Welcome to episode 20 of the Testing Peers podcast.

In this episode, the Peers discuss something that we all are confronted with in life - imposter syndrome.

The Peers open by defining what we see imposter syndrome is and is not.

Terms like 'feeling out of depth', 'shame', 'new pupil at school' are used and we can all resonate with them.

We talk about our own experiences, both in starting new jobs and as attendees, or even speakers at conferences and meetups.

The conversation moves on to how we, as leaders, can help those new to our teams - be that documents, time spent with them, expectations etc.

The Peers then talk about that which we have imposter syndrome about, and ask each other and you, our listeners to help us be not only held accountable, but also encouraged and supported.

We really appreciate all the feedback that we have received and invite you to get in touch with us:

• [email protected]
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
• If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We’ve found Ben from Saffron QA to be a great partner who has signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

Welcome to Testing Peers! Each New Year, many of us reflect on the year we've had and think about the year ahead of us. We make resolution for the items we want keep doing or change we want to make. It seems quite timely to be talking about retrospectives and sharing our thoughts and experience in this episode.

There are many different contexts that a retrospective can be useful to not just for Scrum but agile, projects and life in general. At Testing Peers (virtual) HQ we love retrospectives. We've held two for our podcast so far and have another planned. It's a way to reflect and to come up with ideas and actions for things to keep, change or to provide kudos to people or yourself. 

In the episode we share our ideas around facilitating, creating a safe space to reflect, taking actions and mention a tool we find useful - https://metroretro.io/

We really appreciate all the feedback that we have received and invite you to get in touch with us:

• [email protected]
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
• If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We've found Ben from Saffron QA to be a great partner who has signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

Happy new year and welcome to the first Testing Peers episode of 2021. Hopefully, you have all managed to enjoy the holiday season given the restrictions.

In this episode, the Peers discuss one of Simon’s pet projects. We discuss the lack of testing being taught in Universities and how we as an industry can help to attract more people into testing roles. We also talk about what skills we should look for when hiring people into first testing roles.

This leads us onto discussing a syllabus which Russell had previously put together for new aspiring testers which he shared at the Testing Folks meet-up. 

If you have any thoughts on this subject and how we as an industry could do more to attract others into testing, get in touch and let us know your thoughts.

We really appreciate all the feedback that we have received and invite you to get in touch with us:

• [email protected]
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
• If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We have found Ben from Saffron QA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

In this the last episode of the Testing Peers podcast of 2020, join Festive Cheers with the Testing Peers for our special Christmas episode.

In this special edition of the podcast, the Peers are joined by four friends of the podcast who kindly agreed to give up some of their time to join us for our recording.

We were joined by Shey Crompton, Bruce, Beth Marshall and Dave Shorter.

After we get to know each other discussing Christmas songs that we skip we get into the main event.

RiskStorming Santa's 2020.

We use the wonderful RiskStorming Online tool to identify the key quality aspects for Santa this year and identify the various risks around this. We have a great time debating the risks Santa faces this year and below is the outcome of our hard graft. Apologies for the terrible spelling and grammar.

RiskStorming-Santas-2020Download

We have all had such a wonderful time making this podcast this year, and we are so grateful to each and every one of you who has taken the time to not only listen to the podcast, but to feedback to us, engage and even share your thoughts on the pod online, we really appreciate it so much. Thank you!

The thanks doesn't end there though.....

We asked our friends joining us for the recording to nominate a charity for us to donate to, as a thanks. If you are looking for worthy charities then please consider these nominated below:

Dave Shorter  - Jimmy’s Cambridge - “They do great work supporting the homeless around Cambridge. More than ever at this time of year it’s important no one feels alone or unsupported.”

Beth Marshall and Bruce - OffTheRecordBristol - “OTR Bristol run an lgbt+ youth group called Freedom, which was the first place I [Bruce] felt safe openly talking about my gender and sexuality. They keep an excellent tea selection."

Shey Crompton - Mind - "In a world that is full of anxiety and uncertainty, more than ever having experts to help us with our mental health is important."

We really appreciate all the feedback that we have received and invite you to get in touch with us:

• [email protected]
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
• If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We have found Ben from Saffron QA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

Thank you for joining us again! We had the great pleasure of being asked to do a live recording of our podcast at the EuroSTAR conference this year. Due to the kind of world we are living in at present where everyone is working remotely, conferences are virtual and we are all socially distancing, we thought we would discuss the topic of this remote world we now find our selves in.

Unfortunately, Simon and family had the unfortunate pleasure of a stomach bug on the day of recording, but the remaining Peers have a good discussion, and Dembe (Russell's dog) certainly steps in well as the 4th Peer! 

Chris asks the question of what it would have been like for them to start their careers again, but from a perspective they were working from home. 

From there the discussion meanders onto experiences with meetings virtually and onto the differences with conferences, are they creating the same buzz? Or at least some buzz anyway!

We really appreciate all the feedback that we have received and invite you to get in touch with us:

• [email protected]
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
• If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We have found Ben from Saffron QA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

Welcome to episode 15 of the Testing Peers Podcast.

After getting over the initial disappointment of Russell not making this episode, the Peers talk about dealing with wider disappointments. We start with the disappointment of old films in retrospect, but eventually move on disappointments within testing. 

There are various forms of disappointment we face in our day-to-day roles. Sometimes we fear we've disappointed our customers, colleagues, our teams, our partner or our own leaders. As testers we often place a high expectation on the quality of our work, on few bugs escaping, and on customers being happy. It's sometimes hard to live up to our own expectations of ourselves. 

We share our insight into how we've coped or haven't. What we did to help ourselves and what we look for in others. Perhaps our musings will help you too. 

As people and as leaders we know we have disappointment at times. Sometimes it's little things and sometimes it's life changing to us or others. We all have our own coping strategies and it will vary on the problem and person but personally I'd always advise taking perspective. Walk away, talk to someone, rubber duck it, write it down and above all look at it from different angles - micro or macro. 

Martin Luther King, Jr

We really appreciate all the feedback that we have received and invite you to get in touch with us:

• [email protected]
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
• If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We have found Ben from Saffron QA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

Welcome to episode 14 of the Testing Peers Podcast.

This week, the Peers have new mics and are a trio for the first time. We will be working out in the coming weeks how to best configure these, any feedback on this is always welcome. Great thanks again to our sponsor Saffron QA for enabling us to work on these audio improvements - more details about Saffron QA can be found in the footer of this post.

We tackle the age old baggage that is, defect management, or perhaps bugs or issues, or whatever you want to call them!

After initially setting the scene discussing bugs in the wild - hello COVID track and trace apps! - we discuss when to raise defects, what processes work and in which tools.

We share stories of various frustrations and how metrics can ultimately be gamed - please don't use bugs as metrics in development!

From technical debt to triage boards, the discussion takes us on a journey that ultimately ends with the need for pragmatism and clear communication, no matter whether you are working in V-model, Agile, Waterfall or other.

Thank you for continuing to support our podcast by tuning in.

We really appreciate all the feedback that we have received and invite you to get in touch with us:

• [email protected]
• Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers)
• LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/testing-peers)
• Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/testingpeers/)
• If you like what we do and are able to, please visit our Patreon to explore how you could support us going forwards: https://www.patreon.com/testingpeers

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We have found Ben from Saffron QA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

In this episode, the Peers talk about their journey of personal development. We all come from varied backgrounds into testing so as you can imagine, the learnings paths we take to get where we are today are just as different. 

When talking about how we developed, it became clear the importance of having people around to aid us, support us and guide us to where we want to be. Russell discusses how his learning was impacted by reporting to a DBA and Simon talks about needing that mentor to help him channel his learning. The testing community is mentioned several times and without amazing resources such as the Ministry of Testing, meet-ups and conferences, our development may have been very different. Simon shares how he used his blog to develop himself and that it hit him hard when an early blog was criticised on Twitter. 

Chris asks the Peers about their motivation to learn and grow and the answers discussed vary from getting the roles you desire, simply being the best you can and challenging yourself to prove the value of the role. 

We also discussed things we learned in earlier life that we couldn’t get enough of and tried to share with people who may not be as interested. Everything from football, Marvel, AC Cobras and DNA are mentioned and David gives us some insights into his teaching life too.

Let us know of your learning journeys, what motivated you? Are there things you wish you’d learned earlier? 

We welcome feedback, please reach out to us Twitter, LinkedIn or email [email protected]

Also, feel free to support us on Patreon at https://patreon.com/testingpeers

As we announced on our previous podcast we are now sponsored by Saffron QA. 

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

We have found Ben from Saffron QA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

Welcome to episode 12 of the Testing Peers Podcast.

This time the Peers are using a Donna Summer reference for all you music fans to discus when is enough testing enough. The question that drives many a test discussion be it with a stakeholder or amongst testers, when is enough testing enough?

As we meander to our discussions you'll find out a little insight into the Peers competitiveness at family games. Are we all win at all costs people or more meh whatever. You'll have to listen to find out!

The Peers share a little on their experience on helping guide enough is enough in the world of testing. We'll cover some of the key leavers that help you plot a path though the fog and varies depending on what your doing and where your doing it. 

We end on mentioning 'The One Page Test Plan' by Claire Reckless which is a great tool and as promised on the podcast it can found on the Ministry of Testing Dojo here.

Hopefully you wont' have had enough of us after this episode and keep on listening a new episode will be with you in 2 weeks. Until then feel free to listen back to our previous episodes.

We welcome feedback, please reach out to us Twitter, LinkedIn or email [email protected] 

Also feel free to support us on Patreon at https://patreon.com/testingpeers

As we announce on our last podcast we are now sponsored by Saffron QA. 

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

Our initial goal with this sponsorship is to improve the quality of the audio equipment which were hoping to source next week, fingers crossed.

We have found Ben from Saffron QA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show

Welcome to episode 11 of the Testing Peers Podcast.

This time the Peers are following on from episodes 6 and 8, where we covered CVs and preparing for interviews with our Patreon voted topic of Telephone Interviews.

Patreon you say? 

Why yes, we have a Patreon available at https://patreon.com/testingpeers

If you like what we do and want to support us, then please do visit and consider becoming a Testing Peers Patron.

Anyway, back to the episode at hand.

The Peers touch on experiences as interviewers and as candidates. 

We cover preparations, accessibility, considerations, questions, timings, distinguishing the difference between a phone interview and an in-person interview.

Multi-staged interviews aren’t going anywhere. Ultimately, we really see the future of initial ‘screening’ interviews taking place more on the likes of Zoom and Google Meet.

Thank you for taking the time to listen to our podcast. If you have any feedback, please reach out on Twitter, LinkedIn or email [email protected]

We are pleased to announce that we now sponsored by SaffronQA. 

Saffron QA is a provider of recruitment and consultancy services, exclusively for the software testing industry.

You can find out more at https://saffronqa.co.uk/  or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/saffron-qa/

Our initial goal with this sponsorship is to improve the quality of the audio equipment. We have found Ben from SaffronQA to be a partner who signed up to the vision and values that we have set out in our Testing Peers charter and we hope that you will take the time to visit and connect with him.

Support the show