Behind the scenes of EuroSTAR. Or a look at the organization of the conference by the program committee chairman Michael Bolton

From the authors of the translation

On the eve of the SQA Days 14 conference (which will be held this year in the cultural capital of Ukraine, in the city of Lviv) I would like to share information that is designed to help potential speakers make excellent presentations, improve the quality and facilitate the work of the program committees of many conferences. In this article, Michael Bolton shares the experience and perspective from the program committee of the most advanced conference in the field of testing and quality assurance - EuroSTAR on the process of accepting and evaluating reports. This article will also be useful to those who see themselves in the future as a speaker and are keen to speak at conferences. In the process of translation, we tried to make the test as understandable as possible and adapted to the current conditions for speaking at conferences in the CIS. I wish you a pleasant study of this article and good luck at the speeches.

Introduction

When nearly 300 people compete in less than 60 places and for the opportunity to speak at a conference such as EuroSTAR, it is not surprising that many of the presenters may be disappointed by the refusal. Since the EuroSTAR 2013 program was announced, some potential speakers have requested feedback on their applications for a speech. And for those who applied, I will definitely provide this information individually. But, in the beginning, I would like to give a few recommendations for submitting successful reports based on my experience as the chairman of the program committee this year.
Whether it is a report at a conference, a seminar, or a master class (let's call it a speech) - all this is an information product. Offering such a product is an advertisement, something like a technical description that helps to convince a potential buyer of the program’s value. A good advertising material gains and holds the attention of a potential listener, in this case the attention of the program committee. Your application will seem better if it describes a unique and convincing performance, determines its benefits and does not include negative factors that may affect its value.


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Be concise in the description

In fact, there are no conferences where the number and size of applications for a speech would be a disadvantage and you probably understand that reviewers will be busy. In the process of receiving reports at the EuroSTAR 2013 conference, the program committee read about 420 sentences, each with an average of 300 words. That was 126,000 words, and this is equivalent to a book from 400 to 500 pages. One of the applications consisted of 2044 words in length and resembled a 5-page journal article. As a result, the application was not accepted. Therefore, be brief and edit the description of the reports in such a way that each word would be significant.

Follow certain rules when submitting a report.

At each conference there are certain rules, a reminder to speakers, treat this as the requirements to be followed and take this into account in your theses. For EuroSTAR 2013, we explicitly requested to pay more attention to the following points:
real experience based on successes and failures;
new ideas for discussion;
practical debriefing techniques;
supporting materials (such as published articles, videos, tools, etc.)
First of all, we paid attention to the consideration of those reports that focused on at least one of these points. As a result, when it was necessary to choose between two reports, we rather chose those that more corresponded to the requirements.
Moreover, it does not matter how great the idea is, or how it fits into the theme of the conference in your opinion. Ideas and relationships that you understand may be new to the program committee and potential audience, so state them clearly and clearly.

Everything is new - well forgotten old

Some conference participants are newcomers, and for them most of the information will be new. The rest are veterans who have already heard about certain ideas discussed earlier, owning terms and slang in the field of software testing and development. If your report reveals a topic that has gained attention over the years, focus on the new techniques and approaches that have been introduced by you.
A small hint: a story based on your personal experience will usually be new to people who hear it.
This year at EuroSTAR, several reports were submitted revealing a short but fascinating history from personal experience. The fact that they were based on the stories of real people made them unique in their own way, which was impressive and fascinating, they were very nice and easy to read, it dramatically increased my interest in them, so much they were full of energy.

Focus on solutions more than problem

Theses of reports of this year in most cases began with the definition of problems in testing. And I, without doubt, gave preference to those reports that showed different solutions or optimization of processes based on real experience. For comparison, some of the theses contained a few hundred words describing complaints about the problem, then followed one or two sentences like: "In this report I will tell you something, (not specified) that will do everything well."
To single out one or two problems that you plan to reveal on the report is not bad, but they should not dominate the theses. Focus on the topic of your speech, on what will be useful to hear, do not hang on problems, go to solutions quickly.
I often found myself leaving such a comment: “This topic would be good for a blog.” However, people do not go to the conference to listen to someone who declares blog posts.
Make sure that your presentation is directed to the audience that will gather in the hall. For example, I participated in many testing conferences where testers criticized the fact that they didn’t have the best managers. If you want to highlight the problem of bad management, offer ideas on how testers can help improve the situation, communicate solutions to managers, or submit your abstract to a management conference.
Draw the right conclusions
Some of the participants pay for their participation in the conference independently, the rest participate at the expense of the company. Especially in the second case, the people responsible for funding will want to see how the tester, and the organization as a whole, can benefit from attending the conference. How will the conference help participants to become the best in their field, intelligent and skillful specialists? Undoubtedly, we can never know how many participants really learn something, we do not control this, but you can present information in this way and make a presentation so that the participants would be clear what knowledge and conclusions they can draw from the report.

Describe what you expect from the audience

In terms of the report, it is good to indicate what inspires you, about what you would like to share with the participants in the first place. It is also good to indicate how the participants are supposed to assimilate information. In many of the theses that I had the occasion to read, people forgot to indicate this. How do you plan to hold the attention of listeners? Will you tell a story from your personal life or about the study? About an interesting book that you discovered for yourself? Do you plan to do practical exercises? Will you openly hold a discussion, where do you start and how will you complete it? Review your abstracts to ensure that you include these points.

Note that the reviewer may not be personally acquainted with you.

As well as testing reports, it is expected that your application for the presentation is read by people who have never seen you. At EuroSTAR 2013, the program committee sees information about the application, but by tradition abstracts are made anonymous to reviewers. Thus, for the latter, what is in the description, rather than your reputation, plays a role.
Make the title of your report clear, descriptive and spectacular, structure the content well considering the above points.
Use active voice, formulate proposals from the first person (“In this report I will tell you about X”, and not “This report will tell you about X”, “We will work out Y skill with you” instead of “These exercises on skill Y” )
If your abstracts contain spelling or grammatical errors, the reviewer may decide that your presentation and other materials may also contain errors, especially if he does not know who you are.
Avoid profanation. It's one thing to get attention, but be careful what type of attention you attract. As they say in an advertisement for an American shampoo: “... you will never have a second chance to make a first impression again.”

Be careful with metaphors

During our meetings, Alan Richardson, a member of the Program Committee, gave this advice: if you offer metaphor X as the primary metaphor for your report, make sure that you mean this metaphor X. Or at least tell the reviewer what research was done on topic X, or how did you come to understand this metaphor X.

Think over the name of your report.

A good reviewer is constantly thinking about how the presentation title will look in the conference booklet? I give a tip: try to write the annotation text first. Find a copy of the program of last year’s conference - best of all, if it is a printed version, if that is not available, you can try to find it on the network or on the conference website. View sample spelling titles and descriptions. Which ones you find interesting and which ones don’t? Why did they get your attention or push you away? What stylistic notes kept your attention? Determine the average value (about 150 words for EuroSTAR) and the description format. How do you describe your presentation using this format? Try to write a sample of your personal description of the report, compare it with the format described above.
Then you can apply using the description as the main unit. Expand this ad text to “sell” your presentation to the committee. Write the basis, the areas that you plan to consider; indicate the structure of the speech, the plan of the report; describe the exercises. Do not try to ignore reviewers by the lack of details and vague promises, an unexpected turn of the plot does not help here, but can only lead to failure.
You should not assume that the abstract written by you will be the final version. If your application is accepted, you can revise this text and you may even be asked to do so, in order to make the proposed material fit into the conference program better.

If you don't know something, ask right away.

If something seems incomprehensible to you in the process of receiving a report or you are not sure that your application corresponds to the theme and structure of the conference. Ask someone from the program committee. Some program committees will not consider such requests. However, one should not assume that they always do this. This year, the EuroSTAR committee assisted and supported the preparation of speakers for the presentation.

Test your offer

The reporting guide (for example: sqadays.com/article.sdf/sqadays/sqa_days14/for_speakers ) which we refer to in the application process (adapted by the editor) contains certain tips for preparing a convincing presentation. Since the report application is your product, consider this guide a tool for testing your proposal. Like all the documents in testing, it is not exhaustive, but contains valuable ideas. For better results, ask others to critically evaluate your report.

Wolves are not afraid to go to the forest

There are people who turned to us for advice on the preparation of speeches and drafting applications. Nevertheless, there are some of them who have not passed the qualifying round. Even a great summary of a great presentation may not fit into the conference program or may not qualify due to inconsistencies with the topics. Some first-class performances may concern the same problem. Other great offers come from the same person or company. EuroSTAR is a community that consists of several small communities, and each of them has its own preferences. Considering their interests, we must note that the number of standing applications may exceed the number required for the conference.

You will put your soul in - you can do anything

Compliance with all of these points may seem like hard work. It is, but worth it. Take for example software: you can develop a cool product (performance), but your product will have a better chance of success if the advertisement (application) hits the target. The application is as if part of the program: everything can be done correctly, but the only bug will negate all efforts. On the other hand, some products contain serious bugs, but nevertheless work successfully. In the EuroSTAR program, you can see that some presentations were chosen despite the incomplete compliance with the above requirements. They were selected because they have more strengths than weaknesses. Your application may not coincide too much with the program, but the advantages of your report eliminate many of its drawbacks.


Michael Bolton thanks Bart Brockman, Ricard Edurin, Maaret Paihejarvi, and Alan Richardson for their contributions and editing of this article.
Thanks to Kristina Romashko and Rina Uzhevko for their contribution to the work of translating, reading and editing the article.
Source: www.eurostarconferences.com/blog/2013/5/1/a-view-from-the-chair-with-michael-bolton-%28volume-4%29-%281%29