Returning for the third year, with an exceptional line-up of speakers including heads of testing, directors of QA and industry specialists, The National Software Testing Conference will take place on the 17-18 May 2016.
Building the testing teams of the future
One of the speaker’s at this year’s conference is Paula Thomsen, Head of Quality Assurance at Aviva, who will be presenting on: “Why is Diversity More Important Than Ever Within Assurance Disciplines?”
“My presentation is about future testing teams, how will we react to new industry trends such as IoT, global usage of applications. I will focus on diversity,” Thomsen says.
The diversity theme in Thomsen’s presentation will touch upon testing’s branding problem, and the need to breed future testers with the right skills sets.
“Testing has to be more diverse, given the varied customer base for applications. It is not feasible to rely on a homogenous testing team made up of roughly the same age, the same sex, and only one culture type when testing applications that are destined for a range of users. We need to incorporate diversity in terms of age, sex, culture in our teams,” Thomsen says.
A call to action
The presentation will stimulate conversation around future testing teams, and encourage us to start of thinking about team building challenges now, in order to secure the types of skills needed in the future.
“We won’t be able to recruit future testers out of the traditional marketplace. We need to breed the skills we need, so that we can have automation and performance engineering savvy employees who have the testing mind set,” Thomsen adds.
Why attend?
The National Software Testing Conference provides an ideal environment for learning, networking and developing skills.
Thomsen adds that it’s important for senior IT professionals to take the time to attend conferences and step away from the day-to-day tasks and see what’s out there. It’s a chance to borrow ideas, learn from others’ failures and successes, and be pointed in the right direction in terms of further skills development.
“Attendance at conferences such as The National Software Testing Conference is essential for anyone who wants to own their own career.” Thomsen concludes.
High quality speaker line up
The National Software Testing Conference has always prided itself on highlighting speakers who have excelled in their careers and dedicated their lives to promoting quality in software.
You can read more about Paula Thomsen’s presentation and see the rest of the speaker line up on the conference website.
Presentation topics vary from automation, culture, mobile, agile and performance testing, ensuring there is something for everyone on the agenda!
DevOps stream
In addition to bringing excellence, best practices and practical advice from the software testing and QA scene, The National Software Testing Conference will include two DevOps streams for those interested in seeing how the new cultural IT movement will impact upon IT teams and change organisations from within.
These streams will include presentations from the public, retail, financial and gaming sectors.
The National Software Testing Conference is sponsored by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Perfecto, Neotys, CAPITA, iSQI, Delphix, nFocus, Valuelabs and Applause.
31 Media, organisers of The National Software Testing Conference and publishers of TEST Magazine would like to thank its sponsors for their support.
Written by Cecilia Rehn.
