Why RoWST?
Last year, together with Catalin Anastasoaie, we started a series of one-day events under the umbrella of Tabara de Testare (“TdT”) with the purpose of building a testing community in Romania. It was a very interesting experience that helped us meet clever and skillful people from Bucuresti, Iasi, Cluj and Timisoara willing to share their experiences and learn from the community.
While talking to James Bach about his upcoming visit to Romania for his public Rapid Software Testing Training Course, he offered to help us organize a two-day Peer Conference with the purpose of promoting this type of events in Romania.
James presented some of the ways a Peer Conference can help testers do a better job in an interview for uTest:
“[…] rhetorical skill. This includes verbal self-defense as well as story-telling skill. This is a skill that requires practice, and apparently testers aren’t getting it, because many of them look like frightened bunnies to me when I challenge them to give a professional test report. Rhetorical skill improves when you practice giving presentations to your colleagues. This is why I try to start peer conferences wherever I go […]”.
What is RoWST?
RoWST stands for “Romanian Workshop on Software Testing”, and it is a two-day Peer Conference organized by Altom and Tabara de Testare.
The first edition of this workshop will be held in Bucharest, on March 29-30, at Hotel Parliament and will have two noteworthy guests: James Bach and Maaret Pyhäjärvi.
For those who’ve been following TdT, there are a few differences between RoWST and the events we organized at the end of last year:
- duration: being a two-day event will allow us to get to know each other better and have richer discussions.
- fees: there is no participation fee, but every participant will have to pay for his/her own lunch. Altom will take care of the meeting room, equipment, coffee/tea and water.
- number of participants: we’ll have only 15 participants, James and Maaret included, to ensure a high level of interaction and knowledge exchange.
- presentations: we’ll be selecting presentations more carefully, so that each one is an experience report.
- participation: a number of invitations have been sent based on your level of involvement within the testing community. If you have not received an invitation and you want to attend the event, please contact me at alex [dot] rotaru [at] altom [dot] ro.
RoWST Theme – “Everyday Software Testing Challenges”
What are the things that bother you most in your day-to-day work environment? We want to hear from you experience reports of everyday problems you’ve stumbled upon, the way you dealt with them, and the solutions you have come up with.
In case you haven’t found a solution to the issue, even better, because we love a good challenge! You can present the details of the situation and the steps you’ve taken and we’ll try to identify solutions together/discuss it further.
What we’re looking for: challenges and the ways you chose to deal with them, and not just complaints.
What we’re NOT looking for:
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- theoretical ideas you’ve read about but have never applied or experienced,
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- generic stories with no practical bearing,
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- stories for which the context is not available.
Examples of presentation topics (to guide you in identifying and naming your challenges):
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- Documenting your testing efficiently
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- How to deal with the false belief that the solution to every problem is a tool (magic tool to solve any problem)
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- Fighting against unreasonable requests/expectations from managers/clients (100% automation, complete coverage)
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- The shift from the traditio
nal mode to more effective and relevant approaches.
- The shift from the traditio
As a result of the workshop, we will have a summary report of key learning points and conclusions to share with the testing community through http://tabaradetestare.ro.
Good read, guys!
Check this out, it’s also an interesting article about testing:
http://www.todaysoftmag.com/article/1317/does-a-developer-test-does-a-tester-code