EuroSTAR is delighted to bring back the TeamSTAR Meet-up Competition which rewards the hard work of meet-up organisers. This blog shows the hard-work, dedication and passion the Sarajevo QA Crew have put in for the Bosnia & Hergzeovenia QA Community. Continue reading to hear all about their TeamSTAR meet-up which took place 19th Sept.
Author: Nina Mučibabić
Hello QA people! This is the story about the QA Meetup “Let’s test together” which was held on 19th September in Sarajevo and organized by Sarajevo QA Crew, in cooperation with company Mistral Technologies. The Sarajevo QA Crew started in August 2018 with an aim to gather all QA professionals and enthusiasts in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The goal is to provide meeting points for the QA lovers, to come together to meet, socialise and learn together.
During August, we read an email from the EuroSTAR about the TeamSTAR competition. We realized that it would be great to participate. The award is truly amazing – tickets for this year’s conference which will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 11th to 14th of November in 2019. “What a motivation” – we thought 🙂 The opportunity to participate in such a big and famous conference will be awesome especially because of the long EuroSTAR history, because of the networking, knowledge, and because of that golden city – Prague! This time we were supported by the company Mistral Technologies. Once again, we tried to be brave, and we tried to get out of the comfort zone, to be innovative. Our country has got a real QA community and we realize that we should keep up with doing great things to make our community better.
Preparations of the event
We made an amazing boom in our society when we started with this story. Our events became events that you should not miss. We have got a lot of amazing impressions for our work, and the companies started to be interested in collaboration with us. Big and famous companies in our country contacted us with the desire to be the host of our event. They all recognize how important QA community is and how we need something like that in the country. We chose Mistral Technologies as the host company because it is a company with great business culture. They are also working hard on developing the business, design, QA and DEV communities. After confirming the location, we started looking for the speakers. We have our base with a lot of submissions, and it was very hard to choose speakers/presentations because all submissions were very interesting and with the great content. The interviews with the potential speakers were one of the most important periods in our preparations. We decided to be a little flexible and to choose topics with various level of seniority. Talking more
about:
● Business Intelligence and ETL/Data Warehouse testing;
● Performance Testing – best practices;
● Challenges between QAs and Devs in the agile sprint seem to us as an excellent choice for our next meetup.
19th of September perfectly fits all speakers and hosts, so we marked that date in our calendar for the next QA meetup “Let’s Test Together”. And, our event needs to be published online. Is there a better day for that than the Tester’s Day? Of course, not. We celebrated our day by creating and sharing the event on Eventbrite and Facebook. We selected 3 presentation and after applying to the TeamSTAR competition, we started with the promotion of the meetup on social media networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
We decided to work smart and to use the event concept which already gave excellent feedback. So, we realized that’s best to use the concept of the event where the presentations of professionals are incorporated with Q&A sessions as well as with networking before and after the sessions.
The live meeting with speakers and the host company members was almost once a week before the event. We spoke about the agenda and concept of the event. We agreed to have a relaxing and motivating atmosphere since we planned to have an open space discussion with all participants. The plan was to host 70-80 attendees, and on the day of publishing the Eventbrite event, we got a waitlist after three hours! That was a shock! Huge interest was amazing! The whole promotion was successful. People from Bosnia and Herzegovina found out more about Sarajevo QA Crew meetups and about the great EuroSTAR conference which is supporting this QA event “Let’s test together”.
Beginning of the event
On the day of the event, we prepared the space. Posters were hanging around the event space and at the entrance of the building as well.
We used the website Sli.do for the questions throughout the whole duration of the event. Participants were supposed to write their questions and comments there and in that way, we centralized the whole process.
As we said earlier, we planned to organize the meetup for 70-80 people. All seats were reserved very quickly, so we made a waiting list which counted 73 persons. All 70 people from the official list and some of them from the waiting list visited us. Counting us (SQAC team) and colleagues from the company Mistral Technologies, there were more than 100 persons, so full house, as on the two previous events!
Also, some persons were standing because they wanted to attend the event despite what we were saying to them that the persons from the waitlist will not have a chair. During the intro speech, we highlighted that EuroSTAR supported the event, the second time, so in 2019, for the third meetup, as well as in 2018 for our first meetup. We shared our experiences from the EuroSTAR conference 2018 in Hague and spoke about its amazing atmosphere, networking, useful talks, workshops, expos and the parties. Also, we spoke about the EuroSTAR 2019 and its speakers for this year, and also, we emphasize the importance of teamwork during software testing. We match the name of our event (QA meetup “Let’s Test Together“) with it, and also with the idea of the EuroSTAR, TeamSTAR Competition. According to impressions, the audience was amazed by the EuroSTAR. We discussed many topics. The first presentation was all about the terminology used in the Data Warehouse, as well as the basic flows of data and testing that are typical on an ETL project, and Business Intelligence reports that have become a standard component of modern business infrastructure. The second presentation taught us how speed, responsiveness, and stability of software products could have an impact on the final product. In the third presentation, we could hear how important is a clean communication between QAs and Devs in the agile sprint.
Presentations of the speakers & networking
Representing the home team, and proudly so, Anesa Džano (Mistral Technologies) confidently cracked the ice with her presentation. She spoke about her favourite fields of interest – Business Intelligence & ETL/Data Warehouse testing. After a simplified, yet perfectly detailed presentation, Anesa showed us what it all boils down to; Creating interactive, data-rich reports and charts that if used wisely, can save millions to business.
The next presentation was about performance testing. Lejla Kulo and Nedim Korjenic (Authority Partners) introduced us to Web Performance and Load testing capabilities provided in Visual Studio. A brief walk through the steps of web performance tests creation, and running load tests using Visual Studio Web Performance Tests and Visual Studio Load tests solution, and finally the analysis of the load test results. They discussed with us, through their examples, how they determine the speed, responsiveness, and stability of software products, evaluating them relentlessly until perfection (or close to it). It wasn’t hard to see how much they enjoy the work they do and that performance testing is their dominant
field.
Last but not least presentation was prepared by Aida Mackovic and Deniz Kesten (Softray Solutions). They shed a light on more psychological aspects of QA. In a very amusing way, they spoke about team dynamics and highlighted the importance of clear communication channels between QAs and Devs. The topic of this charming duo was “Share the pain and
find the solution together”.
The audience got inspired by the content and the Q&A session lasted for 30 minutes. After Q&A session, we awarded two audience members, who published the best photos of the Meetup and used the right hashtags on social media, with 100 BAM credit card and a limited edition of Mistral goodies. A great way to finish the official part of the event and move on to networking with snacks and drinks.
Big room wrap up
At the end of the event, we had the so-called “Big room wrap up” during which our speakers summed up everything that was happening in open space discussions and concluded what we all learned together during the QA meetup “Let’s test together.”
Social media, Testimonials, Survey Results
The whole story about the meetup “Let’s test together” were shared on our social media
channels:
With 100 persons in attendance, there was a high positive atmosphere, new handshakes and hugs, laughs, and new cognitions. What makes us, as organizers also happy is the fact that we beautified the evening and that they left the meetup inspired.
After the event, we sent a satisfaction survey to all the participants. About 80% of them responded and we collected the data. The event an incredible score of 4.6 of 5.
The participants liked the overall idea very much thus the presentations and discussions were enjoyable and along with the meetup. They also told us that they really need such events which are about the QA since cities in our country are offering mostly events for developers.
They told us that the next time the meeting place should be bigger and we-organizers also realized that because the QA lovers are numerous in Sarajevo as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The participants also said that the whole content of the meetup was interesting, with the opportunity to ask questions during the whole event. The length of the event was optimal for the majority of the participants, but some of them gave us the recommendation to make the one QA event that would last all day.
Host company also leave their feedback. They said that it was wonderful to work with us, that we met all their expectations, and that they are open for future collaborations with us.
Once again the event is a great example of how a vision, persistence and support in the team can together get a value for the whole community. Now our Bosnia and Herzegovina have an official QA crew – Sarajevo QA Crew.
We realized that the TeamSTAR competition was a trigger once more for the young creative minds to show that they can make inspiring things for the city as well as for the country. We are proud of all of us and happy that the meetup attendees really got engaged and interested in EuroSTAR conference since they asked Google about it during the event and they shared
Author: Nina Mučibabić
Kudos to The Sarajevo QA Crew! The we love seeing the community come together and this meetup group is the definition of community! Well done to all involved!