How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard

For those of you who haven't received my mail (DUTCH)

How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.  ~Carol Sobieski and Thomas Meehan, Annie

Nog twee weken en dan is mijn laatste dag bij Capgemini. Na iets meer dan 8 jaar neem ik afscheid van een prachtig bedrijf waar ik met veel passie en toewijding heb gewerkt en natuurlijk ook van jou als collega of relatie in deze hoedanigheid.

Op 1 november 2004 startte mijn loopbaan bij Capgemini FS B57, dat was toentertijd de testpractice (tezamen met BI) en ik verloor mijn hart aan het prachtige testvak, waardoor ik er nooit ben weggegaan. Hoe de dingen ook veranderden in de organisatie; de testpractice was altijd mijn thuishonk.  Ik begon als testanalist en kreeg de kans om uit te groeien naar de rollen die ik nu achterlaat : Leader van de FS NBS Testing & Technologies CoP, trekker van de SIG BI Testing, Leader van de CoP Testing NL, deelnemer van de CTO Office als testexpert en natuurlijk ook ‘gewoon’ als testmanager. Een hoogtepunt was dan ook zeker de erkenning die ik kreeg als Medewerker van het kwartaal Q1 in 2010 en daarmee de nominatie voor medewerker van het jaar.  Ik had dit nooit kunnen bereiken als ik niet collega’s had gehad als ik heb gehad; met passie voor een vak kom je ver, maar nimmer zó ver; dank je wel daarvoor!

Het besluit om Capgemini te verlaten heb ik zeker niet gemakkelijk genomen en het is dan ook met een beetje pijn in het hart dat ik weg ga. Per 1 januari ga ik echter aan de slag bij Turien & Co. Assuradeuren, uiteraard in het testvak, als Teamleider Testing. Het bedrijf ligt een kwartiertje fietsen/ met de stadsbus van mijn woning af en dat is dan ook de hoofdreden dat ik overstap, naast dat deze uitdaging mij ook gewoon leuk lijkt uiteraard!

Zoals gezegd blijf ik actief in het testvak, velen van jullie zal ik dan ook zeker in de toekomst nog tegenkomen op diverse vakbijeenkomsten zoals TestNet en testconferenties zoals de Nederlandse Testdag en zelfs wellicht EuroSTAR.  Mocht je me nog willen benaderen dan kun je me mailen op: funtestic.fanatic@gmail.com (en tot 28 december nog op nathalie.van.delft@capgemini.com) en uiteraard kun je me ook vinden op LinkedIn.

Van velen van jullie heb ik persoonlijk afscheid kunnen nemen of kan ik dit de komende week nog doen, van nog meer collegae helaas niet. Ik wens jou alle goeds toe in carrière en privé situatie.

Best conference year so far...

It's been ages since I wrote a blog, I guess it's one of those things that moves to the background when very busy...
So, because EuroSTAR 2012 is about to begin and I'm planning some blogging there I really had to update with the things about the conferences i visited last year :-)


From March 12-14th I've attended the Belgium Testing Days at the Sheraton (Conference) Hotel in Brussels (Airport) and from May 7th-10th I was in Norway for the FreeTest 2012 conference held
on the boat from Trontheim to Bronnoysund the first day and the second day in Bronnoysund itself, on May 30th I attended the TestNet SpringEvent with it's 15th anniversary. Last but not least: I was at Expo:QA in Madrid as conference chair!



Belgium Testing Days


This year I was invited to the Belgium Testing Days by Mieke Gevers. I hadn't send in a paper, since I hadn't had a sufficiently worked out topic yet at the time for the call for papers.
I find I have to have an all ready and interesting topic to send in and not just send in a paper just to get to go to a conference. So I hoped for my boss to grant me the ticket to go.
By the time I had to send in my proposal to my manager though, Mieke had contacted me already. The theme of the conference was 'Software Testing versus Quality Assurance' and she had a need for
two people who could do an antagonistic gig during the conference. As you can guess... I was person number one and Daniel Maslyn was person number two.

I arrived on Monday afternoon the day before the conference itself, the hall was already buzzing with vendors and companies setting up their booths and the hotel staff setting up the
tables and coffeebar for the Tuesday. In the room I found the little gift that Mieke and Nadine as organisers had left, last year I was also pleasantly surprised by this little gesture that
makes the expierence as speaker at the Belgium Testing Days even more special, it's just so heart warming to feel so welcome just by these little details.
The evening is spend with all other speakers at an excellent restaurant in Brussel city center and during the dinner there's plenty of time to get to know some other speakers and people from the
organization of Diaz Hilterscheid.

The Tuesday is an exciting day for me. The gig that Daniel and I are supposed to do is part of the opening speech by Mieke. Mieke has arranged jackets for us that are part silver and part black
and hightops - one black, one silver - to wear and emphasize our roles. Daniel and I are the antoganists or friendly-coexisters (?) of 'Software Testing and Quality Assurance'. We have to
burst in the main auditorium during Mieke's speech heavily debating whether Software Testing and Quality Assurance are the same or are completely different. And so we do... but a little bit
too early. We were supposed to go in a couple of lines into the theme explanation, instead we thought we had to go in after a couple of lines. No harm done though... the message came across
and Mieke is an experienced enough chair to correct any glitches during the speech.

During the conference the task that Daniel and I have is to walk around with an iPad each and to let people write quotes on the pad, take pictures and even movies. They are displayed directly on the
mainscreen in the expohall, well.. from the pad that takes / has the control anyway. So we can even have a 'fight' over whom of us has the screen-control from the pad :-)

The upside is that I got to be at a great conference, but the downside is definitely that I wasn't able to attend all the tracks. So I only got to see a limited amount of them. The ones I saw
were excellent though! Belgium Testing Days has a great offer of high-quality (for me at least) and high-standard (level) tracks, which also makes choices to make hard :-)

The first one I fully attended was

I also attended 'Twist and thaste' by Luuk Steffermans

And Artful testing by Zeger van Hese, in which one of the things that I took with me was that knowing some more info about a certain painting makes it more clear what certain things means, which
can also be applied to software testing. Another one was about perspective, depending how you look at things from your own perspective you will discover different things. The presentation from
Zeger can be found on the interwebs on Prezi.

Tuesday was ended by drinks, a stand-up comedian performance (after the success of last time they did again a marvelous job!) and a very good dinner at the expoHall.

On wednesday I went back home again, my brain filled with loads of ideas and inspiration.



FreeTest or The Most Northern Testing Conference in the world

How many testing conferences do you know that are held on a cruiseship? Well, now you know one: It's the FreeTest - the worlds Northernmost testconference (http://www.dataforeningen.no/forside.194266.no.html).
This conference is small, but I found it a most impressive and fun conference indeed. I travelled to Trontheim the first day where we boarde the cruiseship on which the conference was held the first day.

On the ship there was an auditorium where you could also look outside, so while listening to the tracks (no choices to be made :-) ) you could also sometimes sneak a peek outside and watch the beautiful fjords.
Between the tracks there was an excellent lunch in the cruiseship's restaurant (again with magnificent views!). I had my track on the ship which was an experience on itself, I loved the responses from the audience and afterwards there was plenty of time to relax on the deck and have discussions with the participants of the conference.

After midnight we arrived at Brønnøysund where day two of the conference was held. THere was a bit of a wait at the hotel to check in, but that didn't spoil the fun at all :-)
The next day you had to make choices; one part of the tracks was held at a room in the hotel and the other one at the office of the BBREG. I attende the first three tracks in the Thon Hotel:
Success story of automation test with Open Source tools in Vianova Systems by Yanhong Peng, Automated functional load testing: Grinder + Webdriver by Vegard Hartmann and Øyvind Kvangardsnes and Cheap and Free tools by Lloyd Roden. I loved the tracks being so practical and usable for daily practice; I could really get something out of it to use at my job - that is - if I would have been in an environment where automation would have been applied, but alas I was not, so I put it in my testerstoolbox to use when the time is right.
In between was a brilliant lunch at BBREG; those people who work there really have a magnificent view on the fjords during their lunch! I really loved it.

In the afternoon I took a track off to wander through the village (both tracks held then were in Norwegian, so I wouldn't have understood it anyway), which takes about a half hour to see all :-). The last track I attended was that of Mieke Gevers at the BBREG auditorium about performance testing, which I found really interesting because it was all about the results from those performance testing and how to extract valuable information from them instead of false positives.
After the tracks all testers where rallied up to enter a bus and we were driven off to a mountain with a hole in it; it was fun to see (and unique!) all those testers climbing that mountain :-) I think it was a first to see 80+ testers on top of one mountain!

The climb had made us hungry so we were driven off to a restaurant (best Aquavit brewery in the neighbourhood) to enjoy a really good norwegian meal with very good fish.
When we arrived back at the village of Brønnøysund a group of testers decided to visit the local pub and Michael Bolton, who was booked for his Rapid Software Testing course on two days after the conference itself, brought his mandolin. It was a very cosy and well spend evening there.
The next day I travelled back home again (it was a first to be able to walk to the airport from my hotel in the center of a town :-) ) and reflected on what I found a really well organized small conference with an excellent choice of tracks; I would certainly recommend this conference to any tester no doubt!



SpringEvent Testnet

At the spring event, which was a jubilee version due to the fact TestNet celebrated it's 15th birthday, I didn't get the chance to visit any tracks except the kenotes. I was on 'booth-duty' handing out 'Cap'puccino's and Caramel Lattes. The presentations can be downloaded here: https://www.testnet.org/viewcategory/230.html and the photoalbum can be viewed here: https://www.testnet.org/category/23-voorjaarsevenement-2012-15-jaar-jubileum.html.
The keynotes I attended were from Geoff Thomson & Bob vd Burgt about the history (and future) of testing and -off course-  the introduction of the TestNet jubilee book 'Bepaal je koers' for which I made the 'Mappa Testi' contribution!

I always love the TestNet events; it's great to see so many enthusiastic fellow testers who have a passion for the craft! I think we are lucky in the Netherlands to have so many of them and that they share their passion at the TestNet meetings.


Expo:QA 2012.

Expo:QA 2012 was held in Madrid this year, I had the honour of being the chair of this edition, which meant that I've been busy with the program (together with Gwen Stewart and Raynald Korchia) since about February this year.
Being a chair of a conference gives a whole different viewpoint of such an event, in stead of your focus being of getting the most our of the conference for yourself, you now have the focus on providing those tracks that will benefit the attendees the most. Besides that, there's also many (delicate) choices to be made where you have to balance topic, country, company and have to take into consideration the vendors; a conference isn't cheap so keeping sponsors happy is also important.

I had some 'behind-the-scene' experience of a conference of my time being a program committee member of the EUroSTAR conference, but being the chair of a conference makes you even more aware - and more appreciative of- the things that have to be arranged and what a large and exhausting task it is, and I have to mention here that being a chair doesn't give you the most hard tasks; that credit goes to the organisers themselves.

Well. I arrived on a Monday. The Expo:QA was held in a huge conference hotel not far from the airport; I always find it very nice that your place of stay is the same of the conference itself, it gives a bit more peace of mind knowing you don't have to worry about transport to the venue and that you'll be there on time.
The excellent weather gave me the opportunity to drink a cocktail in the restaurants terrace at 23.30 with still 26 Degrees Celsius on the thermometer, so I guess that I couldn't wish for a better start then this.
On Tuesday tutorials were held (a.o. Paul Gerrard and Derk-Jan de Grood) and when I visited the coffee breaks and lunches I saw people who were really wrapping their minds on the contents of the tutorials and heavy debating, while still excited. I like those reactions; it - for me- is telling that people are challenged and that is exactly what I intended when I invited those speakers for the tutorials.

Wednesday and Thursday were the conference days themselves. As last time: the food is so amazing at this conference. Lunch is a tapas-style buffet and personnel is walking around constantly with small delicious snacks. The last Expo (held in 2010) I was awed by these perks of this conference, this time I certainly was again. Besides the tracks (I don't want to boast, but: good choices :-) ), the food and the ambiance really make this conference a 'wanna-go!'.

To top it all: on Wednesday we were all brought to the Madrid Zoo and the Gala dinner was held at the most spectacular place I could imagine; in the Penguin viewing area!
The food was good, alas not as good as the tapas at the conference; but I guess having a dinner at a Penguin place means the food has to travel a bit when it gets to the table; I thought it was a minor flaw related to the location.

I also experienced the downsides of being a chair; when something goes wrong; YOU are the face everybody sees and complains to, nothing personal of course, but it certainly gets to you. One of the speakers didn't show; luckily Julian Harty (who was a attendee mind!) jumped up to do his Mobile Testing track, it turned out to be one of the more popular tracks that day. We also provided a 'on the fly' gathering on request of attendees to do more Agile, between the last track of Wednesday and the gala dinner we got a room at the conference centre and a.o Gwen organised a format where experienced and non-experienced people could exchange questions- and answers on Agile Testing, I thought it was a marvellous example of the dynamics that can occur at a conference.
On Thursday evening I travelled back home again, leaving the Warm Madrid behind and being totally knackered. It was an experience to never forget and I'm happy I got this opportunity of a lifetime.

Well... that's a rapid and - for me- rather short summary of the conferences I went to last year... now I'm ready to go the EuroSTAR in my home country NL en blog without feeling guilty of not having written about the others :-)
Hope to see you there!

The EuroSTAR Dutch Ambassadors invite you to drinks…

Dear Testers
The 20th time edition of the EuroSTAR conference will be held in November. With Amsterdam as location, two Dutch Online Ambassadors and two country Ambassadors, the Dutch Test scene is very well represented. However, it could be even better …We would  like to see you all at the conference.  It’s a great opportunity to get ideas, to take cognizance of the latest trends and get to know new colleagues.

On Monday, September 17th we (the ambassadors and EuroSTAR team) organize a pre-conference drink. Testers of the Netherlands, whether you’re already planning to come to the conference or not. Come to the Winkel van Sinkel in Utrecht.  Meet new and known test colleagues, toast on a beautiful conference and …..win a free ticket to the conference.

Date: September 17
Location: De winkel van sinkel, Oudegracht 158​​, 3511 AZ Utrecht.
(see http://www.dewinkelvansinkel.nl/contact/)
Time: 18.00-20.00
Cost:  None, free admission and drinks
Extra: We organize a small quiz, the winner gets a free ticket for EuroSTAR 2012.  
Registration: send an email to derkjandegrood@valori.nl and report with how many people you are attending.

We love to see you,
On behalf of the Dutch ambassadors and the EuroSTAR team,
Bob Van de Burgt
Derk-Jan de Grood
Nathalie van Delft
Ard Kramer
the EuroSTAR team

ToPing in Testing

Some people might know that my biggest hobby is 'being a Casualty Simulation Victim' and since it's basically 'testing' Medical staff (and other first responders) I had the opportunity to extract some very valuable lessons from the Casualty Simulation scene to use in my work as Software Tester. This is a more comprehensive description of one of those lessons so that you might benefit from it; it's called the Time Out Protocol, or ToP in short.

Let me explain where it comes from. In a hospital somewhere in the world, eye surgery was performed numerous times a year. At that time a switch was made at a rate of nine times per year. You read it correctly: nine times a year the left eye was operated on while it should have been the right one (or vice versa). The hospital started an investigation in which one of the findings was that the most risk was run when transferring the patient from one discipline to the next. They implemented a check-list with short, simple questions, which had to be answered by - for example- the physician that transferred the patient to the OR personnel just before the patient went into the operating room in presence of this patient and with the patient still conscience. The questions where - among others- 'name of patient', 'date of birth', 'which eye?', 'diagnosis' and 'allergies?'. You can imagine that when you hear 'left' in stead of 'right' in this transfer, that you as patient will respond 'wait a minute!; it should be right!'. After implementing this check-list only one switch was made every two years. When they investigated the cause of this switch, it proved that the protocol was not used.

The check-list was adopted by numerous hospitals after the success in the first. Although useful in all situations within the treatment chain, it seemed especially useful in emergency situations.
When checking into this particular aspect; there seemed to be a correlation between the stress levels and things you might forget in those situations; the check-list provided a moment rest to clear the minds of the medical staff, facilitated the ability to take a moment to create a bird-eye view and (using a second check-list with specific steps for that particular emergency) provide a checkpoint to verify that every possible action was taken to treat the patient. The check-list was named 'Time Out Protocol', using it only takes a minute tops. Now, a minute may seem long in an emergency situation, but the minute used to elaborate on things is earned back many times over when thinking of the harm that could have be done to the patient when something was forgotten in the treatment...

During one of the first emergency drills I participated in, I saw this check-list being used and I was impressed by the effect it had in the room and with the medical staff; it really was a moment of calmness and retrospective and provided a very clear to-do-next list of activities. I couldn't help but wonder if the same kind of 'protocol' could be used within my work as software tester. I took a copy of the Time Out Protocol, in short: ToP and looked carefully at the questions on it.
It seemed that there were some generic questions on the list, that apply to each situation when handling a patient, and there were very specific questions on the list, which only apply to the discipline using it. One of the conclusions I made from this, is that a ToP is at one side a specific list for a specific situation (and might even apply to a specific time and place). In the original ToP I brought with me, the questions are applicable for all patients coming in that particular department of the hospital and the list has now been in use for some time now, so, on the other side the ToP generic enough to be beneficial for a longer period of time.

In Software testing I made an analogy with the ToP with project level, because at that time the unit to be the most practical for a ToP was at project level. I can imagine that different ToPs are possible; in smaller project a 'project level' would do for example, but in SCRUM a 'sprint' or 'release' based one could be beneficial (maybe 'sprint' is even a bit too small a unit, to make a generic one every 2-4 weeks, so that could be a list which would contain a lot of 'generic' questions and some changeable ones for that sprint), in larger projects (waterfall type) one can think of test level ToP's etc. The main thing is that the list will contain questions that will make you think about the common things (that you might easily forget otherwise) and important 'really not to forget' things, that are applicable for your work for a longer period of time (specific unit of work/ project etc.) so you should choose a wise unit of 'measurement'.

I took my time to design questions that would benefit me most with my work. I remember having some thoughts about the items in my 'to-do' list or 'remember-to' list every time I was in my car (or train) back home and thought they would be excellent items on my ToP, since if I put them on my check-list, I wouldn't have to 'keep it in my head' al the time. I also thought of typical questions related to testing which seemed to be generic for most of my projects. I thought about the very common things that seemed so obvious and basic in my mind and marked them specifically (those are typically the questions that contain the most risk of be forgotten!) and last I wrote down some keywords of things that were crucial to the project and really not to be forgotten (the things that keep buzzing in your head - a bit the same as the 'remember-to' things). In short, these are categories of questions you should have on your list:

1. Questions regarding items that keep busying your mind (to-do's / remember-to's)
2. Questions related to the things that seem TOO obvious or simple to you
3. Questions regarding the success of the (testing) project (crucial factors)

For an example I will share some of my questions on my list for the project at that time (waterfall type project):

• What's the name of the (part of) the system I have under test?
• Which version(s) of the system do I have/ must I have under test?
• Is the test environment loaded with the correct version?
• Is the test environment loaded with the correct data?
• Does the test environment need any connections to outside systems?
• Are the connections to outside systems operational or is there a stub in place? (which are they?)
• Are the correct user(s) defined and do they have the correct roles and authorizations?
• Which date is the cut-off date for bug reporting
• Which stakeholders are involved?
• Are the stakeholders informed?
• Do I have enough input for the testers to do their execution?
• Are all the tools in place and do the users have the authorisations needed?
• Are there known defect(s) that should be mentioned?

For a SCRUM-type list I can imagine you'd have something of 'what user stories are to be covered' on the list and it even could be as simple (in waterfall type projects) as 'which test level am I testing on?.

The TimeOutProtocol is a check-list that will, when used daily, create a moment where you can step back from the busy work schedule, reflect on the work you are doing and let you focus on the things that you should have been doing. The 'ideal' ToP will not take a half hour to run through all the points, but will take a maximum of 2 minutes to complete. Questions you can't answer should be written down an found out after the use of the ToP (when already applicable of course).

It's not just for management (as the example list I showed you earlier might imply) but for all expertises in a project (a test analyst might have questions as: 'which version am I testing on', 'do I have the right authorisation(s) to do my tests?' and 'which functionality did I cover?'). YOUR TimeOutProtocol can't be written by your manager, (s)he might have a ToP with questions that you CAN use, but the checkpoints are still the questions (S)HE would like to have answered.
YOUR TImeOutProtocol is a list that will benefit YOU and YOU are thus the person that should design the questions on the list that will benefit YOU and YOUR WORK (although it could be beneficial to let somebody review your list so (s)he might have extra suggestions (especially those things that are TOO obvious and might not be on your list, although important). It also might be a good idea / suggestions to share the different ToP's that are made by your fellow-projectmembers or even a colleague tester from an entirely different organization; it will probably inspire to add or sharpen questions that might benefit you.

Well. That's it about the TimeOutProtocol. I hope you find it a useful tool to use in your daily work and if you want or can (mind the questions that might be under NDA's!), I would appreciate it if you'd like to share your ToP or comments/ suggestions to ToP's as a comment to this post, so more testers might benefit from the things you have on your list.

EuroSTAR 2011 diaries - part three

I woke up with a major headache, maybe it's the tension for the track I'm doing today. I only had 1 cocktail during dinner and 1 pint of beer last night, so it can't be the booze acting up. Well, nothing a good old Aspirin can't fix.
I had to be at the conference centre at 0730 again to practice the last GMM session already. Today I'm again pointing out the Testlab, since it's an excellent place to be at to test and meet people and I'm highlighting the European Testers Survey in my weather report. I'm also sneaky referencing the closing event. I'm all into the details and it's going to be such fun! Before I went to the conference centre I picked up a huge eggnog latte at StarBucks, I love these different flavours in foreign SB's (I had a Pumpkin spice in Portland), it's a shame they don't have them in the Netherlands.

We practised again till the people came in the auditorium. It seems that more people don't want to miss the GMM's, the buzz is apparently going around that there's fun stuff in there and people don't want to miss it, which is good.

Photo by Rik Marselis: Me as weather girl on the big stage during GMM session.
The keynote was that of Ben Walters, I didn't notice it, but apparently he was as sick as could be and he just came out of bed to do the keynote before returning to it again (chapeau dude! I take my hat off for you if I'd wore one). It started out promising, but as Twittering and mailing increase, mark a period of my declining interest, I must conclude I was losing my interest half way the talk. My headache came up again so I wished for the track to end so I could pop an aspirin again. I got more stressed for my talk this afternoon...and that took a toll on my attention.

I went to Architecture Testing after the break by Peter Zimmerer. I listened to his talk with interest as I'm busy setting up something on how to do this with an architect at my current client. I didn't get what I expected to get from it though and I didn't agree with the content in a whole, I have a different perspective on architecture testing and it is good that different perspectives are there, but it sucks that this will probably set a new discussion and confusion that goes with it around the subject to get a common (for what that's worth) understanding. I see a lot of evangelising to be done there.

I went to Michael Bolton's dashboards track after that. I had high hopes and expectations, as I learned something new and very applicable every time I visited a track by Michael. I couldn't be more disappointed this time. It might have been very applicable for newbies, but for me, it was (very) old news and the stuff told I apply naturally in my work, as I know most of my colleagues do (and not only colleagues from my company but also most of the testers in NL and UK I know) because they are educated in reporting and giving feedback to the client when you're doing testing. I even go as far as to say I learned a lot of this stuff during my ISTQB course, but maybe that's because I had a good teacher for this course. It's not about the numbers, although a lot of non-ISTQB testers think we ISTQB people are only into 'coverage by percentage' etc. (it's not that bad: it's what you DO with it that counts ;-) ) , I actually learned that you first go to your client/ stakeholders and ask them what their need is regarding the information and reporting during testing and produce my information accordingly. I never use the same reporting for one organization in another, I even got specialized reporting for some specific stakeholder groups if it gets more clear for them or they feel more happy about a certain lay-out. Whiteboards are okay, but I'm having a conflict there when I think about the strict clean-desk policy most organizations have nowadays; they'd get a heart-attack when seeing this stuff all out in the open, it's all in the context and this solution isn't for my context.
I was considering changing to 10 challenges by John Montgomery, but I figured I could relax a bit have a bit and browse through some mail. It wasn't a complete waste of time, so I still was LEAN ;-)

Between that track and the lunch I went to StarBucks to escape and relax a bit. I have to remember to breathe...

My turn. I was nervous, VERY nervous. I've been 'speaking' before but at my Ethics debate the attendees do most of the talking and at my Unusual Testing track there's so much non-testing info, I'm quite sure the oddness protects me somewhat. This time I really felt exposed, I was talking about work I actually done as a tester and I felt I could only be exposed as a fraud or an idiot. Although my client was very pleased with my work (which I find most important) and I'm really proud of my work and want to share my lessons learned because they helped me and maybe could help others (or inspire), I'm still very unsure. It's also my first time on the 'BIG stage', I can tell it's different being on a stage in an auditorium, where seats are going up all around you and a smaller room, where you are the highest point in the room. I'm also not used having an AV team regulating my slides and having a slide-button and separate pointer. I was scared that I would screw up. I was scared switching the devices and look clumsy or making stupid English jokes, that are hilarious in Dutch but are are an insult in English or something. I was SCARED, I was NERVOUS...it went fine.

I had people asking questions, I had a happy client (which was in the room) and somebody that wanted to ask more inside info from an Austrian railway company and even - a first for me- somebody wanted a picture with me (I felt like a rock star :-)) ). I had a headache again, but this time from the tension leaving my body. I let out a sigh from relief and went for coffee.

The last keynote was from Isabel Evans. She still is one of the most inspiring people I have met and she always has always has something to tell that you can pick snippets from to use in your own work. I've never thought of sight disabled people and using IT, although I have a colleague that ought to have triggered me, but now I have really got something to think about. Again the added value of this particular conference is the things that surprise me as I would not have thought about before but really make something to bring home. It's one of the aspects that go in to my custom-made toolbox and check lists for testing questions.

The closing session is finally there. The audience doesn't know yet, but behind their seating is an envelope with a live (a special device that Morton made) or dead bug in it. I know because before my track during lunch, I've been putting them there (together with Derk-Jan, Morton and two Qualtech girls) and after that I sat on every chair (!!!) to make sure they didn't fall out (I still have my upper leg muscles complaining a bit because of this). On one of the dead bugs (encased in plastic) there's the winning number in-scripted for the Golden Ticket to EuroSTAR 2012. My job is to ensure everybody that wants to win this ticket is in the sections where the bugs are. Then it finally starts, the boys are ready and the lights go out... It's a spectacle and it goes exactly as planned. The TestLab is having their time to do the news on the lab. Then the 'bugtime' is there; it's hilarious with screams coming from here and there in the audience. Then it's already over and only the Gala-dinner remains.

The dinner is at 'The Monastery' and its really spectacular, the lighting gives it a very special and awesome atmosphere. There's champagne and there's good company. The choir, including Dorothy Graham and Fiona Charles is singing beautifully and finishes with a few of my favourite techniques written by Dot and specially arranged for the choir. It's magnificent.

The awards are given at the end of the dinner. Julian Harty wins the European Testing Excellence Award and I think it's well deserved. The chair for next year is also announced: Zeger van Hese will be chair for the Amsterdam 2012 edition.

I said my goodbyes at the Monastery, but there was also a drink at the Jury's Inn where I was invited to, so I tagged along with the others and had a good pint (or two) of Strongbows (to finish with what I started the whole adventure with I found that appropriate). I went to my hotel around one-ish and was surprised by one hell of a shower of rain. And of course my umbrella and poncho were still in the bag with weather-girl stuff :-), a bit of an ironic end of the the conference I thought, but what a conference it was... now to wait for a whole year for a new EuroSTAR to start, hoping to see you all there then.

Photo by Rik Marselis: Derk-Jan and Me at Schiphol Airport waiting at the passport control checkpoint

EuroSTAR 2011 diaries - part two

Well as they say : "the early bird catches, gets the worm"... as I say "I'm not into earlies and I'm certainly not into worms". I had to get to the conference centre at 07.30 to practice the GMM-session again, and I can't skip it since I'm a part of it today, as if I would, because I really like participating so actively, it just gives an extra dimension to visiting a conference I find.

I figured out that the StarBucks is just around the corner of the conference so I went there first to get some (well not some, but a large cup) coffee. I even got in the auditorium in time, which is quite essential if you're the timekeeper. We practised until the audience came in and we couldn't any longer. I was putting on my poncho for the weather gig back-stage and got my adrenaline rush again. Better than coffee I thought, but it hasn't got the same easiness.

It went well I think, at least I was happy with the way it went. And I think I did some good attention drawing to the testlab (which needed the attention since it was a bit out-of-the-route) and the expo. Today I'll have to keep an eye out for the weather-forecast items for tomorrow morning.
The opening keynote was that of James Whittaker (Google). Last time I saw him was also on a testing conference, where he (than employee of MicroSoft) had an item with a movie from MicroSoft with future technologies and that testers were laughing at that since they were sure they had work for them the upcoming years, he made a point that testers and developers were different then. It made the current message from him a bit shallow. Back then tester had a job, now we should become developers. Am I to believe a message from somebody that changes the message with the changing of the name of the organization that pays his salary? He's a good speaker though and it's entertaining to listen to him. The message wasn't all that bad, I still think myself that we shouldn't be in just one small part in the development phase but that we ought to be involved in the whole phase, I think we ought to have a broader skill set (maybe only some general kwowledge) to be more involved in the whole development cycle. Having been a developer myself I don't see why I should develop myself in my current job though; there are people who are MUCH more effective in that than I am. I find it bullocks to scratch 'tester' from my job title just to get 30% more salary; I'm proud on the work I'm doing thank you very much. If I learned anything from the 'death of tester and testingphase' keynotes it's that testing is as alive as ever.

My program of this day was:

• Minitracks (Martin Mussman and Jackie McDougall)
• Afterlunch tracks - visiting testlab, do some conferring
• checking first moments of Houston we've got a problem (Maurice Siteur and Rien v Vugt) and sneak out to finish with Social software development
• Tester get out of your cave (chairing this one)
• conferring time, checking the expo, maybe visit the lab again
• Mixing open and commercial tools (chairing this one)
• Keynote and closure
• Attending North West Testing Gathering (meetup)

So after the keynote I went over to the minitracks and enjoyed some very nice minitracks. The first minitrack being of Martin Mussman about mindmapping. The mindmaps for making your testdesign is a really good idea to let everybody involved get a clear view on what's going on. So I will use my FreeMind more often (FYI: list of wikipedia mindmapping software).
Jacky McDougall did a very passionate story on educational paths in her boot-camp track, which inspired me to look into some educational stuff for my organization. Both tracks brought me something I could really take with me. So I was happy with my choice to have visited them.

I visited the expo after that, tried to find the speaker that I was to chair that afternoon and did some conferring, I didn't get to see the next mini-tracks that I planned. Time seems to be going SO fast here...

I went to Houston of my colleagues Maurice and Rien after the coffeebreak. They started with a play to illustrate the goal of the talk. I sneaked out when Rien started on statistics. I already planned not being there the whole session and this seemed as good a moment as any. What I saw was okay, but then again, I didn't see the whole session.
I really wanted to visit the testlab during my EuroSTAR conference so I hurried there. I had to install the RedNoteBook application on my laptop and re-start, that cost me some time. But I got it running and even got time to report a bug; earning me two stickers: 1) labrat sticker and 2) I logged a bug in the testlab sticker, both are now proudly showing on my laptop.
The pair-testing sessions started which I would have really liked attending, but I had two sessions to chair also, one of which started in twenty minutes so I had to run again, grab some lunch and prepare the introductions.

Jan Jaap Cannegieter was the track I was chairing and I got to sit and relax a bit while listing to this pleasant track about 'tester: come out of your cave'. Although some statistics came around (from a survey) and as I said I'm not a fan of statistics, I liked the message and the thought process that came from these numbers. And I really agreed with the statement that we should develop more political skills as testers, I'm a big fan of learning and gaining non-typical-testing skills to enhance my testing work.

I didn't get to the testing lab again, which was rather a shame though, since it was really a good place to be and learn. I really don't know anymore what I did between this session and the session I had to chair next. I know I wandered around and visited some more expo, but the rest? I haven't got a clue.

After the afternoon break I chaired Mauro Garofalo. He was an Italian guy who spoke in English for the first time. He had a good topic, about combining open source tools with COTS tools, but alas not all of it came out in the most flourishing way due to the language barrier and he really was a smart guy, only nervous as hell. It also was a bit short. I tried to make it a bit longer by trying to get to some discussion and ask questions, but I had to end the session after 35 minutes already. I picked up the Maveryx info though an I'm really going to check that one out.

I had a bit of stone in my stomach to go to the keynote. I was afraid that it would bring more doom-messages of the end-of-the-testing-world or something. I like my job, so I'm not a fan of hearing all this 'it's going to end, because I'm just a blanket' stuff. I take my job seriously and I think it takes real skills to do it in a good way. So being called a security blanket (or a snugly Slanket for my part) isn't exactly what I like to hear.
Luckily I was wrong. Daryl told about communities to make a change in the Deutsche Bank organization. I really liked the view from this perspective, helped me perceive some better in persona's. There was somebody twittering that it shouldn't be in a testing conference, I was just thinking "You're not getting the message here, you seem daft" it is exactly this what makes this conference having an added value; giving different views from different perspectives.

After closing I didn't go to the North West Testing gathering directly. Paul Gerrard was hosting a debate at the Midland Hotel about the future of the testing profession. I decided to hang out with Derk-Jan de Grood who apparently had the same plans as I had for that evening. So we went to the debate together. It was a 'fishbowl' like session. I found it a fun session, although some attendees sat on the chair and kept sitting there and didn't give other people a chance to speak their mind and claiming all the speaking-space. Enough people spoke their mind in the end though and I'm very interested to read about it and see what of this maybe comes back in the new book that Paul Gerrard is going to publish in a short while.

Derk-Jan and I set out to grab something to eat on the way to the North West Testing gathering. We ended up in a place called 'Eden'. It had a really good choice of foods and I enjoyed a really good cocktail with ginger and some roasted pork belly, while Derk-Jan's choice was a pizza with an Eastern twist. We were a bit surprised and felt a bit akward to find out it was THE gathering spot of transsexuals as groups of 'women' came in an gave us some strange looks. Time to head out to the NW Testing Gathering and grab a sturdy beer...

When entering the Lass O'Gowry it was almost a shame to have to climb the stairs to the gathering as live music was played in the bar. I felt at home though, cause I'm a bit of a StarWars nut and the hallway to the gathering room was full of StarWars stuff. The presentations were well over but the screen still showed silly, amazing and fun error-messages so I stared at the screen for a bit. I also had some good talks with some of the testers there and enjoyed the great atmosphere that was there. After finishing my pint, Derk-Jan and I decided to get back to our hotels. I still had to do my weather map for tomorrow's weather-report and Derk-Jan still had to do some editing for his movies in the session. It had been a long day and there was still (only?) one to go...

EuroSTAR 2011 diaries - day one

I arrived in Manchester very late and shared a cab to the hotel with Tim Koomen en Jan Jaap Cannegieter. Well almost, they were at Jury's Inn and I was at Castlefield so I got to go on the Cab a couple of minutes longer. The staff of the hotel was most pleasant, they even opened up the cask of Strongbow's for me so I could relax a bit after my journey. The room was basic and a bit outdated, but it had all I needed and it was clean, so I was happy with it. Besides that I got a good view on the museum of Industry and Science and the possibility to have a swim in the pool or do some exercising in the gym, bot of which I would not get to this week for that matter.

On Tuesday I was planning to go to the conference centre at about eleven, but Geoff Thompson tweeted that I should be at the centre at nine for the dress rehearsal of the Opening and the Good Morning Manchester sessions. I've been involved in this thing since the beginning of this year or actually since Expo:QA in Madrid november 2010. I was sitting next to Geoff at Isabel Evans' keynote where she mentioned a sort of morning show for some fun in testing, like 'Good morning with Geoff and Nathalie' as we were the first two that were in sight. Geoff and me (and Graham Thomas) went a bit further on this concept and it grew to Good Morning Manchester. I got to be the director, which evolved to 'the teacher' role to keep the guys to their time-schedule during the GMM-session, there's a lot more to it then meets they eye at first glance. I also get to do a 'weather report' on Wednesday and Thursday morning to highlight some of the stuff during the conference, but more of that later.

So instead of getting there at eleven I had to be there at nine, which cut my lie-in morning a bit short and I actually had to hurry to get there. And although I was a bit short on my coffee intake (which always makes me bit grumpy) I had a great reception by the Qualtech team and the program team. It was way better than any coffee could accomplish, certainly regarding the coffee they make at the centre, which isn't awful, but isn't great either. We did two full and three half-runs of the opening session, still making some adjustments if they worked better than the original plan, it looked a bit like an agile project.

And then suddenly it was almost half pas one and people started coming in the auditorium. Adrenaline started flowing through my veins, I can only imagine what Derk-Jan, Morton, Graham and Geoff must have felt like standing behind the screen waiting for their grand entrance. It went great! The smokemachine worked perfectly (there were some worries there :-) ) and the lighting was done as it should be. Timing was almost disaster though, the interaction with the audience caused them to run over time almost 20%, despite me waiving my ruler franticly from the front row.

After that there was the first keynote from dr. Richard Sykes. I'm not sure weather I got it all, maybe I should lay off the twittering a bit more and get my attention to the speaker a bit more. On the other hand, when I'm very interested in a topic, I don't get to twittering a lot, so I guess I didn't find it THAT interesting. I catched some phrases about new tech being of influence on our work in testing, but that was about it. Or maybe I was just still 'into' the zone about the opening of the conference itself.

The program I set up for myself today was:

• Opening and keynote (have to be there for a specific reason...)
• Acceptance testing at it's best (Erik Boelen)
• The pursuit of Quality (Paul Gerrard)
• Keynote and drinks
• Attending Intechnica drinks? (I know they have the FunTESTic cocktail developed, but am not sure wheater I'm invited actually :-&)

I almost got to keep to that program.
I went to Eric Boelen's track, although I came in a bit late and had to be out of there a bit early because I had to do EuroSTAR TV recordings. I actually forgot a bit about them but luckily my phone reminded me of the event. The Qualtech team asked me to do something spontaneous, so I got in there and planned on doing something on how nostalgia of EuroSTAR in Manchester 2006 still triggered me to stuff now. I didn't expect for me to have an hour slot, I'm not THAT a spontaneous person I could just flick my sleeve and have stuff in there to fill an hour, so I got to a twenty minutes and felt okay about the recording.
Eric Boelen's track was held at one of the 'Exchange' rooms and it was packed full, there were even people sitting on the floor at the back of the room, which seemed odd to me, because you won't be able the slides and speaker from there, but I guess it's the content that counts. What I heard made sense, Eric is a pleasant speaker with an enthusiastic story to tell and this time was no different.

After the recordings I was on time to attend the track by Paul Gerrard. I like his tracks and I don't think I ever missed one whenever he was on a conference to speak and I was there. Last year was about axioms, which was very interesting (and there's also a little book available about this), so I was very curious what this one was about. Pursuing Quality.. chasing tornado's or just hot air. I could relate to the topic, about that same things can be perceived differently by different persons; rain could be a blessing for a farmer but a disaster for a tourist for example. Then there was a whole piece about models and what the impact of that is on testdesign and perception of stakeholders. Not all new, but a good shake-up for the brain. I noticed I didn't twitter that much during the session :-)

The last keynote of the day was that of Gojko Adzic 'Death to the testing phase'. SLIDES HERE. I read Gojko's 'Specification by Example' and liked it, so I was interested in what he had to say. I liked the refreshing style of the slides at first, but after a while I got annoyed with them in a way, it was a bit belittling, like I was in kindergarten and only would understand his story by these simplistic drawings. And then he showed a joke about Berlusconi and women, my first reaction was that I found it funny, but then I actually hated it and then my state of mind was already set in a kind of way and I didn't think it would get better. The main thing I got from it was actually that I should look up my more then ten year old schoolbooks about iterative stuff and I would read the same stuff as I heard in this keynote. So yes, I got SOMETHING out of it, but it was a reminder to browse some old books.

So I was really looking forward to the conference drinks and meet up with people. I felt like I've been doing loads of stuff and actually hadn't had time to do it all satisfactory to my liking. Maybe my head was just buzzing too much with all the impressions from today. I planned going to the Cloud23 party also. But after drinks I had to get back to the auditorium and practice the GMM session for tomorrow, and when that was finished it was already late and on my invite it stated that the drinks in Cloud were till 19.00 and it was already passed that so I left it for what it was and decided to go and have dinner with the program guys. We had a really pleasant evening at a place called OXnoble, which was a gastro-pub and had really good food (2 course meal for 10 pounds). I had sausage and mash and some lovely bread pudding and was happy. Went to my hotel and fell asleep almost immediately.