What was the main Russian-speaking testers conference in 2015?

Left behind is the regular, 17th in a row, SQA Days conference, which annually brings together professionals involved in software development and newcomers who are just starting to master the industry. What was she like? We tried to recreate the atmosphere of the event with photographs, feedback from participants and excerpts from the reports.




SQA Days is the largest Russian-language software testing conference that gathers hundreds of QA specialists every year. We, the organizers, try not only to fill it with professional reports, but also to make it convenient for participants to communicate during the breaks, and the trip to the event itself is a memorable event among the harsh working days of the tester. And we are pleased to read such reviews, which say that our efforts are not in vain:
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Roman Sheiko

In general, I can say that I personally received everything I wanted from this conference: I told my report (first of all), talked to the guys, met new interesting people, got a boost of motivation to develop my profession. So, these 2 days of the conference and a couple of months of preparation were well spent :)

This year the conference was held on May 29-30 in one of the best hotels in Minsk - the President Hotel. The one who visited SQA Days 17, received unforgettable impressions from communication with the testing gurus and a charge of positive emotions, which is enough for a whole year of productive work. For the rest, we will restore the chronology of the events of the two best days of this May.



At first, as usual, the participants registered and greeted each other during the morning coffee break. The event began with a grand opening ceremony.

Rina Uzhevko (Chairman of the Program Committee)

SQA Days 17 consumed us all with an abundance of information, communication, questions and emotions. I could not feel this atmosphere in any other conference. Of course, it was a discovery, Vlad and Tatiana Orlikov told about the organization and gave the most critical information on current issues. I had to speak as the head of the program committee. I was nervous, worried, but did everything right.

All reports went in three streams in different halls. It makes no sense to talk about all of them - for this there is a conference program on the site . Therefore, we will note only some of the reports that caused, as it seemed to us, the greatest interest among the audience.

In the first place, of course, you need to put a guest from the States. Rex Black made two presentations. The first, Test Estimation, was devoted to the most important problem - how long will the testing last? The second talked about how to achieve success in the tasks, using free (that is, read, free) testing tools. Of course, with examples of real success stories of projects carried out using such tools.

Rina Uzhevko

If one report came more from the interest of “watching the live Black”, then his second report went more consciously. The second report can be viewed if you need information, and not stare at Black. In general, if you read his books, you will not learn anything mega-new from the report.

By the way, taking this opportunity, we recommend you an interview with Rex Black, which he gave us before the conference.



We can not say about our guest from Britain, Paul Gerrard, who came to Minsk with a report on How to Test the Internet of Everything . This little, perhaps, even a philosophical report told about what to expect from the “Internet of things” and the “Internet of everything” to testers.

Natalya Rukol from Moscow in the framework of a 40-minute sectional report entitled “Tester Rake” revealed the main problems that experts may encounter during the work, and the most common mistakes they make.

Rina Uzhevko

4 succes story about personal experience of meeting with a rake. Natasha feed as always excellent. The report conveys a rather simple idea, which I began to convey in my article on perfectionism - do not be afraid to make mistakes - otherwise you just don’t learn anything.

The end of the first section was the report of the guest from Ukraine, Alexandra Volkova, “10 principles of automation, which I will not betray” . The work was enjoyed by the visitors of the conference for the carefully thought-out structure and depth of disclosure of the topic - and I liked it so much that I won first place among all the reports.

Rina Uzhevko

Alexandra Volkova talked about the "principles" of the automator, it was like the commandments. But still, the report is good, and took 1st place in the voting.
By the way, the prizes for the best report this year were a robot vacuum cleaner and a set for happy IT leisure in the form of an Xbox 360 + Kinect. We hope this is a good incentive for those who this year did not intend to speak to read their report next year.

It’s impossible not to say good words about section C. The main difference in the third section was the format of the presentations: if in the first half of the day sectional reports and master classes with a duration of 40 minutes prevailed, section C was mainly devoted to blitz reports. The speakers were tasked with identifying the main problems of the chosen topic in just 20 minutes and highlighting the most significant moments.



At the end of the first day of the conference, a grand QA party was waiting for participants. But to talk about it is a thankless task, it’s better to see once than hear a hundred times.





Alexey Fedorov

People constantly ask me how SQA Days went? I noticed that I no longer talk about reports, which, by the way, were many good, but not formatted things.
Looking at what was happening at EuroStar, I saw that they had a lot of unformatted activities: a morning jog in the park, dinner at a restaurant, an excursion to the museum. Those. There is an opportunity (not free :)) to touch the conference, even if there is no possibility to get there. (So, by the way, I met Paul Gerrald). So I had an idea that it would be great to do something similar on SQA Days.
And here, very cool that I was supported without question. Natalia Savastiuk arranged 2 anti-conferences before the meeting, Igor Bondarenkocobbed prepati at the bar, Vladislav Orlikov , Tatsiana Orlikova , Polazhenko Sergey ordered flipcharts. At the Kirillova conference Ekaterina arranged games and discussions on the sidelines. After the conference, Alena Drozd organized a tour of Minsk. This is only what was left under my control, and he left right away :) I know that there were more tours of the castles, a summer test workshop that was actively supported by Sergey Atroschenkov , Rina Uzhevko , Andrey Myasnikov , Alexei Vinogradov . Not everything worked out, for example, flipcharts were almost not needed by anyone and there were few discussions on the sidelines, but still everything was very cool.
Thank you all so much! If someone has ideas for non-format events on SQA Days, you know who to contact, so that they become formatted :) And they will definitely help you, tested!

Thanks to everyone who was with us on SQA Days 17, and see you next year. Come, it will be interesting, we promise!

The next SQA Days conference will be held on November 27-28, 2015 in Moscow.

Photos from the conference can be viewed on the FB and VC :

Overview video:


All presentations are already available at the following link: www.slideshare.net/VLDCORP/presentations
Video recordings of the reports will soon be available here: vimeo.com/orlikov

Learn more about the conference on the official website: www.sqadays.com