposes and to avoid trouble. Our words and our thoughts are closely linked. The bad news, as George Orwell pointed out, is that sloppy language and sloppy thinking can reinforce one another. The good news, as Orwell also pointed out, is that the process is reversible. If we want to be respected as experts, it helps to look and sound like experts–and that starts with thinking and talking like experts. In the Rapid Software Testing Guide to What You Meant to Say, Michael Bolton will report on some common expressions and patterns of speech that he considers risky, strange, or silly and he’ll offer ideas for talking about testing more carefully, precisely, and respectably.
- Effective communication is crucial in testing software. - Words and language must be used skillfully to avoid confusion and miscommunication. - Michael Bolton's Rapid Software Testing Guide to What You Meant to Say provides valuable insights into common expressions and patterns of speech that can be risky or unclear, and offers suggestions for speaking about testing more carefully and precisely.
Coming Soon!
Michael Bolton is a consulting software tester and testing teacher who helps people to solve testing problems that they didn't realize they could solve. In 2006, he became co-author (with James Bach) of Rapid Software Testing (RST), a methodology and mindset for testing software expertly and credibly in uncertain conditions and under extreme time pressure. Since then, he has flown over a million miles to teach RST in 35 countries on six continents. Michael has over 30 years of experience testing, developing, managing, and writing about software. For over 20 years, he has led DevelopSense, a Toronto-based testing and development consultancy. Prior to that, he was with Quarterdeck Corporation for eight years, during which he managed the company's flagship products and directed project and testing teams both in-house and around the world. Contact Michael at michael@developsense.com, on Twitter @michaelbolton, or through his Web site, http://www.developsense.com.
If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. ---Confucius “I break the software.” “Cannot reproduce.” “We need a week to regress the new build.” “We have to do automation.” “It works!” From time to time, testers say things that they don’t mean and fail to say things they do mean. Sometimes that happens as a slip, and sometimes as a habit. Usually there’s no malice or intention to confuse or mislead deceive, but our clients may be misled nonetheless. Worse, we can even deceive ourselves Words are powerful tools for understanding and clarifying and communicating ideas. Like all tools, words must be used skillfully to achieve their purposes and to avoid trouble. Our words and our thoughts are closely linked. The bad news, as George Orwell pointed out, is that sloppy language and sloppy thinking can reinforce one another. The good news, as Orwell also pointed out, is that the process is reversible. If we want to be respected as experts, it helps to look and sound like experts–and that starts with thinking and talking like experts. In the Rapid Software Testing Guide to What You Meant to Say, Michael Bolton will report on some common expressions and patterns of speech that he considers risky, strange, or silly and he’ll offer ideas for talking about testing more carefully, precisely, and respectably.
- Effective communication is crucial in testing software. - Words and language must be used skillfully to avoid confusion and miscommunication. - Michael Bolton's Rapid Software Testing Guide to What You Meant to Say provides valuable insights into common expressions and patterns of speech that can be risky or unclear, and offers suggestions for speaking about testing more carefully and precisely.
Sophie studied mathematics at university which did not go as planned. She finished with a diploma, nonetheless. Serendipity brought her into agile testing – and she has never looked back. She now works happily as a test automation engineer at cronn GmbH, a Bonn based IT company. After years of successfully hunting bugs, lately she’s also been working her way into Java backend development so she can cut out the middle person and introduce the bugs herself. In her free time, she enjoys doing ballet and SUPing (in non-lockdown times) or knitting and baking (in lockdown times). No stranger to the universe’s gut punches, she is passionate about improving awareness and communication about mental health and self-care.
There’s a tiny little monster that lives inside my ear. The monster likes being mean. It keeps whispering to me, telling me that I don’t know anything about nothing, that I am bad at everything I have ever tried my hand at, and that I can’t do anything right. If presented with evidence to the contrary, it says that every single one of my achievements happened because I was lucky that nobody realized that I am actually very stupid. It’s mean, but sadly quite convincing. Does that sound familiar? The monster is called impostor syndrome and many people have met it. It makes life hard, never being able to fully trust in your intelligence and your abilities, never being proud of what you worked for, and constantly fearing that you might be found out as a fraud. In your professional life especially, you must be able to sing your own praise. Job interviews, performance reviews, meetings with a potential new client: all of these are situations in which saying “Here I am; this is what I can do, and that’s why I deserve what I want from you” is a key ability. Truth be told, you even must be able to lay it on a little thick. No easy feat when the monster tells you the exact opposite. I still suck at this but … Whoops, that was the monster talking again. Shut up, monster! Let’s try again: I have, over the years of living with the monster, found a few handy tips and tricks how to deal with it. It is not gone and probably never will be, but it is tamed, and I can say with - at least some, hard earned - confidence that I know how to advocate for myself. And I would like to share these tricks with you. Welcome to “Tooting your own horn 1.01”. I’ll be your guide.
- Impostor syndrome is a common phenomenon in which individuals doubt their own abilities and fear being exposed as frauds. - It can make it difficult to advocate for oneself in professional situations. - It is important to learn how to deal with it and advocate for oneself in a confident manner.
Alex is a whirlwind of enthusiasm for quality, agility and humans. She started out in testing and had an interesting and varied career as a product owner, consultant and team leader before becoming a part of the management team at the beginning of 2020. She spends her time communicating with people! A typical week involves working with customers, teaching and coaching testers and developers about quality, being an agile leader, working on strategy and developing her team to fulfil their potential. She keeps up to date on her favourite topics by supporting and consulting for teams and customers. Alex is a frequent speaker and keynote speaker at conferences about agility and quality from her experiences in projects and with customers, and she was awarded the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person award in 2018. In her free time she loves doing sports, playing music and being an auntie. She describes herself as an explorer and loves discovering places, cultures, perspectives and people.
Everything is always changing, and that's pretty scary sometimes. What will our work and our field look like in the future? What skills or roles will we need? What challenges will we face and what solutions can we start to identify? In this talk I’d like to do some triangulated crystal ball gazing from two perspectives. At heart, I’m a tester. For three years I’ve also been a CEO. From my passion for testing and my experience of business and people in organisations, I’ll look at what factors are at work now, what known unknowns we have and what kinds of effects will they have on how we work and the roles of testers and software professionals. Alongside musings about the future, I’ll talk about concrete activities on an individual and company level to best prepare ourselves for this nebulous future.
- The talk discusses predicting the future of testing and software development. - The speaker provides their perspective as a tester and CEO. - The talk focuses on potential changes and challenges and offers practical advice for preparation.
Alex "TripleSeven" Bauduin is a 56 year old globetrotter. He has worked in consulting companies, gaining experience in several fields (medical, manufacturing, aerospace, pay TV, and data warehousing, to name a few) in different countries (Switzerland, France, Spain, Canada, etc.). His career started in the space industry, where he discovered his passion for aerospace, working on military and civilian projects. At times he was diverted from aerospace, but his passion drove him to become an airline pilot, to really understand how the instruments he programmed and integrated worked in a cockpit. In his latest challenges: Organizing flight simulator testing in a lean production environment. Specifying and testing a short-range anti-aircraft defence system. Integrating and testing electrically powered aircraft. He works with milling machines, creates blueprints, does accounting and finance, software development, electronics design and industrial robots, and it's always fun for him to use an oscilloscope, an avionics bus analyzer, debug in assembly language or perform stall tests on a Boeing 777!
So you've tested your system: All the tests are green. That's pretty good news. Your system is integrated with other systems. Now we have to test a system of systems. Everything is good, so we can go into production: 3 planes crashed killing 349 people. What happened? An incomplete and unclear user guide could be the cause of this death toll. Automation could also be a cause. Or something else. In my talk, I will highlight the danger of automation, the complexity of systems-of-systems testing, the importance of "validation" in V&V, and why human relationships and communication are essential to creating a product that meets the needs of end users. Here's part of my story: I've been an airline pilot, test pilot and SW/HW engineer in aerospace. Name is Alex "TripleSeven" and I will transport you into my world for an hour.
- Simply having all tests pass is not enough to guarantee a system's safety in production. - Testing a "system of systems" adds complexity and potential points of failure. - The dangers of relying too heavily on automation without proper human oversight.
Evelina Rimkute is an experienced Test Manager working in IT projects within the banking and insurance industry. She is specialised in shift-left quality models, E2E test coordination, and test management in large projects. Evelina has a vast experience in SAFe, Agile, Kanban and Waterfall development models. As an active participant in social life, Evelina encourages women to support each other in their career path and various life situations. She is a co-leader of Lean In Switzerland, part of the global Lean In community with more than 1,500 members and 24 circles that get together to exchange views, network and host inspiring events. Apart from Evelina’s daily work and Lean In activities, she is a book and nature lover, a self-published author (Questions and thoughts for every day), hosting her own podcast (Footprints of an expat) and a lifelong learner who enjoys bringing valuable ideas to the daylight. https://evelinarimkute.ch
Diversity. Inclusion. Quality Assurance. Innovation. Software development is a space where holistic solutions are required to identify, understand and realise ideas. The ability to connect and empower minds from multiple backgrounds and know-how promises enormous possibilities to co-create and co-innovate. Unsurprisingly, for this to happen, we also need to create and maintain environments, where people are accepted, integrated and given a place at the table. Unfortunately, the way to balanced team spirit, inclusion and collaboration is way more winding and complex as it looks at a first glance. Everyday people could face microaggression, lack of involvement or empowerment and various traps of biases. In my talk I explore an idea, that anyone, who wears a quality assurance hat, plays a vital role in getting others to be proactively involved, in creating bridges between silos in organisational culture. I call this the quality with diversity.
- The importance of creating diverse and inclusive environments for quality assurance and innovation in software development - Holistic solutions and connecting minds from diverse backgrounds can lead to co-creation and innovation - Balanced team spirit, inclusion, and collaboration are essential but can be complicated due to microaggressions, lack of empowerment, and biases
Dirk is a scholar and writer. He heads the Consumer Culture Research Unit at the University of Hildesheim and recently spent three years as a visiting professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. Called a "quality expert" by the Swiss Newspaper "NZZ am Sonntag", Dirk's book "Quality! On the Art of Discovering Well-Made Things, Choosing Wisely and Living Delightfully" (published by Brandstätter in 2021) received a broad media coverage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As an expert on cultural aspects of economics, Dirk is a frequent speaker and keynote speaker. He lectured at the invitation of universities, companies, ministries, non-governmental organizations, and cultural institutions worldwide. You find him on his website https://inventur-blog.de
After a brief sketch of the most common misconceptions of quality, I will offer five criteria that define quality in a general sense. I will emphasize that quality is best understood as a notion relative to concrete circumstances and open for future developments. The main point of my talk will be the recent cultural shift from a purely functional approach to a more inclusive perspective on quality that encompasses both aesthetic and ethical dimensions. After all, quality is not just something that can be tested, but also an attitude that needs to be cultivated.
- Quality is relative to concrete circumstances and open for future developments. - Quality is not just functional but also encompasses aesthetic and ethical dimensions. - Quality is not just something that can be tested, but also an attitude that needs to be cultivated.
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Selnaustrasse 25
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