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EuroSTAR Conference

Europe's Largest Software Testing Conference

Track Talk F8

Hope is Not a Plan

Fredrik Håård

10:00-10:45 CEST Friday 16th June

On a management level, almost any organisation – enterprise or startup – has a tendency to promote optimistic thinking, a “solutions not problems” attitude, and focus on moving forward above moving carefully.

While this may very well be a key to success, in the real world we sometimes need to take into consideration inconvenient things like compliance with law and regulations, protection of personal information, trade secrets, and life and limb.

For someone working in testing, QA, infosec, or operations it’s easy to come off as a naysayer and doomsday prophet when constantly raising concerns, and many organisations are content that as long as someone cares about “that stuff”, it will be enough to just hope that there will never be a data breach, backup failure, or serious accident.

This talk is about how we can handle working in an organisation where the impetus is to move forward without the regard to risk, and how we can communicate risk and allow informed decisions to be made instead of hoping everything will turn out right. It is not an attempt to teach shortcuts in communication to make others change, but a discussion of uncomfortable choices and prioritization, and about taking responsibility for consequences – even when the organisation sometimes feels unfair.

In the interest of not doing too abstract a talk, it will be sprinkled with real life amusing (terrifying?) war stories collected in twentysomething years of contracting – from newbie tester to tech lead.

What you will learn

  1. Even if it's not your job, handling risk might be your responsibility
  2. You don't have to choose between being a yes-person and a naysayer
  3. Choosing your conflicts is a key workplace and career skill

Session Details

  • Intermediate
  • 45 Minutes
  • Includes 15mins Q&A
  • Communication
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Session Speaker

Fredrik Håård EuroSTAR Speaker

Fredrik Håård

Developer – Metallapan, Sweden

Fredrik is a software developing freelancer, and in 20ish years has worked in “all of the industries” in almost every role from tech lead to tester. In his career he has worked with everything from tiny startups to huge enterprise companies and he’s currently the backend Django lead at Codepath.

Refusing to overly specialize or ever (again) accepting a management role, he combines a long and broad experience in software development with both technical and organizational skills. Recent work has focused on building teams, securing data and processes, and making sure that things go faster and/or cheaper.

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