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Track Talk F6

Twenty First Century Stress Management for the Busy Tester

Kristina Sabotic

Carin Norling

10:30-11:30 Friday 14th June

Experiences of unhealthy stress and exhaustion syndrome. Stina and Carin will give you a 360 view on how exhaustion syndrome lurks in the hallways of QA professionals. Stina is a QA consultant who fell into the trap of working day and night, taking on ever growing responsibilities until she fell ill from it. Carin is a manager, often meeting similarly stressed QA consultants, continually trying to find early signs of unhealthy stress, and helping convalescents return to work.

As QA professionals, we are trained to spot things that are wrong, and we´re really good at it. Not just errors in software, but everywhere! It’s a blessing and a curse. Being the test leader on a project often means also finding what’s dysfunctional in the ways of working, such as requirements, release, agile methodology. We find it either proactively through our habit of risk-based thinking, or later when chaos breaks loose.

We tend to take on these responsibilities as well, in addition to the normal test activities. “Of course, I, the test lead, can be an agile coach and do some requirements management too! Or this release will fail!”

This is often a benefit to the projects we´re in but carries a personal risk of unhealthy stress and burnout.

So, let’s talk stress management in the looming shadow of burnout. What stress and exhaustion are, how it works, what the return journey might look like.