Ministry of Testing

In the final island broadcast of 2020, Drew Pontikis floats by to build upon last episode’s discussions around shaping quality culture within your organisation, and how you can help by developing communities of practice. We touch upon Drew’s experiences with starting the Ministry of Testing Peterborough meetup group, with some top tips on how to create a group from scratch, including some valuable advice about not losing your passwords. As we’re feeling festive, there’s also a bit of chat about so-bad-they’re-good films, we look back on 2020 and forward to 2021, and Neil makes the sort of promise that you shouldn’t make on a publicly-available podcast. (Note that Neil has since realised that his own Beatles anecdote actually related to “When I’m Sixty-Four”, rather than the song being discussed on the podcast, but it was too good to leave out!) Podcast Links: Ministry of Testing Cambridge Ministry of Testing Peterborough Neil’s profile on Letterboxd Drew’s profile on Letterboxd YouTube trailer for Host List of Ministry of Testing meetups & how to start your own Drew on Twitter (@drew060609) Regular Links: Listen to and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud Sign up to be a guest on the show Testers' Island Discs playlist on Spotify Testers' Island Discs reading list on Goodreads Follow us on Twitter

In this Podcast, Mike chats with David Burns covering the topic of Automated testing and how to find a balance between Manual and Automated testing. David is the Chair of the W3C Browser Testing and Tools Working group and co-editor of the WebDriver specification, trying to ensure automation frameworks in browsers are interoperable. He was an engineering manager at Mozilla within Developer Experience working on tooling and infrastructure to help make a better web and now heads up the Open Source work at BrowserStack. David has been a core contributor on the Selenium project for over a decade supporting Firefox and the Python client bindings. The discussion covers how "When you're a hammer, everything will look like a nail", "The Shift Left approach" and differences between Automation Testing & Manual Testing? When would you would introduce/use automation Will automation replace manual testing? spell the end of the need for manual testers? Tools The challenge in getting the right balance between manual and automated testing  

In this podcast Mark meets Valentin a software testing professional for more than ten years. Valentin has worked in several roles, including test environment management, manual functional testing, mobile, and testing process improvement. The two get together for a discussion and a reflection on COVID-19 testing and what the challenges of testing for the virus can teach us about the challenges we have in software testing. And more specifically automation for software testing. This podcast is sponsored by Sauce Labs

In an episode which was two years in the making, Neil welcomes Angela Riggs to the island, for a discussion about building QA departments within an organisation: how to get buy-in for change, suggestions for “quick wins”, what can you do if you’re short of budget or people, and how to make quality a part of your company’s culture. Recorded on the day that the media finally decided to project the US election result, there’s an air of optimism (and a few fireworks in the background) as Angela takes us though her song selections, which include some of her karaoke favourites, some songs with strong personal connections, as well as a song which was composed during lockdown. This episode is sponsored by PractiTest. PractiTest is an end-to-end test management solution to organize, run and visualize all your QA efforts in one centralized hub. It incorporates all testing types: manual, exploratory and automation for any testing methodology. Create a unified QA process and improve team communication with a vast array of built-in integrations, and easily extract and view valuable insights from your real time test results using advanced customizable reports and dashboards. In short, make smarter decisions and release better software, faster. Podcast Links: Empires of Light on Bandcamp Angela’s blog Angela’s “Reverse Job Hunt” Angela on Twitter Regular Links: Listen to and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud Sign up to be a guest on the show Testers' Island Discs playlist on Spotify Testers' Island Discs reading list on Goodreads Follow us on Twitter

Mike talks to Sérgio Freire from Xray about his career in software development, as a developer, team lead and then a subtle shift in career. He discusses his background in Telco and how teams worked back then and his path to becoming a Product Owner for Xray and then a Solution Architect, covering the differences he encountered in each role and reflections on what he wishes he had known when you started out in software development. He also covers how Xray is helping teams and what they aim to do in the future.

Mark and Gwen had such an awesome time at  Test.bash('Online'); that they thought, why not keep the party going!? So the two got together for a rambly chat about what stood out to them in the experience reports, the themes that appeared during the day and how the event was prepared. So come relive the energy and enthusiasm as Mark and Gwen chat all things  Test.bash('Online'); Links: Creating A Test Automation Portfolio Episode 4: API testing for Restful Booker using Postman Automation week introduction and challenges Christine Zierold's GitHub Repo Automation week - YouTube Livestreams Test.Bash() Experience report series

Neil chats with Louise about her experiences of introducing sustainable test automation practices within a team, how parallels can be drawn to a painful accident from her past, and discuss some of the situations in which record/playback tools can serve to be a net benefit. In a month during which Louise has also spoken at TestBash Manchester Online and Test.Bash(Online), there are also discussions about the special steps that you need to take when prepping for online events, and a deep dive into the art of sketchnoting. This podcast is sponsored by our friends at Sauce Labs. The award-winning Sauce Labs Continuous Testing Cloud delivers a 360-degree view of a customer’s application experience, ensuring that web and mobile applications look, function, and perform exactly as they should on every browser, OS, and device, every single time. Learn more about Sauce at the Ministry of Testing Automation Week at the end of October!  Regular Links: Listen to and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud Sign up to be a guest on the show Testers' Island Discs playlist on Spotify Testers' Island Discs reading list on Goodreads Follow us on Twitter

He’s back! The one and only original castaway of the Island, Neil Studd. After a year off, Neil is back to host Tester’s Island Discs. So why not finish Mark’s time on the podcast like it started. With a good old waffle between two podcast hosts. Neil catches us all up on the wild ride that has been the past year for him including a discussion about remote working, job hunting and strategies for working in a lockdown. Mark also shares exciting new features and ideas that are coming to Ministry of Testing in the coming months. This podcast is sponsored by Xray, the leading Quality Assurance and Test Management app for Jira. More than 4.5 million testers, developers and QA managers trust Xray to manage 100+ million test cases each month. It is a mission-critical tool at over 5,000 companies in 65 countries, including 137 of the Global 500. With Xray you can plan, execute and track your testing with full requirements traceability supported by both manual and automated tests, including BDD using Cucumber as well as JUnit, NUnit, Robot and others.  Discover the future of testing and start your free trial today at getxray.app Podcast links: Remaining Relevant by Rob Lambert - Ebook link Neil’s Twitter - @neilstudd Regular Links: Listen to and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud Sign up to be a guest on the show Testers' Island Discs playlist on Spotify Testers' Island Discs reading list on Goodreads Follow us on Twitter

Adam Leon Smith talks to Jonathon Wright from Digital Assured and the QA Lead podcast about Model-Based Testing, what it is, why it's growing in adoption, and the benefits of it in the quality engineering process.  This includes talking about how Jonathon used models to design tests for complex applications like Pokemon Go. This podcast was kindly sponsored by Wonderproxy. Testing locale-specific code when you're stuck at your desk is like flying blind: you can't see where you're going. From our versatile testing solutions to our worldwide network of proxy servers, WonderProxy is built for localization testing. Squash those bugs and ship that next release. P.s. did you know you can listen to and subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes and SoundCloud?

Adam Leon Smith talks to Paul Reinheimer from Wonderproxy about browser location, GeoIP and how mismanagement of GeoIP can result in some interesting bugs.  Paul discusses how Wonderproxy could help you test your website to lots of different locations around the world - all without stepping on a plane or using dodgy hacks. Find out why Wonderproxy came into being, how it functions and how you can implement it to make the most of it. Paul shares some of the more common bugs found and how you can use Wonderproxy to integrate with your automation tools. This podcast was kindly sponsored by Wonderproxy. Testing locale-specific code when you're stuck at your desk is like flying blind: you can't see where you're going. From our versatile testing solutions to our worldwide network of proxy servers, WonderProxy is built for localization testing. Squash those bugs and ship that next release. P.s. did you know you can listen to and subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes and SoundCloud?

In this Meet The Coaches Podcast episode, Adam Leon Smith speaks with Anand Bagmar to get to know about his background and experiences. Anand is a Software Quality Evangelist & brings to you over 20 years of experience of helping build a Quality Product. In this time he's worked in traditional & Agile teams across varying domains, in Product & Services organizations around the globe. He is passionate about coaching, consulting & helping enable teams in implementation on aspects of Quality, Test Automation, & setting up optimized and fit-for-purpose processes and practices in teams to help build a better quality product Why not book a coaching session with Anand now?! Did you know you can listen to and subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes and SoundCloud?

Mark is joined by the Test Manager, Association of Software Testers (AST) board member and most importantly king of the puns, James Thomas. The two discuss James’ work with the AST his time running the Cambridge Exploratory Testing Workshop (CEWT) and his own experiences and path to becoming a speaker. Thank you to Browserstack for sponsoring this podcast- BrowserStack is the world's largest software testing platform powering over two million tests every day across 15 global data centers on more than 2000 real devices. With BrowserStack, Dev and QA teams can move fast while delivering an amazing experience for every customer. Check out Browserstack Podcast links: Rule of three About CEWT Lessons Learned in Software Testing  Gather Collaboration - Gather Software Sequencer - Trackers  Managing to Test - Joint post with Lena Wiberg Galumphing with James Bach K-Cards - K-cards James’ music Glow by The Guy Who Invented Fire James’ Twitter Regular Links: Listen to and subscribe to this podcast on iTunes and SoundCloud Sign up to be a guest on the show Testers' Island Discs playlist on Spotify Testers' Island Discs reading list on Goodreads Follow us on Twitter

In this Meet The Coaches Podcast episode, Mike speaks with Maria Kedemo to get to know about her background and experiences. Maria started working with Software Development in 2000 with a focus on software testing and quality. Since then Maria has gained experience & knowledge in building teams, recruitment, teaching, coaching and mentoring testers, supporting organisational change and much more. She can help you with most topics related to software testing, as well as, support you in public speaking and career building. Maria’s approach to coaching aims to help you maximize your personal and professional potential. Why not book a coaching session with Maria now?! Did you know you can listen to and subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes and SoundCloud?

In this Meet The Coaches Podcast episode, Mike speaks with Richard Bradshaw to get to know about his background and experiences. Richard is an experienced tester, consultant and generally a friendly guy. He shares his passion for testing through coaching, consulting, training and giving presentations around the world on a variety of topics related to testing. He is enthusiastic about helping folks implement automation that supports testing. And, with over 10 years of testing experience, he has a lot of insights into the world of testing and software development. Why not book a coaching session with Richard now?! Did you know you can listen to and subscribe to our podcasts on iTunes and SoundCloud?

Adam Leon Smith follows up on talking to members of the testing community about their perspectives on test data with part 2 - what is test data, what are typical challenges, and innovative solutions to them. In particular in integrated complex data flows in e.g. onboarding customers, exploratory testing, automated test data creation and automated checks. Perspectives on Test Data Part 2 with @ButchMayhew @Louise_J_Gibbs @djidee @MaikNog@anks461 This podcast is sponsored by PractiTest Organize, run, and visualize all your QA efforts under one roof. PractiTest's ALM test management solution incorporates all testing types: manual, exploratory, and automation for any testing methodology. Connect all aspects of your testing with built-in integrations for a unified process and improved team communication. Extract and view valuable insights from your real-time test results using advanced customizable reports and dashboards to make smart decisions and release better software, faster.