Testing Peers

Welcome to episode 84 of the Testing Peers podcast.

This week, Sam Nitsche joins regular hosts David, Russell and Chris as we discuss deadlines.

After initially covering our relationships with deadlines while in school, we jump into the main topic, deadlines that impact, or are impacted by testing.

The conversation touches deadlines as a tool, agility, cadence, quality and risk.

Are deadlines fixed, negotiable, a chance for a conversation?

Are deadlines a necessary evil?

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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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

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Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. A fully stacked panel for this episode with Simon, Russell and David being joined by Shey and Beth (shows the hole that Chris leaves when he's not around that we need to replace him with 2!). The topic for this episode was to focus on the leadership activity of delegation, looking at it from both the leader who is delegating and the team being delegated to. How to do this effectively and any stories from our experience over the years.

Russell kicks us off with the banter, and asks us all what our comfort foods are, between the five of us we cover everything from BBQ meat, noodles, cheese, chocolate, pizza and cake. Beth links us back to Mashed Potato Gate from one of our previous episodes.

We then go on to talk about why delegation is important, speaking from experience of not delegating anything to anyone and then being completely overloaded. David mentions delegating and then micro-managing for tasks to get done in the way you would have done yourself. The challenge with delegation is being able to give a task to someone and allow them to do it in the way they choose as long as the task gets done.

There was a lot to unpick with how, why, and who we should delegate to, the Peers try to give detail on all of this, which the challenges if you don't delegate in the right way or to the right person.

What are your experiences of delegating? Have you mastered it?

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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

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Welcome, this week, join Russell, David, Chris and special guest host, Vernon Richards as we discuss healthy workplace expectations and if we're normal!

Before diving in, the Peers discuss annoying software from ITV player to MsTeams and banks software, a lot of software seems to annoy us. 

Russell introduces the topic, how we balance the pressures we put on on ourselves and other put on us for doing our work. 

We talk about increased flexible and multinational companies changing the simple 9-5 now, how we can set expectations and use tools to schedule and work with others. We talk about how we can balance transparency and manage expectations and try to be conscientious of those around us.

Our thanks again to Vernon for joining us, you can find check out his site

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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

Support the show

Welcome back for another episode of the Testing Peers. We are releasing this on the back of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, which has the theme of Anxiety, so the Peers will dive into their experiences with Anxiety and how they have combatted it in the past.

Before going into the main topic, Simon brings up the topic of "Peers Con" which the Peers have aspirations to run this year, but has hit a stumbling block around finding a venue which will then allow us to get a date, call for papers up and running and put on a good event. If anyone listening or reading this feels like they would like to help, please get in touch through the links below.

Simon opens the floor for the peers to share their experiences with anxiety, Russell starts off talking about his anxiety of being late to meetings/events. David talks about the cost of living and the anxiety that can cause for people, chris then discusses some of the issues with the small things you can and can't control and the levels of anxiety that someone not responding to a message can sometimes cause. Simon then explains the feeling of catastrophising which can come from experiencing anxiety and the paralysis that can cause.

Everyone can be impacted by anxiety and as with many mental health issues, there are always people there to listen and support. Talking to someone can often be a huge help to alleviate the anxiety and help provide some level of calm to the scenario.

If you want to read more about Mental Health Awareness Week, there is more information here: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/mental-health-awareness-week

Thank you for listening, we hope this episode goes a small way to helping some of you understanding you are not alone if you suffer from anxiety.

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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

Support the show

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast, and this release falls almost three years after episode one. Thank you for joining us on this journey.

This week, regulars David and Chris are joined by Steve Watson and our first American, Tara Walton.

In Peers tradition, we kick off with some banter, and Tara gets the ball rolling by asking the group about our most recent board gaming experiences.

A couple of standouts there are Hue and Blokus.

Steve then leads the discussion, asking what testers do, and how we frame it for different audiences.

As ever, the Peers are at the cutting edge of technological advances, and David engages ChatGPT

• Designing and developing test cases: Testers create and execute test cases to ensure that the software product is working as expected and meets the requirements of the user.  
• Identifying defects: Testers detect and report defects or issues in the software to developers or stakeholders, helping to improve the quality of the software.    
• Collaborating with developers: Testers work closely with developers to identify and resolve issues and to ensure that the software product is delivered on time.    
• Analyzing test results: Testers analyze test results and provide feedback to the development team, including recommendations for improving the software product.    
• Providing feedback to stakeholders: Testers communicate the status of testing and the quality of the software product to stakeholders, including project managers and business analysts.    
• Ensuring compliance: Testers ensure that the software product complies with all relevant standards and regulations, such as accessibility and security requirements.

Our thanks to Tara and Steve for joining us this week.

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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

Support the show

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Regular hosts Chris, David and Russell are joined by the Semi-Regular host Shey to discuss all about Quality Shift moments, where our understanding or perspective around aspects of testing/quality may have changed forever.

Before diving into this, Chris starts the banter with looking at "aha moments" and without doing it intentionally, anchors the discussion into computer games, before David breaks the mould and talks about when his swimming improved through suddenly understanding how to do Breast Stroke.

Shey offers the first Quality Shift moment, which was around him finding the London Tester Gathering and the impact it had on his career. David talks about some crossroads he found himself at when he was made redundant before moving onto a management aha moment too. Chris discusses how he realised the power of sharing ideas and getting feedback and how beneficial that could be. Russell mentions a story when he broke production and how that helped him realise the right and wrong ways to do something.

The conversation then moves on to other examples and how things snowball and would we be even doing this podcast if some of these a-ha moments hadn't happened?

Thanks for listening in, what have been your Quality Shift moments?

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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

Support the show

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast.

This week, join Russell, David, Simon and special guest host, Dan Ashby as we discuss growth as testers.

Before diving in, the Peers discuss things that they have grown and taken pride in, from careers, to children, to plants.

The topic is introduced by Dan, speaking to the current climate in our industry, discussing personal growth, motivators and helping others in their growth, as leaders.

The conversation covers both formal and informal career growth. The Peers reflect on some of their own experiences, successes and failures, highlighting the importance of learning styles, motivators, impact, cost and value.

Dan highlights Bloom's Taxonomy (evaluation, synthesis, analysis, application, comprehension & knowledge) as a potential overlay for a growth framework.

Our thanks again to Dan for joining us, you can find a lot of his thoughts at danashby.co.uk/

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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

Support the show

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers!

This week, join Simon, David, Russell and (semi-regular) Shey as they talk about leadership in testing.

The episode kicks off with a discussion about leadership icons outside of testing, before diving into leadership in testing.

Shey shares his journey into leadership, and how he discovered unhelpful leadership traits from his first lead.

The Peers discuss what makes a good leader, words like passion, respect, confidence, humility and more come through.

They also discuss about imposter syndrome and how most leaders do have it, referencing Matthew Syed's work on alter-egos: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5bLKS1rRJjbQ8nzN0pwvdnC/why-we-all-need-an-alter-ego

There's some really useful advice in this episode, we hope you found it helpful.

Shey also mentions a video, which can be found here: 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ 

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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

Support the show

Welcome to the new episode of the Testing Peers. On this episode, the peers talk about experience with moving onto new opportunities. For this we had a special extended panel, joining Chris, David and Simon were Beth Marshall and Samuel Nitsche. 

For the banter, Chris asks us about any new equipment we've received when joining a new role which didn't work for us, we discuss everything from ergonomic mice for Left Handers, old monitors, CEOs cleaning our desks for us. This lead us onto leaving jobs too and stories around this.

The main discussion starts with Chris asking what makes us decide to leave a job. This covered reasons such as not feeling like providing value, having more bad days than good, changes of leadership, toxic environments and frustration of not doing what you were brought in to do.

Simon asks whether anyone has just been offered something so great that they have jumped ship, there is a general consensus that it isn't very often the case and that often all isn't what it seems. Beth then talks about her job hunting (and now securing) experience.

What are your experiences with the job hunt and also what are the reasons you have left companies in the past?

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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 

Support the show

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Regulars Chris, Simon, Russell and David this week talk all things strategies. 

Before diving into the main topic, we talk about strategies in our home life. We then try our best to describe what is a strategy, we all have slight different yet similar definitions. 

We share how context impacts strategies and we mention Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin agile testing books and a few things they share to consider. The discussion moves on discuss about strategies transcend testing and shifting into quality and teams.  Claire Reckless "One Page Test Plan" comes up as it sometimes feels like it's a strategy if you keep it high level, which highlights the blur between a strategy and a plan we often face. 

Strategies can take people on journeys and it helps if you ensure the problem it's solving is clear, we mention Simon Sinekand "Start with why". We talk about motivation and seeing the results of the strategy empowering people and how 'why' helps us grasp and implement the strategy better. 

We share a few examples of projects didn't go well and some that do go well. Chris quotes himself from a previous talk "make it our strategy not your strategy" as we elaborate on how to make strategies that work by engaging others. 

What are your experiences with building strategies, what has worked or failed for you?

We hope you found the discussion useful and would love to hear your feedback.

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We’re also now on GoodPods, check it out via the mobile app stores

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/

Support the show