Get Your Message Across: Communications Skills for Testers
Communication is at the heart of our profession. If we can’t convey our concerns in ways that connect with key members of the project team, our contribution is likely to be ignored—no matter how advanced our testing capabilities are. Because we act in an advisory capacity rather than being in command, our power to exert influence is almost entirely based on our communication skills. Join Thomas McCoy as he draws on techniques from psychology and marketing to help you get your message across. With people suffering information overload and deluged with emails, it is more important than ever to craft succinct and effective messages, using a range of communication modalities. Thomas explores the themes of non-verbal communication, presentation skills, persuasive writing, influencing skills, graphic communication, and communicating in teams and meetings. Delegates will use a range of hands-on exercises to practice the concepts being discussed.
Head of testing and implementation at a UK bank, Julie Gardiner provides consultancy, delivery, and training in all aspects of testing, management, and agile, specializing in risk, usability, and test management and using both traditional and agile methodologies. Julie is a certified ScrumMaster and agile coach with more than twenty-five years of experience as a developer, DBA, project manager, head of operations management, and head of R&D. She has held positions of test analyst, test team leader, test consultant, and test manager in the public sector and in financial, broadcasting, insurance, utilities, retail, web, and telecom industries. Julie’s philosophy is “If you’re not having fun, something is wrong.”