STARWEST 2019 - Leadership Summit Sessions
Thursday, October 3
Reception and Summit Kickoff: As a Leader, What Is Keeping You Up at Night?
Kickoff the Testing & Quality Leadership Summit with a reception and some networking.
Friday, October 4
The Tester’s Role - Balancing Technical Acumen and User Advocacy
Melissa Tondi discusses the changing landscape of the role of testers, the challenges of hiring, and a way to shift the pendulum back to balance technical acumen with a user advocacy role. Melissa leads a thoughtful discussion on what makes a good tester, how test leaders can continue to promote our profession, and how to accentuate the value testers bring to organizations. She identifies factors that caused the test/QA role to become mainstream and how it shifted to become more technically focused. Melissa helps fill in the gaps with a test strategy that incorporates a solid automation...
The Six Biggest Test Leadership Mistakes I Made and Still Thrived
Ken Johnston has been testing, leading teams, and shipping software at Microsoft for more than twenty years. He even helped write the book, “How We Test Software at Microsoft.” Join Ken as he shares some of his darkest leadership secrets: the big bug he missed and Bill Gates found, the battles he took on and lost, and how those miss-steps didn’t end his career. In fact, sometimes, out of failure, came the greatest growth for him and his teams. Yes, it is possible to step in “it” and still move forward and be successful.
Think Tank Discussion Part I, II, III, and Wrap-Up
Join your peers in an engaging and highly interactive discussion about the issues that concern you most. Using answers to the question—"As a Leader, What Is Keeping You Up at Night?"—posed at Thursday’s evening reception, participants will form small groups to work on finding solutions to pressing test management issues. Discussions will review identified issues and barriers to change, and focus on innovative strategies and practical next steps. At the end of the think tank discussion, all feedback will be collected and posted online to encourage further collaboration....