SQA Days 14. Summing up
So, a wonderful software testing conference was held - SQA Days-14 (remember, it took place on November 7-9 in Lviv). It is time to sum up.
After many years of holding conferences, I myself became their critic, but personally this conference causes my satisfaction.
Yes, there were “kosyachki” (there are no conferences without them), but everything was promptly corrected.
In general, as Max Tsepkov correctly noted , this is a conference with amazing energy.
Analyzing the feedback received, the main thing that we have highlighted for ourselves is the need to raise the level of reports. Now many are positioning the conference as a conference for people with experience of 1-3 years. Accordingly, some people with more experience prefer not to go to the event, because they do not learn anything new for themselves.
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Here you can identify a number of difficulties
1. Experienced (with rare exceptions) do not want to share knowledge.
Indeed, with motivation, people with experience are doing a strange thing. She disappears somewhere. The main argument: "why do I need this?". It would seem that the main motivator - money would have to solve this issue, but it does not always work. And the “honor and respect” motivator does not work at all. The task of choosing the right motivation requires a systematic analysis. Everything is very, very nontrivial.
In addition, if we talk about monetary motivation, we must not forget about the balance of prices for the event. Paid participants are a separate budget that affects the overall price of the event. You can invite a lot of stars and the price for the conference will also be stellar. There is no desire for this, because, at least, our policy is such that the event should be accessible to most visitors.
2. The crisis of the genre (?)
It would seem that many of the topics in testing are narrated / recast. Many come to the conference for a ready-made solution and when their expectations are not met, they get upset. But the conference should only push to solve problems and successfully do it.
Each conference identifies the main trends in the testing world. This time it is automation and, damn it, management. In this case, talk about something breakthrough is not necessary. The industry is not changing so quickly. But for that, a lot of people work in the industry, and more and more new people join the industry every day. Maintain the relevance of knowledge for all the actual problem that the conference solves. Therefore, the repetition of some topics, perhaps in different interpretations, is always useful. And the invention of a bicycle is a useful thing, because, first of all, it’s not the bicycle itself that is interesting, but the way the author of the report came to such a decision. It is on the way that ideas lie that can be used quite well in other directions.
3. Who are our "stars"?
Everyone knows Rex Black, Michael Bolton, James Whitaker. And all these are stars from the American continent. And now name the stars from the EU, Asia from the CIS? And here happens ups!
Yes, suspecting a little bit about this point, many will call Alexey Barantsev, Natalia Rukol, perhaps a couple more people. And these people are permanent participants of the conference. But excuse me, where are the star names? And what are the reasons that they do not appear with us, and we do not know about them.
It seems to me several reasons:
- undiscovered potential (see paragraph 1 above);
- inability to position itself;
- inability to professionally serve content;
- Too lazy to write professional articles and books. Books give a tremendous visibility to their authors, but only if the author himself maintains his visibility in public by making reports. There was a book Savin, and where is Savin himself? Nobody knows. The author does not contact.
- just laziness and lack of any motivation.
See how vigorous and charismatic were some authors on the English day (November 7). We lack such energy and charisma. She needs to be trained.
I am sure that with proper aspiration, the emerging asterisks will flare up into bright supernovae.
4. Waiting for a breakthrough or a smooth evolution.
Considering that mega-experts do not want to share knowledge with us, and the star composition is not defined, it seems to me that the evolutionary development of the conference together with the participants is correct, when newcomers, speaking, develop themselves and begin to professionally deliver the content and the content itself becomes more difficult. In this case, of course, do not need to stop. It is always necessary to strive to teach the experienced to perform and wrest them from the captivity of demotivation. Experienced and bright speakers this is what we have to see in the coming years among our audience.
5. Value for the industry.
At a certain stage of the epic thread on facebook, opinions arose that the conference does not carry knowledge and breeds amateurs. Is this so let's see.
There is a testing conference (I will not call you, you will easily find it), at which people from the scientific community speak and people from the same program also speak in the program committee. Yes, yes, universities try to study testing, but not from the point of view of the living life cycle, but from a scientific point of view, often with a mathematical basis, the theory of algorithms, etc., and, accordingly, the material is presented in an appropriate manner. Do I need such a conference? Here opinions are divided. Because for a specific audience needed, like our conference. Another question that is more relevant at the moment is a conference that works with live projects, or mathematical models that are very difficult to apply. Taking into account the option that everyone expects a “silver bullet”, in my opinion, the conference variant with live reports is more viable, because it is a slice of knowledge from the very peak of modern technologies, while scientific and pseudoscientific materials are extremely difficult to apply in the modern IT world, where Everything depends on the dynamics. At the same time, I would leave a certain strategic function behind a scientific conference. Suddenly, that which we do not even suspect is born. Of course, I would also like to see reports on SQA Days on a scientific basis, but only with models already working on live projects. And there were such reports. Take, for example, Aleksandrov’s report on metrics, or Nikita Nalyutin’s report “ Mathematics for testers ”, or Dmitry Mayevsky’s report “ Predicting the process of detecting defects in software testing ”.
6. Program Committee. Authorities, non-authorities or "wedding generals".
Turning again to the discussion in facebook, there were different opinions about who should evaluate the reports, what should be the level of qualification, how many years of experience, what is the visibility of the person entering the PC.
Looking at the program committee mentioned above at the scientific conference, one can notice that there is a solid faculty and the size of the PC is really very large. A backfill question: “How many of the readers of this blog really think that gray-bearded men will diligently review the reports, and then also work out these reports with the speakers?” .. A rhetorical question.
Now to the question of size. They tried to accuse us that the current PC size does not allow us to adequately evaluate all the reports. Where, let me, such confidence? Personally, I do not hold the wedding generals and refuse to attempt to introduce such people. Why are they? What is the use of them?
Also, I don’t keep people who showed up and then do nothing. Expel immediately. As a result, only motivated people remain in the PC, who not only give feedback to the speaker, but also work with them, honing the presentation and skills of oratory and removing what is not needed at all. Do you think many speakers can perform without such training? But with the help of a PC this becomes possible. And what, once the tasks are solved, you need to further inflate the PC. I think no.
To the policy of selection of reports. There is no goal to kill everyone straight away, although this also happens, but only when the situation begins to look completely inadequate. On the contrary, we are meeting the speakers, and if the topic is interesting, we help to open it. Yes, perhaps the speaker doesn’t have enough experience. But he will grow up and very soon will be cool. This is the evolution I wrote about earlier.
Authorities, non-authorities in the PC. Do you need authoritative participants in the PC? Of course, but not to be confused with the "wedding generals." If this authority does not work, then why the hell is needed there? For check? As for the rest of the PC participants, then, in fact, they are selected through the manifestation of their active position. A person who has been to the conference more than once comes to me with rational ideas that will really improve the conference. Why not let such a person prove himself in such a responsible matter? I believe that a person with experience from 3 years can quite adequately evaluate reports. If semantic collisions occur, then it is also very simple, everything is solved individually and even with the assistance of third-party experts.
Of course, the level and quality of reports should be raised and we work on it with every PC. A lot of rational ideas are generated. And I believe that everything will turn out. We draw conclusions and hear our participants.
On this, allow me to bow out. Sincerely yours, Vladislav Orlikov (organizer of SQA Days)
PS The opinion and position of the author may not coincide with the opinion of other readers. Good luck, and good to you.
After many years of holding conferences, I myself became their critic, but personally this conference causes my satisfaction.
Yes, there were “kosyachki” (there are no conferences without them), but everything was promptly corrected.
In general, as Max Tsepkov correctly noted , this is a conference with amazing energy.
Analyzing the feedback received, the main thing that we have highlighted for ourselves is the need to raise the level of reports. Now many are positioning the conference as a conference for people with experience of 1-3 years. Accordingly, some people with more experience prefer not to go to the event, because they do not learn anything new for themselves.
')
Here you can identify a number of difficulties
1. Experienced (with rare exceptions) do not want to share knowledge.
Indeed, with motivation, people with experience are doing a strange thing. She disappears somewhere. The main argument: "why do I need this?". It would seem that the main motivator - money would have to solve this issue, but it does not always work. And the “honor and respect” motivator does not work at all. The task of choosing the right motivation requires a systematic analysis. Everything is very, very nontrivial.
In addition, if we talk about monetary motivation, we must not forget about the balance of prices for the event. Paid participants are a separate budget that affects the overall price of the event. You can invite a lot of stars and the price for the conference will also be stellar. There is no desire for this, because, at least, our policy is such that the event should be accessible to most visitors.
2. The crisis of the genre (?)
It would seem that many of the topics in testing are narrated / recast. Many come to the conference for a ready-made solution and when their expectations are not met, they get upset. But the conference should only push to solve problems and successfully do it.
Each conference identifies the main trends in the testing world. This time it is automation and, damn it, management. In this case, talk about something breakthrough is not necessary. The industry is not changing so quickly. But for that, a lot of people work in the industry, and more and more new people join the industry every day. Maintain the relevance of knowledge for all the actual problem that the conference solves. Therefore, the repetition of some topics, perhaps in different interpretations, is always useful. And the invention of a bicycle is a useful thing, because, first of all, it’s not the bicycle itself that is interesting, but the way the author of the report came to such a decision. It is on the way that ideas lie that can be used quite well in other directions.
3. Who are our "stars"?
Everyone knows Rex Black, Michael Bolton, James Whitaker. And all these are stars from the American continent. And now name the stars from the EU, Asia from the CIS? And here happens ups!
Yes, suspecting a little bit about this point, many will call Alexey Barantsev, Natalia Rukol, perhaps a couple more people. And these people are permanent participants of the conference. But excuse me, where are the star names? And what are the reasons that they do not appear with us, and we do not know about them.
It seems to me several reasons:
- undiscovered potential (see paragraph 1 above);
- inability to position itself;
- inability to professionally serve content;
- Too lazy to write professional articles and books. Books give a tremendous visibility to their authors, but only if the author himself maintains his visibility in public by making reports. There was a book Savin, and where is Savin himself? Nobody knows. The author does not contact.
- just laziness and lack of any motivation.
See how vigorous and charismatic were some authors on the English day (November 7). We lack such energy and charisma. She needs to be trained.
I am sure that with proper aspiration, the emerging asterisks will flare up into bright supernovae.
4. Waiting for a breakthrough or a smooth evolution.
Considering that mega-experts do not want to share knowledge with us, and the star composition is not defined, it seems to me that the evolutionary development of the conference together with the participants is correct, when newcomers, speaking, develop themselves and begin to professionally deliver the content and the content itself becomes more difficult. In this case, of course, do not need to stop. It is always necessary to strive to teach the experienced to perform and wrest them from the captivity of demotivation. Experienced and bright speakers this is what we have to see in the coming years among our audience.
5. Value for the industry.
At a certain stage of the epic thread on facebook, opinions arose that the conference does not carry knowledge and breeds amateurs. Is this so let's see.
There is a testing conference (I will not call you, you will easily find it), at which people from the scientific community speak and people from the same program also speak in the program committee. Yes, yes, universities try to study testing, but not from the point of view of the living life cycle, but from a scientific point of view, often with a mathematical basis, the theory of algorithms, etc., and, accordingly, the material is presented in an appropriate manner. Do I need such a conference? Here opinions are divided. Because for a specific audience needed, like our conference. Another question that is more relevant at the moment is a conference that works with live projects, or mathematical models that are very difficult to apply. Taking into account the option that everyone expects a “silver bullet”, in my opinion, the conference variant with live reports is more viable, because it is a slice of knowledge from the very peak of modern technologies, while scientific and pseudoscientific materials are extremely difficult to apply in the modern IT world, where Everything depends on the dynamics. At the same time, I would leave a certain strategic function behind a scientific conference. Suddenly, that which we do not even suspect is born. Of course, I would also like to see reports on SQA Days on a scientific basis, but only with models already working on live projects. And there were such reports. Take, for example, Aleksandrov’s report on metrics, or Nikita Nalyutin’s report “ Mathematics for testers ”, or Dmitry Mayevsky’s report “ Predicting the process of detecting defects in software testing ”.
6. Program Committee. Authorities, non-authorities or "wedding generals".
Turning again to the discussion in facebook, there were different opinions about who should evaluate the reports, what should be the level of qualification, how many years of experience, what is the visibility of the person entering the PC.
Looking at the program committee mentioned above at the scientific conference, one can notice that there is a solid faculty and the size of the PC is really very large. A backfill question: “How many of the readers of this blog really think that gray-bearded men will diligently review the reports, and then also work out these reports with the speakers?” .. A rhetorical question.
Now to the question of size. They tried to accuse us that the current PC size does not allow us to adequately evaluate all the reports. Where, let me, such confidence? Personally, I do not hold the wedding generals and refuse to attempt to introduce such people. Why are they? What is the use of them?
Also, I don’t keep people who showed up and then do nothing. Expel immediately. As a result, only motivated people remain in the PC, who not only give feedback to the speaker, but also work with them, honing the presentation and skills of oratory and removing what is not needed at all. Do you think many speakers can perform without such training? But with the help of a PC this becomes possible. And what, once the tasks are solved, you need to further inflate the PC. I think no.
To the policy of selection of reports. There is no goal to kill everyone straight away, although this also happens, but only when the situation begins to look completely inadequate. On the contrary, we are meeting the speakers, and if the topic is interesting, we help to open it. Yes, perhaps the speaker doesn’t have enough experience. But he will grow up and very soon will be cool. This is the evolution I wrote about earlier.
Authorities, non-authorities in the PC. Do you need authoritative participants in the PC? Of course, but not to be confused with the "wedding generals." If this authority does not work, then why the hell is needed there? For check? As for the rest of the PC participants, then, in fact, they are selected through the manifestation of their active position. A person who has been to the conference more than once comes to me with rational ideas that will really improve the conference. Why not let such a person prove himself in such a responsible matter? I believe that a person with experience from 3 years can quite adequately evaluate reports. If semantic collisions occur, then it is also very simple, everything is solved individually and even with the assistance of third-party experts.
Of course, the level and quality of reports should be raised and we work on it with every PC. A lot of rational ideas are generated. And I believe that everything will turn out. We draw conclusions and hear our participants.
On this, allow me to bow out. Sincerely yours, Vladislav Orlikov (organizer of SQA Days)
PS The opinion and position of the author may not coincide with the opinion of other readers. Good luck, and good to you.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/202396/
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