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EuroSTAR Conference

Europe's Largest Software Testing Conference.

EuroSTAR Conference

“Dear Younger Me…” Letters from the community

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It’s hard to believe, but this year we’ll celebrate the 28th edition of the EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference. Since 1993 we’ve gathered testers from all over Europe to connect, learn and test.

Every year, we got a little bigger – and now we’re thrilled to celebrate 28 years of the testing community coming together in an inclusive space, to share knowledge, support each other, and grow. We couldn’t do it without you!

There has been such incredible community spirit, shaped and nurtured by every single tester and quality professional that has been part of this wonderful journey. To mark our 28th anniversary, we have invited many of those instrumental in the creation and ongoing development of our community to write an open letter to their 28-year-old selves.

“The year is 1983, and it is a long time ago – 37 years. I remember how frustrated you were a few years earlier, trying to figure out how your working life should be.”  (Anne Mette)

Each letter is a unique personal reflection, and pens what the writer deems most important to tell their 28-year-old-self – and to remind their younger self what is worth fighting for! Topics range from advice on navigating career decisions and challenges to personal adventures and triumphs.

We’ve got sage advice our programme chair Rik Marselis, Anne Mette describes her eye-opening first time at EuroSTAR, Dorothy Graham highlights the importance of taking opportunities, and more!

Check out our series below. What would you say to your 28-year-old self?

                                                                                                   

Dorothy Graham – 1st EuroSTAR Programme Chair                     Rik Marselis – 2020 EuroSTAR Programme Chair

 

                                                                                                    

Shmuel Gershon – EuroSTAR speaker and 2016 Programme Chair        Anne Mette Hass – 11th European Testing Excellence Award Winner

 

Join the global Testing Community at EuroSTAR Online

Once you’re suitably inspired after reading, it’s time to check out our EuroSTAR programme. We’ve taken the entire programme online this year – so we’re going global.

Join us anywhere, on any device. It’s 3 days of learning, networking, testing – with lots of opportunities to connect, meet your fellow testers from around the world and make new friends.

 

EuroSTAR is going online

7 Reasons to Attend a Virtual Conference this Year

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Looking for reasons to attend a virtual conference this year?

2020 is rapidly becoming the year of the virtual conference — and they are not going anywhere. This is a good thing: in terms of savings, environmental footprint, accessibility and of course, immunity against external factors (ahem)… virtual events claim all the pros and not many cons.

We have 28 years’ experience hosting a worldwide software testing conference. Since 1993, we’ve brought software testers and QA professionals together to learn, test and connect. And every year, we get a little bigger. Now — well, we’re thrilled to be the largest, friendliest software testing event in Europe.

This year we’re doing things differently. We’re re-imagining our live event and taking our entire programme online. That’s 55+ speakers, 3 days of tutorials, keynotes, track talks, networking events, and more.

It’s going to be our best programme yet. Why? Because going virtual opens up a whole new arena of possibilities for us — and for you.

With this in mind, here are 7 reasons you should attend a virtual conference this year.

1. Connect with a global network

Team at a tutorial working together to solve a problemWith endless online networking opportunities, it’s easier than ever to make connections that are most relevant to you at a virtual conference. Talk it out with those who are in the same boat, even if they’re not on the same continent — people who tackle the same problems, and get just as excited about a solution. At EuroSTAR 2020 Online, you can meet and jump into conversations with the world’s largest testing community

The conference is a melting pot of creative people. Hear new thoughts, validate your ideas, or change your perspectives — it’s all possible.

2. Get access to all the learnings

Ever gone to a conference and had to make a tough choice between two sessions you’d love to attend — but both are happening at the same time? You don’t have to worry about that with virtual conferences. In most cases sessions will be recorded, as they are streamed. At EuroSTAR 2020 Online, we’re including post conference on-demand access to ALL 60+ hours of talks, so you don’t have to miss a thing. That’s some serious learning at your disposal — our tutorials are super interactive and practical to get your creativity flowing. You’ll hit your desk filled with actionable ideas to apply to your work.

3. Solve testing challenges

We know that an important part of a live conference is that you get help with those frustrating problems creating bottlenecks in your work. Attendees at the Huddle It’s also where you’re sometimes hit with your best ideas, inspired by random interactions with your fellow attendees. But that doesn’t mean you won’t get that same chance at a virtual conference. For example, our live conference will feature the EuroSTAR Test Clinic, where you can bring your toughest and most complex questions to our testing experts. We’re creating a dedicated online space where you can get 1:1 help and resolve even the most frustrating testing challenges.

4. Explore new tools & vendors

Trying cool new tools and demos from vendors is all part of the conference experience.  There are tons of opportunities to replicate this online, with platforms offering extremely sophisticated virtual expo booth experiences. We’re going to make sure you get the most out of our software testing expo — it’s Europe’s biggest, and draws some of the best companies in the world, armed with all the latest testing tools. Chat face to face, ask questions, try online demos and tools, and add new processes to your testing toolkit. And did we mention the virtual swag bag…?

5. Bring an open mind, take new perspectives home

One of the best things about a conference is that it’s a new space and a chance to put your thinking cap on; away from the usual daily grind. Well, that’s still a given with a virtual conference when it’s done right. It’s all about the people taking part in the online space — and our community is so passionate and enthusiastic about testing, the vibes will jump out of the screen! Plus, it can be easier to ask questions in a virtual setting. Our live Q&A sessions mean you get to pick our speakers’ brains and absorb lots of extra knowledge.

A team working together at a tutorial

6. Increase team bonding

Yes, there’s a huge benefit to giving your whole team access to a virtual conference. Everyone is absorbing the knowledge together and getting into the same headspace. Create a ‘divide and conquer’ approach to split up the programme of talks and maximize the learnings from all sessions. Co-ordinate talks and keynotes in order to get different perspectives and learnings and hop in and out of different breakout session as a team. This nurtures team building, strengthens your company culture and gets everyone thinking creatively so you can test more efficiently as a group. If your team has a backlog of ideas, now is the time to let them flourish! With on-demand access to all the sessions after the conference, your team can use the content as a learning resource all year.

7 Save, save, save

This is a no brainer, but you really are saving on a huge cost by attending a virtual conference. Most of the potential physical barriers are gone — travel and accommodation, accessibility, and all the other reasons that may have stopped you from attending a conference. You can join an online conference from anywhere — all you need is your device and an Internet connection. You don’t even have to show up for the entire conference if you really don’t want to — just secure your ticket and enjoy the peace of mind that comes with knowing you’ll have access to recordings. It’s a win-win.

EuroSTAR Online is happening this November, 17–19. It’s Europe’s largest software testing conference and has been bringing software testers and quality professionals together since 1993!

This is where you are going to solve your testing problems — straight from the comfort of your home or office. Check out our programme for even more reasons to attend a virtual conference…

EuroSTAR Keynote Spotlight: 5 talks you can’t miss

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Our EuroSTAR keynote speakers are testing experts in automation, agile, DevOps, security, test strategy and much more. Don’t miss their online talks this November.

1. Develop a ‘Quality Narrative’ that Communicates the True Value of Quality | Ronald Cummings-John

EuroSTAR keynote Ronald Cummings-John dives into quality and asks some key questions: how can we change the way that people think and talk about quality in our business? What are the best ways to influence people within our company to ensure everyone has bought into the idea of quality?

Using worldwide companies such as Google, Etsy, Airbnb and Twitter as inspiration, he will take you through developing an internal narrative around quality that will help you build incredible products.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Learn how to develop a quality narrative that communicates the true value of your quality team throughout the company
  2. Influence those around you to buy into your narrative
  3. Align the different teams and their activities towards a shared goal to contribute to the overall growth of the company

View Talk

2. Unlock the Power of Testing in Production with Observability | Abby Bangser

Join Abby for examples and explanations on leveraging the dynamic duo of observability and testing in production: it’s the next step for empowering software teams to deliver high quality, high impact software with speed and confidence.

Abby believes in empowering delivery team members to contain, and track, the impact of changes as they make them.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Everyone is testing in production, but some people are looking at the results
  2. Testing in production can be done with care for a large impact
  3. Observability is another form of testability

View Talk

3. Let’s Talk About Problems | Michael Bolton

“Don’t come to me with problems; come to me with solutions.”

“Failure is not an option.”

“I don’t want to focus on finding bugs; I want to focus on preventing bugs.”

At one time or another, you’ve probably heard all of the above. As testers, we encounter bugs, issues, and obstacles every day. Yet, talking about problems can be uncomfortable, controversial, and embarrassing.

Michael Bolton will discuss how testers can talk about those things courageously and deal with them reasonably and responsibly.

View Talk

4. Real Life Stories of Microservices Testing | Tomasz Dubikowski 

Cloud-based microservice architecture has seized our tech world. The new approach promises a quick, convenient development of modular, reliable and, most importantly, easily scalable systems. Microservices, when done alright, solve a significant amount of issues we face while working with monolithic applications.

However, done incorrectly, it can bring more harm than good to your project. And that’s a quite common case, as we don’t have much experience with the new architectural approach, and we are still learning how to use microservices properly.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Get to grips with common testing challenges while moving to cloud-based, microservice architecture
  2. Learn about contract testing in microservice architecture
  3. Learn about end to end, performance and infrastructure testing

View Talk

5. AI Testing in the Wild | Jason Arbon

AI is impacting the world of testing today. AI-based test automation is testing everything from games, gig-economy and finance apps, platforms, app stores, and thousands of top apps every day. AI is testing desktop, mobile, and web apps. AI has been commercially compared with the value of manual regression testing teams from 10 to 100–and it’s come out on top. AI is starting to give people the time to focus on the more creative and fun testing problems.

Jason shares real-world examples demonstrating the limitations and pains of some AI approaches, as well as ways in which AI is doing testing even humans couldn’t have performed.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Visually see AI testing real-world apps, in the wild
  2. Understand the limitations and superpowers of AI-based testing today
  3. Understand how AI-based testing stacks up against traditional manual and automated testing

View Talk

Ready to learn more? Book your online ticket now and save €150.

Agile Testing: 6 Top Talks at EuroSTAR Online

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With most companies practicing a version of agile methodology in their software development and testing, building on this is key for the future of testing: continuous integration, DevOps, and new trends in AI and ML are all changing the way you work.

Join leading experts from the testing community to learn about the latest trends in agile testing, solve tricky test issues, adapt to new forms of testing – and become the best at what you do.

Scrum and Kanban – Addressing Real Life Agile Testing Challenges | Fran O’Hara

Are you using Scrum, Kanban, or a hybrid of both? Do you have challenges with test and quality in these contexts? This tutorial is for you.

Get insights into key implementation challenges impacting quality, and test when these frameworks are used individually or in combination with each other. Test and quality related topics initially introduced will include common challenges experienced with team culture, team competencies and Dev-QA integration; user stories and backlog refinement; visualising and integrating testing into the work stream and more.

Plus, a significant element of this tutorial will give you the opportunity to identify your own test and quality challenges with the class, and vote on what challenge should get more focus, and interactive group discussion.

At the end of the tutorial, you will leave with a suggested list of ideas/tips and experiments to try to help address common challenges introduced in the class. You’ll also have access to all the learning materials.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Deeper insights into implementation challenges impacting quality and test when Scrum and Kanban are used individually or in combination with each other
  2. Suggested practical solutions to the real world issues being encountered now and as your team and organisation evolves.
  3. New ideas to enhance your effectiveness in agile testing

View Talk

Testing SAFely – Finding your way in the Scaled Agile Framework | Gitte Ottosen

Being a tester or test manager in a scaled agile framework can sometimes be a bit like being lost in the jungle; there are many strange animals there (new agile roles), and you have to learn to behave differently compared to the city in order to survive (ceremonies, life cycle). But, as time passes you learn new skills and maybe even change your mindset. You may find that the jungle isn’t that bad after all.

You might not turn out to be Tarzan or Mowgli – but you find ways to live and thrive in the new environment.

Gitte Ottosen took the journey to the wild, being a test manager and quality coach, trying to find her way in the jungle called SAFe. Based on her experience from several agile release trains, she will give you her insights on some of the challenges, along with several practical ways to solve them.

Key Takeaways:

  1. What to test – Safe says built in quality, what test does that result in?
  2. Where to test – Team Vs. Train
  3. Who drives test – The test manager as a coach

View Talk

The Green Traveller – Prioritizing Your Backlog to Make an Impact | Derk-Jan de Grood

Is your businesses a green traveler organization? Learn how to order your backlog based upon business value and define a roadmap that delivers a workable release. Using the slogan: “Get out the plane take the train”, the Green Traveler aims to expand travel coverage in Europe by combining and linking train and aircraft services, to enable an environmentally friendly one-stop-shop.

Help your organization by sorting their backlog in such a way that it yields in releases with e2e business value that provide fast feedback loops for the business.

While collaborating online with fellow participants, you’ll explore the role of testing as a measure to create feedback and assess whether the roadmap should be altered to optimize for testing. In additional rounds we’ll explore the impact that DevOps and IT improvements have on the road map and we’ll check whether the technical solution we defined aligns with the company goals. Participants of this workshop will gain insight in how to find routes through the forest and influence the planning of the development project, become part of the hunter’s team and hunt for quality, rather than be stuck in the wild.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Learn how to effectively sort a product backlog based on value
  2. Experience different ways to define a roadmap with clear releases
  3. Understand the impact of testing, improvements and DevOps on the release planning

View Talk

Taming DevOps | Hanna Dernbrant

When Hanna started at Jayway, she went from a waterfall mindset into working with DevOps. It was like going into the jungle, down the rapids – without a paddle! Much like being dropped in a jungle, where you’d turn to explore; she did the same thing in DevOps, and turned to exploratory testing – with great success.

One major difference is that when working with the waterfall model, much like the zoo, your team/pack is the same kind as you; a team of testers. It’s safe and comfortable. In DevOps all of a sudden you’re the only one of your kind. In the DevOps way of working, the pack is different types of people with different strengths. I found that I became a coach for the rest of the team on how to work with quality as a team. It is in everyone’s interest to work together to achieve a good quality product. No one wants that phone call in the middle of the night that wakes you in a panic and cold sweat!

Key Takeaways:

  1. A practical example of how to work in DevOps
  2. How to face the challenge of going from waterfall to DevOps
  3. How to coach your DevOps team members on test and quality

View Talk

Continuous Delivery in 4 Months for 15 Teams and their 1 Monolith | Thierry de Pauw

15 teams, 1 shared monolith, 1 release every 6 months, and product demand for 1 release every 2 weeks. How do you know where to start with Continuous Delivery, when you’re surrounded by technology and organisational challenges?

This is the journey of 15 teams and their 1 shared monolith, at a federal Belgian agency. They increased their throughput from bi-annual releases to fortnightly releases in under 4 months, achieving a state of Continuous Delivery.

The costs and time for testing quality into the software product, stabilising and releasing the product during each bi-annual release were skyrocketing. The demand for Continuous Delivery was there, but the circumstances made it very difficult.

I’ll cover how we used the Improvement Kata, Value Stream Mapping, and the Theory Of Constraints to choose which changes to apply first, and kickstart the organisational changes we needed to improve quality and drive down lead times.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Be able to use the Improvement Kata to introduce change at scale.
  2. Be able to run a Value Stream Mapping workshop to understand the current situation.
  3. Be able to use the Theory of Constraints to identify which activity should be improved first and which experiment will be most likely to succeed.

View Talk

The Power of Diversity in Cross-Functional Mob Programming | Cindy Duflot

I am part of a team that does full-time mob programming. The team consists of 12 people from various disciplines (including web, iOS, Android), but only a smaller group does mob programming. In the mob there are two backend developers, one frontend developer, one ops and one QA. We do just about everything together: picking up a story starts at the white board and ends with a push to production.

We draw out the functional and technical analysis and consider what is the best possible API to build for the client apps. In the backend we build and test together. For the mobile apps, we have mob testing sessions in which everyone goes through the feature and writes down the oddities on a white board. Working in this fashion makes standups, planning, retro etc almost superfluous. There is always one item in progress and everyone is working on it. Pretty simple right?

Key Takeaways:

  1. Mob programming is more than a theoretical approach you read about on blogs. Some people actually do it and it works.
  2. Ask yourself how agile your team really is.
  3. Maybe you are triggered to start your own mob?

View Talk

Ready to elevate your agile testing? Book your ticket to EuroSTAR Online here.

EuroSTAR Award Winners Week

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The EuroSTAR Awards recognise excellence in testing. This July, we are delighted to welcome our 2019 Awards Winners’ for 4-days of online talks. Join us for interactive talks with 4 of the greatest minds in testing!

Rob Lambert – Best Tutorial

The Best Tutorial winner was voted by the attendees of EuroSTAR. Last November, the community voted Rob Lambert as the Best Tutorial Winner for his workshop ‘Develop Your Super Power for Work and Life – the Communication Workshop’. Take your writing to the next level in his online talk on July 6th, Writing for Success.  Join Rob as he shares ideas and examples of good (& bad) communication, and ways to improve your reports, emails, blog posts or even that book you always wanted to write! Save your spot

Fiona Charles – Testing Excellence

The EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award  is the highest honour awarded by the EuroSTAR Community each year. The Award recognises the people who have most influenced our testing careers – colleagues, mentors, coaches, team-leaders, visionaries, hard-workers and persuasive thinkers … those who help us achieve more, be more, and aim for more by continuously striving for excellence in their work. Fiona Charles was awarded with this prestigious title at EuroSTAR 2019 in Prague. Join Fiona for her online talk on July 7th, Gaining Consciousness, discover how to question your own instincts and assumptions and become a better tester.

Anders Dinsen – Best Paper

Each year, the EuroSTAR conference speakers are invited to submit a paper to accompany their presentation at the conference. Anders Dinsen received the Best Paper Award of 2019. On July 8th, Anders will be presenting his online talk ‘The Quality of Dialogue’ as part of the Award Winners Week. Join Anders as he discusses the importance of understanding quality, exploration of the 4 domains of quality and as he shares techniques to frame a fruitful dialogue. Save your place.

Brendan Connolly – RisingSTAR

The Rising STAR award offers expert support, valuable mentorship and recognition to Software Testers whose ideas might benefit the Software Testing Industry.  It is about encouraging new ideas and new contributions to the software testing community. Brendan Connolly was awarded the 2019 RisingSTAR, for his concept ‘Inclusive Automation’. Join Brendan on July 9th as he discuses his journey to date, his idea and his learning’s. Register to attend

Connect with the testing community & help us celebrate the 2019 EuroSTAR Award Winners. Meet the winners as they give talks on Crowdcast, ask questions and chat. If you can’t make the date, register anyway and receive the recording to watch on demand

Register for Award Winners’ Week

Award Winners Week

Eurostar Online Ticket Benefits

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What are the EuroSTAR Online Ticket Benefits?

Get ready to empower your testing at Europe’s biggest testing event.

EuroSTAR Online is more than a conference. For the past 28 years, the best and brightest minds have come together to learn, test & connect. This year, we’re bringing our entire programme online for 3 days of of learning & networking.

This is your space – your space to think creatively and connect with testers from across the globe. This is where you can approach challenges from new perspectives and tap into your full potential. It’s the topics you care about, the tools you work with – and it’s a programme carefully curated by our programme committee for the best possible experience: interactive tutorials, inspiring keynotes and incredible track talks.

Our expert speakers are here to help, along with the worldwide testing community! Bring your ideas, problems, worries, and a fresh notebook – let’s put our heads together.

But what are the EuroSTAR Online ticket benefits? Here are 10 top reasons you should get your ticket now:

  • 3 days of half-day practical tutorials, keynotes & workshops
  • 55+ speakers who are industry leaders in their field
  • 60+ hours of quality, actionable content
  • 1:1 problem solving with experts
  • On demand access to tutorials to use as a resource in your work
  • Our beloved Huddle, plus trivia, hands-on testing & more, all re-imagined for online!
  • Try new testing tools & platforms from the world’s leading companies
  • No hard choices – attend any topics & sessions based on what you want to learn that day
  • Valuable training without any travel or accommodation costs
  • Instant connection with your peers and a space to open up exciting new conversations

It’s going to be an incredible conference, and we’re looking forward to welcoming testers from all over the world. Get your ticket now!

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How to become a top testing expert

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At some point this question will come to all of us in the industry: how do I become a top tester? My answer is this:  to become a top testing expert you need to be curious, a quick learner, and possess some technical skills.

Considering the IT evolution towards low-code solutions and increasing (right-first-time) time-to-market improvement challenges, for every minute a developer spends doing some coding, a higher volume of testing coverage is needed (and quickly!).

Since this isn’t achievable by increasing headcount, the only way is to use all automation and artificial intelligence capabilities by accelerating quality delivery. The engineer needs to ensure all pieces are fully functional, and ready to be part of any end-to-end business process… that will work E2E!

For many engineers solving development challenges at unit or system level, they can simply stay there – at unit or system level. However, the testing engineer must make sure that the unit does everything it should – and doesn’t do anything it shouldn’t – at necessary speed and security levels, as part of a bigger applicational and business process architecture.

Therefore, the learning skills and curiosity to go beyond borders will become key for success.

What if I can only pick one skill, either from soft skills or technical skills, that is key to become a top tester?

Then, I would say excellent communication skills are essential (including negotiation and conflict management). Why was this not in the initial top three skills that I’ve mentioned before? Simply because in this world of high demand for IT change, the need for functional end-to-end validation will increase. Robots will not be able to do it on their own (at least the fit-to-purpose) because it is something complex.

software testing graphic

Humans asking questions, changing their mind (according to the business needs), going through any lifecycle methodology and being delivered exactly as the human wants, are some of the factors that only humans understand. It will be extremely difficult, even impossible, for a machine to learn.

But doesn’t this sound contradictory? Yes, it does! And it is also the proof that the testing professionals and all other QA related jobs will have a massive increase in the coming years: while we’ll see low-code increasing, some other “Ultra High Even Less Code” approaches are also appearing, and it will require large amounts of testing effort, more and more.

So why should technical and curious professionals be ready for this challenge? The demand for quality assurance will increase, and without those professionals, it will be impossible to achieve everything, without technology to validate technology.

Looking for more ways to learn how to become a top tester? Check out the EuroSTAR 2020 Online programme.

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Eduardo Amaral, Quality Management Senior Manager at NoesisAuthor: Eduardo Amaral, Quality Management Senior Manager at Noesis

The 2020 EuroSTAR Programme is Here

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The first speakers for EuroSTAR programme are announced! We’re so excited to share our biggest year yet.

Inspiring Keynotes

The EuroSTAR 2020 programme has been carefully crafted by our committee, and it’s going to be incredible. The keynote speakers are leading experts in their field, and ready to share their insights and experiences. Join Ronald Cummings-John on the true value of quality; Abby Bangser on unlocking the power of testing; and get help on your testing problems from Michael Bolton. We also have Jason Arbon talking AI testing limits (and superpowers!). Meanwhile, Tomasz Dubikowski gets real with microservices testing.

Interactive Tutorials

The programme also features half day intensive tutorials offering in-depth learning in the hottest testing topics. Fran O’Hara delves into agile, Fiona Charles shares powerful test techniques, Alan Richardson gets technical on web applications, and LOTS more. You’ll get actionable tactics to improve your work and get back to work motivated and refreshed.

Incredible Track Talks

The 2020 EuroSTAR programme keeps on giving and there are two days of track sessions, bursting with talented speakers ready to delight and inspire. Learn to thrive in test automation, deep dive into continuous delivery, learn new skills to become better testers, and lots more. Bring your curiosity. Take-home new perspectives.

Meet Some Great People

The community is still at the heart of EuroSTAR, and outside of the talks, the 2020 Online conference will include interactive sessions and conference favourites that you’ve come to expect. Solve problems at the Test Clinic, try some hands-on testing at the Test Lab and enjoy fun and games in the Community Huddle…all re-imagined for an online experience.

Ready to join us in November? Get your tickets here.

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