Test:Fest 2018 – the real pearl among #PL #testing #conferences

Shall we begin from one of the best gadgets is conferences’s history – THE SOCKS!
I fell in love at once.

Daria and I (and crowds of testers behind us):

Test:Fest conference took place today in Wrocław. What a wonderful event – one of my favorite testing conferences in Poland – prepared by the testers for the testers. It is free – the only condition to take part in it – is to get / gain / receive a ticket. You need to be lucky!

The Organisers are responsible for making things awesome – and I believe that we shall honor them with a round of applause

and any super-fancy-testing-celebrity-rankings available (apologies for horrible picture quality):
Marta Firlej
Anna Kovalchuk
Tomasz Olszewski
Dariusz Olszewski
Mateusz Holewski.

They voluntarily work hard to make this event happen – invest their knowledge and experience to improve speaker’s skills – look for sponsors, and prepare low cost – high quality event. And still they keep smiling!

There was a lot to eat, a sea of coffee to drink and plenty to do apart from the presentations.

I also was given a lovely coffee at UBS stand (omnomnomn):

I would like to tell you about the noise, laughter, friendly small talks, smell of coffee in the air and nice people. It was a great experience, indeed. All talks on time, facilitated by the organizers, with minor technical issues, but without major catastrophes.
What is more, this year IBIS Styles hotel (conference’s location,) felt a bit overcrowded, so next year – the stadium 😉
To give you some background – if you are a tester working in Wrocław or elsewhere in Poland – you would like to be here on Test:Fest – that’s why people came, that’s why it was so hard to get ticket and that’s why each year there is more and more of us.

Let me start from my personal agenda for the event from conference’s application:

There was lot more going on, but I decide to support my friends and watch their talks during the day. I was more than happy to listen about their experiences and current project work. Test:Fest is a place where you can meet people you know, talk to them, find them available and willing to talk.

As for the 4th time Tomasz Dubikowski was selected as the best speaker, I have to admit that he is one of our best speakers 🙂 But he knows that 😉

I would like to give my personal Best Speaker award to Joanna Jeziorska – you rock girl!

It was the first time I had an opportunity to listen to her talk – and I had great fun. This presentation about exploratory testing and being like Bear Grylls contained some fun exercises, gave us opportunity to meet people around and make a bit fun of ourselves. It was light, it was amusing, it was brilliant. Asia was the most cheerful presenter that day as well. She has so much positive energy that I can’t just stop smiling when thinking about her talk. A thought worth to remember:

This time at the Test:Fest conference I took the opportunity to attend discussion panels and I had a really great time there.

Michał Buczko gathered quite an audience on his panel about opportunities in career development for software testers.

This is what we came up with during all the discussion. It was involving, I have to admit. People shared their stories and ideas and Michał told us a lot about his personal experiences in the field of recruitment and changing career path.
Our takeaway: take this “map” – think about your needs and abilities, think about your career plans and draw the lines.
Where are you now?
What should you learn to achieve the next level?
Is it possible withing your organisational structures?
It is all personal and depends on your position and your company.

We had a bit of change this year – some presentations and panels were conducted in English – that gave our local – international community fully attend the event.

Maciej Wyrodek – author of technical blog The Broken Test – was trying to convince us that we should steal from scientists and make our testing more organised, technical, scientific and valuable.

A lot of good ideas, plenty of candies and his famous bare feet dressed this time in conference’s socks.

What can I say – I liked it!

Last but not least – Dawid Pacia – the tester that you should be like this year (“People of testing 2018”). I couldn’t miss such talk.

It was the most technical presentation I attended. Full of examples from daily routine of IoT tester. Interesting, full of funny cats and hardware issues 🙂
A piece of IoT’s tester sense of humor:

Once again – for all the speakers, volunteers and organizers – a round of applause. You’ve earned it.

I hope at least some of the presentations will be available online, so you’ll be able to listen all the talks.

See you next year on Test:Fest!

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