The European Software Testing Awards 2016 sees record number of entries

Now in its fourth year, The European Software Testing Awards supports and celebrates companies and individuals’ significant achievements in the software testing and quality assurance industry.

This year, the Awards Programme invited the industry to enter 16 categories including the Best Test Automation Project – Functional; Best Use of Technology in a Project; Graduate Tester of the Year; and, new for 2016, Best User Experience (UX) Testing in a Project.

“The European Software Testing Awards programme continues to grow each and every year, and true to form this year we’ve had a 25% increase in entries. There’s an impressive amount of impressive projects and individual achievements out there,” Cecilia Rehn, Editor at TEST Magazine and Chair of the Awards’ Judging Panel said. “I think it’s fantastic that the industry can come together like this and celebrate excellence amongst peers. The Awards Gala Dinner is unlike any other event in the testing and QA community.”

Fair result guaranteed through anonymous judging

The entry process closed in August, and now The European Software Testing Awards Judging Panel is reading through the entries and picking final winners.

Judges for The European Software Testing Awards are appointed based on their extensive experience in the software testing and QA field. These seasoned professionals, all of whom currently hold senior management roles guarantee that each entry is judged fairly and accurately.

To ensure complete impartiality all entries are judged anonymously with company and/or individual names, products, or references to any identifiable solution and/or service being removed before being distributed to the judges.

This stringent process means that each winner of an award has done so based purely on merit. So regardless of company size, budget, customer base, market share, influence, vendor, academic, end user, consultant or otherwise; The European Software Testing Awards truly is an independent awards programme that recognises and rewards outstanding achievement.

Comments from the judging panel

“Testing is often the ugly sister in a programme of work and invariably bears the brunt of budget and time cuts and to have a body that recognises the efforts, trials and tribulations that testers and QA groups have to go through and the sterling work that is done by them is great. As such I’m proud to be on the panel of judges this year,” said Jason Emery, Programme QA & Risk Manager at SSE plc.

Myron Kirk, Head of Test CoE at Boots is returning to the judging panel for the second year. He comments: “I was a member of the judging panel for the 2015 European Software Testing Awards and found the whole experience very rewarding indeed. It’s fantastic to play a role in celebrating success across the software testing industry.”

“The acknowledgement of what’s good in the industry and the acknowledgement of the people that have contributed towards that goal, whether at a company, team or individual level, is very important,” said Delia Brown, Head of Test at Home Office Technology.

“Today we face a new type of customer and organisations must ensure the quality of every product or service they deliver. Quality and excellence delivered to the customers helps in building up relationships of trust and this is key to safeguarding the customers’ reliability and satisfaction,” said Amparo Marin Global Certification Governance Director – CIO Technology and Regulatory Affairs at Santander España. “Having an independent awards programme to recognise testing teams is a very good lever to reinforce this type of messages and overall to share best practices and keep improving.”

“Having the right space to recognise talents is vital to the testing segment of IT itself, as well as to the business they support. There is nothing better than an independent and high reputable Awards programme like this to encourage our talents to go greater. Personally, I feel honoured to part of it,” said Sandokan Sterque, Head of Global IT Testing and Assurance at British American Tobacco.

New for 2016: The European Software Testing Summit

The European Software Testing Summit is a one-day event that takes place during the day of the Awards Gala.

The Summit will see members of The European Software Testing Awards judging panel come together to present, discuss, and share their findings on industry trends, past and present, and what they mean to the wider community. These trends will have been identified from 4 years’ worth of project-based entries into The European Software Testing Awards.

The findings that will be presented at the Summit will also be published as a stand-alone Report, an ambitious project to help disseminate best practices and trends to the wider software testing and QA industry.

Finalists to be announced soon

All finalists will be announced on Thursday 22 September. The winners will be announced at the Gala Dinner at Old Billingsgate on 16 November. For those wishing to attend this glittering event, you can book a table here or email interest@softwaretestingawards.com.

The Headline Sponsor for The European Software Testing Awards 2016 is Micro Focus, and Category and Summit sponsors include Amdocs and Perfecto.

31 Media, organisers of The European Software Testing Awards and publishers of TEST Magazine would like to thank its sponsors for their support.

 

Written by Cecilia Rehn.

 

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