Suzanne Meade

Programme Chair Blog – EuroSTAR in Poetry

July 23, 2019 by Suzanne Meade

To many, code is poetry so this year, we have decided to introduce poetry to the story of the 27th EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference which takes place in Prague Congress Centre, 11-14 November.

Each Programme Chair brings their own unique magic to the EuroSTAR Conference. This is what makes our community so wonderful and diverse. Our 2019 Programme Chair, Isabel Evans, is a lover of poetry and she has taken all aspects of the talks, the committee, creating the programme and more, and woven them within beautiful Haiku poems.

“Haiku” is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. Translating the form to English is not an exact science, however, they are based on patterns in the syllables, for example each haiku poem can be a 17 syllable poem consisting of 3 lines. The first and last lines of a Haiku have 5 syllables and the middle line has 7 syllables. Before you tell us … in haiku, the lines rarely rhyme!

Below is an extended version of haiku just to get you started and hopefully intrigued. Over the coming months you will see snippets of these gorgeous haiku poems on our social channels as well as additional blogs.

We hope you like them!

To begin, a few words from Isabel Evans:

Programme Chair’s Blog – as Haiku This Year – Why? Because we can, we have.

Lorraine said “something
new please. Why not poems?” Well,
Lorraine – here we are!

Customary blog from
Programme chair in haiku form
this year – poems in

form of seventeen
syllables five seven five
I will have got it

wrong of course somewhere
in there – you are testers – check!
Isabel Evans

So How Did We Choose the 2019 Programme?

Choosing the programme,
how we laughed and cried. Too
much choice! Options?!?

So many submissions
To speak; only some chosen
The best; hard choices!

The Thoughts Behind the 2019 EuroSTAR Conference Theme

Working well, purpose
And practice right for people
Facing challenges

Surmount challenge through
Purpose, people and practice
This is working well

Serving our purpose
Understanding our customers
Deliver value

“Why this theme?” you ask
“Customers, craft, value, health
Community too”

Tools, automation
Vital support to practice
Need them working well

How to do this task?
What approaches help? Techniques?
Many ideas, choose!

People bring knowledge
And skills to solve problems well
That is us, working.

In teams we work, not
Solo but community
True for EuroSTAR too

If we’re not well
We can’t work well, take care of
Yourself and your team.

Are we craftspeople?
Or engineers? Both? Choose your
path and practices with care.

Future is hidden
We can guess at it, always
A challenge to us.

Change and growth help us
Face the future challenge
Always necessary

Unwell, a challenge
To life my head up
Face the future, smiling

“How can we test? We
don’t know our purpose.” “Can you
measure your value?”

UX/CX – new
To you? – important, fret not!
Vital, learnable!

Requirements, and
Stories, they’re how we know
What to deliver

We hope you enjoyed these poems from Isabel and look out for the next Programme Chair Blog – coming soon!

In the meantime, do check out the diverse programme of talks that Isabel and her committee; Gitte Ottosen, Jean Paul Varwijk and Ioana Chiorean have put together.

TeamSTAR Competition

July 8, 2019 by Suzanne Meade

TeamSTAR has been running for almost a decade and it is one of our favourite competitions for the software testing & QA community. We love bringing the community together, and TeamSTAR does just that with lots of fun at the same time.

Do you host a meet-up for software testers or quality assurance teams? Or have you ever considered hosting a testing meet-up? We’d like to reward you for your efforts in bringing the testing community together.

Now is you chance – register & host a testing meet-up in your area before the end of September 2019 and you could win 4 tickets to the EuroSTAR Conference in Prague!

Do you want to take on the challenge?

Once you have registered, here is what you have to do win…

Promote your event online and tag us on social media so we can help! – @esconfs #EuroSTARConnects
Host your meet-up before September 30th
Play a 1 minute EuroSTAR video at your meet-up so you see what we have in store for the winners!
Get social with your fellow attendees – it could be pictures, stories, tweets, videos, snaps – tag us and we’ll share
Send us a short blog summary of your meet-up, what you did, what you spoke about and we will use this to help choose the winners.

Simple 🙂

We can’t wait to hear all about your event! Register your meet-up now and we will send you the cool materials & giveaways for the event too!

Good luck and enjoy!

Expo Hero Winners

June 24, 2019 by Suzanne Meade

The EuroSTAR Conference experience is second to none. For over 25 years, EuroSTAR has provided a welcoming space for the largest European gathering of testers and quality assurance professionals.

In addition to the unbeatable learning sessions, EuroSTAR encompasses the largest Software Testing Expo in Europe. Within the Expo, each company that exhibits also contributes to the overall atmosphere of the conference. Over the years, many Expo partners have helped to enhance the delegate experience with unique activities and experiences.

This year, we wanted to ‘up the game’ so we put it to the testing community of test tool and service providers to tell us what unique activities or experiences they could bring to #EuroSTARConf 2019. We raised the stakes by offering an Expo exhibitor package worth €5,500!

Wow did the community respond!!!

We received so many entries and suggestions it was a massively difficult decision for the team to decide the winner. Eventually after hours locked away in a boardroom (with no coffee!!!), the winner was announced …

2019 EuroSTAR Expo Heroes

We are delighted to be welcoming mabl to the EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference in Prague. We loved their energy and approach to the challenge and know our delegates will too! The team at mabl really thought about the experience element and they also took note of our 2019 conference theme of ‘Working Well’.

Working Well is about balance. Software engineers, QA professionals and testers need to be able to “balance” speed and quality, particularly in DevOps. To help emphasise the need for balance (and keeping it fun), mabl are going to have a balance board at their Expo booth.

Yes, you read that correctly! All EuroSTAR attendees can try it out and see if they can balance successfully! There are raffle tickets given to all successful balancers with a cool prize up for grabs at the end. The longer you stay on, the more raffle tickets you are given! How fun is that?

We loved this idea and how it fits with the conference and our eternal search for balance in this hectic working world. We hope you will join us in Prague and pay a visit to the mabl booth in the EuroSTAR Software Testing Expo.

mabl will be joining a wide range of test tool and services providers at EuroSTAR – check out the additional Expo partners.

If you haven’t been before, the annual EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference is an amazing celebration of the craft of testing in Europe. It is the largest conference on testing in Europe with the biggest variety of topics. The conference takes place in November in a different European city each year. The conference is held over 4 days with over 60+ sessions including tutorials, workshops and talks as well as non-stop networking.

At EuroSTAR, we believe in the power of community and we help the testing community to build powerful connections!

Spotlight on Prague: Paternoster Elevators

April 29, 2019 by Suzanne Meade

There are many things to see if Prague where we will be for our 27th EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference.

There are so many highlights it is difficult to share all in one post and we like to give a few lesser known tips too!

Did you know?

The Czech Republic is one of the few countries in the world to still have working paternoster elevators! A paternoster elevator has no doors and moves continually without stopping at floor level. You simply hop in a compartment and, on reaching your required floor, you just hop off.

There are approximately seventy known paternoster lifts in the Czech Republic and half of these are in Prague. Once popularly used in government buildings and shops in Germany and Eastern Europe, these unusual elevators captured the imagination of many visitors, writers and filmmakers who then featured the contraptions in their work.

Invented in the 1860s by Peter Ellis, an architect from Liverpool, England, the elevators derive their name from the configuration of the compartments that move slowly up and down in an infinite loop said to resemble how a person might move rosary beads through their hands as they pray. Paternoster is the Latin for “Our Father,” which are the first two words of the Lord’s Prayer…. On a lighter note, these two words are commonly said to be heard being said by some people today as they jump on and off hoping they don’t fall!

If you have a fear of escalators, an elevator with no door that doesn’t stop or slow down might sound like a nightmare, but these elevators were once common in many parts of Europe. Disclaimer before you try them! The paternoster lifts are today a dying breed after safety norms banned their construction!! In spite of their potential hazards, they are frequently viewed with a sense of nostalgia, and have become the object of protection and restoration projects.

If you are feeling brave this November, head to Prague City Hall where the government recently re-opened a paternoster elevator following a three-month overhaul, resulting in a new look which is meant to commemorate the historic elements of the building. The City Hall is a splendid example of Art Nouveau architecture and their refurbished paternoster elevator was designed by John Prokopec in the early 20th century and consists of twelve compartments. The reconstruction included all compartments, wiring, safety, security, and the lift machine room, costing the municipality more than 3.5 million CZK.