Öredev – The test conference of the future!?!

Öredev is a fantastic conference, especially with the synergy effect of having all these different tracks that attract different people that have everything to win from learning from each other.

-Test track speaker from a previous year

To be honest from the start, I am a member of the Program committee for Öredev conference. And I am together with Jonas responsible for the test track. This blog post is my personal attempt to explain my thoughts on the conference schedule from a testers perspective.

Öredev 2010 has an extensive test track. Do you see it? Well, its there, but in the form of sessions distributed somewhat evenly across all the other tracks that have their own rooms. Which is the real reason they are tracks =)

Why did we do it this way?

The profession of software testing is evolving every day. It has evolved from being a profession of quality assurance in the end of development cycles, to being a sapient set of activities assisting the process of developing software that brings value to someone. There are many ways of describing this evolving process and what it means, and I am not going to dig deeper into it. What it DOES for sure mean for the future, is that software testers need a lot of skills to be successful and bring the value that is expected by them.

My friend and colleague explained his view of what types of skills that are needed for successful testing. It was visualized as a triangle showing these areas; Domain, Technology and Testing. These skills need to be balanced to succeed in testing.

In my own experience of software projects, bringing the testing knowledge/mindset is rarely a problem. Domain knowledge is gotten through previous projects within the domain (how often does that happen) and by hanging around all the other people in the current project. The technical parts is in my perspective the hardest thing to learn and prepare yourself for. This would also be the part where traditional testers have been left behind in the new agile way of developing software.

Skills and schedule?

To conclude my little sidestep and apply it to the conference schedule, the technical knowledge needed in testing is found within the specific tech tracks. The softer skills of getting domain and testing knowledge found in other tracks.

To show examples of this, me and my colleagues have extracted our personal schedules of what YOUR three days could include. Take a look, its amazing that no time slot does is empty from alternatives to choose from.

Davor, senior agile test manager

Henrik, technical tester

Jonas, technical tester

Sigge, my own schedule

Do I see you at Öredev 2010? Don’t hesitate, seats are running out fast!

http://www.oredev.org/2010