Evil Tester Talks

Elevator Pitch

Do you find conferences expensive? Did you perhaps miss one my talks at a conference since 2003?

Most conferences don’t record the talks, so normally the only way to hear a talk is by attending the conference.

That is no longer the case with my work. Since I rarely repeat a talk, most of my Keynotes and presentations are unique to the conference and the attendees, if you miss it, you miss it.

In this ‘course’ (bundle of talks) you’ll find my recent talks, with supplementary materials, slides, scripts and associated papers.

Imagine each of my talks moving from a 40 minute presentation to a 2 hour workshop with references and exercises.

Each talk will have a slightly different set of materials, but usually there will be:

• an introduction (possibly a video) for each presentation explaining the aims, rationale and history of the talk
• a recording of the talk as a pre-conference session
• if the talk was recorded live, then there will be a recording
• the slides used
• any unused slides with an extra recording describing what they would cover and why they were removed
• any text essays, papers or scripts that I used during the construction of the talk
• a resources list for follow on work
• a summary of the talk and lessons learned

Topics

Topics span:

• Automation
• Technical Web Testing
• Software Testing Basics
• Mobile Testing
• Testing Process
• Testing Psychology

Promo Video

What’s included?

Most of the talks have a live version and and ‘office’ version. The office version is usual a practice run before the main event, recorded through a local microphone and is usually better quality than the live version. Where recordings have been publicly released early you will find a reference to them in the preview ‘publicly available material’ lecture in the syllabus or on the webinar or conference page of this website.

Many of the talk recordings are exclusive to this bundle, all with extras.

Currently in the bundle we have:

• Automating to Augment Testing (BrowserPoint 2020)
• Automating Tactically vs Strategically (SauceCon 2020)
• A Guide to Testing Web Applications (Dev Fest 2019)
• Automating Pragmatically (Testival Meetup June 2019)
• Lessons Learned from automating, programming and marketing. (Joy of Coding 2019)
• Testing from First Principles (Eurostar keynote 2019)
• Technology Based Technical Testing (Agile Testers Conference 2018)
• Exploring Testing From First Principles (Keynote from Eurostar 2018)
• Technical Mobile Testing (from Eurostar 2015)
• How to Improve your Technical Test Ability (Keynote from AADays 2015)
• Risk Mitigation Using Exploratory and Technical Testing
• Your Automated Execution Does Not Have to be Flaky
• Push Your Functional Testing Further
• Test Automation Guild 2017
• Effective Software Testing For Modern Software Development
• How to Survive Agile & DevOps - a Test Management Guide
• A Technical Deep Dive into Practical Test Automation (Fusion Meetup 2017)
• Automate Or Die - Real World Automation Survival (TestWorksConf 2015)
• Practical Lessons Learned in Test Automation (Test Automation Day 2015)
• Webinars:
  • Ask Me Anything (Test Tribe 2019)
  • Lessons Learned from Automating - Tabara Webinar 2016
  • Future of Testing (2020)

NOTE: check the syllabus of the course, there may be more added that I have forgotten to add here

Why A Collection of Talks?

Exclusive Performances

Once I’ve performed a talk, its pretty much over.

• I tend not to repeat talks, although sentiment and content might get re-used in a busy year
• The only people who get to see it, are at the conference

Even Live isn’t Enough

The problem is, I always have more material than I can present in a talk so building a bundle of talks means I can add all that additional content.

• I tend to create more material than fits in the talk - so there is some content that no-one sees
• I cover a lot of stuff in my talks - so people who attend won’t get all of it
• I do have practical exercises to reinforce messages in the talk, but these only come through when the talk is expanded into a workshop
• live webinars are often streamed over the phone line and have low-quality audio

An Archive for Study

The solution I came up with was an archive for stucy.

• create an archive of my talks as an ‘online course’
• upload any live recordings of the talk that I have - after processing them to improve the sound quality
• create a transcript of the talk
• upload any bonus material that I created for the talk but which didn’t make it into the talk - usually for time reasons
• write up the exercises that support the messages in the talk
• extract the audio into .mp3 style podcast material for easier offline listening
• upload any practise sessions if the live recording is not available

Suggested Usages

The fact that these were webinars or conference talks mean that they are the perfect length to watch in a lunchtime team meeting.

You can then discuss the video and use the exercises to create a knowledge sharing environment and strategy session.

Each of the talks can also be used as an individual to improve your process, the exercises are suitable for individual work to create an action plan for your own improvement.

You can download the audio mp3’s if you enjoy a podcast format.

The slides and transcript are available as pdf to download for faster memory refresh and later personal study.

Evil Tester Talks is Available Free to Patreon Supporters

Sample of the contents

Exploring Testing From First Principles

Presented as a keynote at Eurostar 2018.

The live recording of the talk is a little juddery at the end, but we have an office practice session with even more content than I covered live. (Although you really need to watch the live one for the intro and the inflatable guitar).

Also contains the slides, transcripts, mp3s to download. And bonus recordings of the lightning talk, lightning talk practice with an additional 5 minutes of explanation of how the content maps to cybernetics and systems theory.

Technology Based Technical Testing

Presented at the Online Agile Testers Conference 2018 for Brazilian testing group. This talk as a bonus 20+ minute hands on demo illustrating the techniques and content with was not shown during the conference.

Also contains the slides, a transcript, an ‘office’ recording, and mp3 to download.

Technical Mobile Testing

Originally presented at Eurostar Mobile Deep Dive 2015, this talk was not recorded and is only available in this bundle.

We have the slides, a transcript, an ‘office’ recording, and a ’live’ recording, with some bonus audio and video sections, and exercises.

How to Improve your Technical Test Ability

Keynote AADays 2015 Poland. This was recorded live and has been edited for the bundle, with an additional office recording, the Q&A section, and bonus transcript, exercises and resources pack.

Webinar: Risk Mitigation Using Exploratory and Technical Testing

Risk Mitigation Using Exploratory and Technical Testing. This was recorded as a live stream for public listening over the phone and a local recording has been edited for the bundle, with an additional office recording, a Q&A section, bonus transcript, exercises and resources pack.

Webinar: Your Automated Execution Does Not Have to be Flaky

Your Automated Execution Does Not Have to be Flaky. This was recorded as a live stream for public viewing. The initial content ran to 1.5 hours (so I cut down the content to 30 minutes for the webinar). The full 1.5 hours of detailed information is available in the bundle. The 30 minute webinar can be viewed online. The Eurostar recording didn’t work very well so I released the main content recording that I created as a YouTube video. This, and the Q&A are available in the bundle. Also in the bundle are the slides for both versions, and audio downloads.

Push Your Functional Testing Further

Originally presented at March Sigist 2016, no previous recording of this talk has been released and it is only available in this bundle.

We have the slides, a transcript, an ‘office’ recording, and a ’live’ recording, with some bonus audio and video sections, and exercises.

Test Automation Guild 2017

Originally presented as part of the Test Automation Guid 2017 online conference. This talk goes right back to basics to examine “what can automation do for us?”

Included are the video, Q&A, slides, and transcripts.

Effective Software Testing For Modern Software Development

Effective Software Testing For Modern Software Development. This was recorded live. Also in the bundle are the office recording, slides, audio downloads for both versions.

Preview Excerpt

How to Survive Agile & DevOps - a Test Management Guide

How to Survive Agile & DevOps - a Test Management Guide. This was recorded live at National Software Testing Conference 2018 in London. Also in the bundle are slides, audio downloads, transcript and pdf case studies.

Preview Excerpt

Also…

• A Technical Deep Dive into Practical Test Automation (Fusion Meetup 2017)
• Automate Or Die - Real World Automation Survival (TestWorksConf 2015)
• Practical Lessons Learned in Test Automation (Test Automation Day 2015)
• Lessons Learned from Automating - Tabara Webinar 2016
• And More…

I was going to create separate courses for: Automation, Technical Testing, Management, Techniques, etc. But I decided to just start uploading them into a single course. I will try to keep the list here up to date, but the easiest way to see what has been uploaded is to visit the Course and have a look - there are previews for some of the lectures and contents..