Past Events

A two-hour online coaching presentation for a large corporate client. This was done as a conversation with one of their staff, and seemed very well received.

At CAST (the Conference of the Association for Software Testing) in Grand Rapids, Michigan, I was asked at the last minute to do a presentation as a replacement for a presenter who was unable to attend. I did my presentation on Noticing.

The Sixth Toronto Workshop on Software Testing, an invitation-only peer conference which I co-founded with Fiona Charles. This year we were privileged to have attendees from Calgary and England, in addition to our usual complement of people from Ottawa and southwestern Ontario.

A public offering of Rapid Software Testing in Amsterdam, organized by Diaz and Hilterscheid, the publishers of Testing Experience magazine.

Co-presented Cem Kaner's Black Box Software Testing class (with Cem himself in the lead role) to a corporate client in Waterloo, Ontario.

Assisted Cem Kaner in a rare live presentation of his Black Box Software Testing class here in Toronto, for TASSQ, the Toronto Association of System and Software Quality. Check out the online courses offered by the Association for Software Testing.

A webinar to help promote the EuroSTAR testing conference: "Testers: Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business".

A two-day public class in two parts: A Rapid Introduction To Rapid Software Testing and Critical Thinking for Testers, for the Southwestern Ontario Software Quality Group.

An in-house presentation of Rapid Software Testing for a corporate client in Waterloo. Because of a crowded schedule, we'll be doing the free fourth day later.

For the Calgary Software Quality Discussion Group, the first public presentation of "Testers: Get Out of the Quality Assurance Business".

Rapid Software Testing, in a three-day public offering in Calgary, AB, sponsored by Lynn McKee and by Wayne Stark of Integritas Solutions.

An afternoon with the Scottish Testing Group in Edinburgh. I presented Two Futures of Sofware Testing, Six Short Talks About Software Testing, and a new version of Burning Issues of the Day.

The London Tester's Gathering in the basement at the LVPO Bar in Soho, London, UK. I talked about (and heartily recommended) Leviathan and the Air Pump, a history of an epic scientific dispute that reflected the tensions between experiment and philosophy.

A three-day public offering of Rapid Software Testing in London, England, May 11-13. This one is sponsored by Stephen Allott at Electromind.

"I Wouldn't Have Seen It If I Hadn't Believed It: Confirmation Bias in Testing", a track session at the STAR East Conference, Orlando, Florida.

The 14th Workshop on Performance and Reliability in Montreal, Quebec.

Questioning Best Practices—a half-day tutorial at the Kitchener-Waterloo Software Quality Association's third annual Targeting Quality Conference.

A three-day session of Rapid Software Testing, plus a day of free consulting, for a corporate client in Colorado Springs, CO.

A three-day public offering of Rapid Software Testing in Berlin, Germany, sponsored by Testing Experience.

A three-day public offering of Rapid Software Testing, and a keynote talk on Testing, Checking, and Tools at the Conference on Free Testing Tools, sponsored by the Norwegian Computer Society, in Trondheim, Norway.

A keynote talk on testing vs. checking at the Conference on Free Testing Tools, sponsored by the Norwegian Computer Society, in Trondheim, Norway.

A meeting with a number of testers in Moscow, Russia, where I described, explained, and demonstrated Rapid Software Testing.

I gave an interactive talk, "Why Is Testing Taking So Long" at the Markham meeting for TASSQ, the Toronto Association of System and Software Quality.

The 2010 Workshop on Teaching Software Testing, in Melbourne, Florida. This year the subject was what to teach programmers about how to test at the implementation level.

A session of Rapid Software Testing with a corporate client in St. Louis, MO.

Burning Issues of the Day, a mini track session presentation at EuroSTAR 2009 in Stockholm, Sweden.

An Exploratory Testing Masterclass, a one-day tutorial at EuroSTAR 2009.

Exploring Testing (and) Leadership, the opening plenary presentation at STC 2009, a conference sponsored by the Edista Testing Institute and QAI Worldwide in Bangalore, India.

A two-day Rapid Software Testing class in Bangalore, India.

A one-day session of Rapid Software Testing in Hyderabad, India.

A one-day session of Rapid Software Testing in Chennai, India.

A one-day session of Rapid Software Testing in Mumbai, India.

A day of corporate consulting with a client in the Washington, DC area.

A session of Rapid Software Testing with a corporate client in Baltimore, MD.

TesTrek, a QAI-produced conference right here in Toronto. I participated in the Managers' Workshop on Monday. This included two impromptu talks Test Process in 20 Minutes and Automation in 20 Minutes. I also presented Two Futures of Software Testing on Wednesday.

At the Software Test and Performance Conference, Boston, MA, a keynote address, Lessons Testers Can Learn from Astronauts. In addition, three track talks: Noticing, A Rapid Introduction To Rapid Software Testing, and Two Futures of Software Testing.

Three sessions at STAR West, Anaheim, CA, October 5-9: Tester's Clinic: Dealing with Tough Questions and Testing Myths; Using the Secrets of Improv to Improve Your Testing; and The Skill of Factoring: Identifying What to Test. I also participated in a panel discussion hosted by Ross Collard, with James Bach, James Lyndsay, and Harry Robinson.

A re-presentation of my talk on noticing skills at the Kitchener-Waterloo Software Quality Association. That's skills of noticing, rather than how to notice particular skills, which is a somewhat different topic.

An online Webinar on exploratory approaches in Agile projects, with Chad Wathington from ThoughtWorks. My slides for the Webinar are are here.

Working with a local client to present Rapid Software Testing and four sessions of follow-up work, in Toronto, starting August 31 and continuing through the fall.

A workshop on "Why is Testing Taking So Long?" at Agile 2009, Thursday, August 27. The really interesting thing at the conference, for me, was the next day: a lightning talk on testing vs. checking. The story is in this blog post, and a series of blog posts on the topic begins here. But our current version of what testing and checking mean is here.

An in-house session of Rapid Software Testing and a day of hands-on testing, consulting and coaching with a client in northern Calfornia.

An in-house session of Rapid Software Testing and a day of hands-on testing, consulting and coaching with a client in northern Calfornia.

At the CAST Conference in Colorado Springs, CO, a one-day tutorial workshop with Fiona Charles called Testing Your Testing: Determining Risks, and solo, an interactive version of User Acceptance Testing: A Context-Driven Perspective. Some notes are available upon request. I also enjoyed facilitating a couple of sessions.

A public session of Rapid Software Testing, in London, England, UK, sponsored by ElectroMind.

Professional development: participated in Jerry Weinberg's workshop, Designing Experiential Exercises and Simulations, presented with Esther Derby June 22-26 in Albuquerque, NM.

A presentation of my keynote address, Two Futures of Software Testing (here's one version of it) at the June 17 BCS SIGIST Conference in London, England. Later that day, two pseudo-lightning talks (they were longer than five minutes). The first was on the subject of emotions as triggers to recognizing oracles and problems in software. The second was a work-in-progress on how we decide to stop testing, and why "testing" seems to take so long.

At the STAR East conference, produced by Software Quality Engineering in Orlando, FL, I gave a keynote address on Testing and Noticing. I also gave a half-day experiential workshop on Difficult Testing Questions and How to Answer Them, and a track session called Insource or Outsource Testing: Understanding Your Context.

The QAI QUEST Conference in Chicago. I gave a full-day workshop called Exploratory Testing: Design, Execute and Learn, and a track session billed as Exploratory Testing: Recording and Reporting. If you're interested in the topic, you may also be interested in a 2007 paper, An Exploratory Tester's Notebook.

A keynote presentation and a track session at the Triangle Information Systems Quality Assurance 2009 Testing Conference is in Chapel Hill, NC.

Rapid Software Testing, a full day of hands-on testing, consulting, coaching, dining, and chat with managers, plus two half-days attending and presenting at the company's Quality Summit.

A three-day session of Rapid Software Testing, plus a day of consulting, coaching, and hands-on testing with a corporate client in Madison, WI.

The annual Workshop on Teaching Software Testing, a peer conference in Melbourne, FL.

Rapid Software Testing—two sets of classes over five days, for testers, test leads, and managers—at a corporate client in Richmond, BC.

Rapid Software Testing—three days, plus a day of consulting and coaching for a corporate client in Kanata, ON.

Six Short Talks About Software Testing, for VX Company.

EuroSTAR 2008 in Den Haag, the Netherlands, at which I presented three sessions. The first, on November 11, was an experiential tutorial on Critical Thinking for Testers. The second, on November 12, was a double-track experiential session on Heuristics: Solving Problems Quickly. The third on November 13, was a track session, a new version of my talk Two Futures of Software Testing. For this I was honoured to accept the very first CapGemini European Award for Innovation in Testing. According more…

The day-after-AYE experiential workshop on teaching experiential workshops, presented by Jerry Weinberg and assisted by Esther Derby.

The annual AYE Conference (the ninth, and my sixth), at which I was delighted to assist Jerry Weinberg with several of his experiential workshops. This conference coincided with the debut of The Gift of Time, edited by my colleague Fiona Charles and the first published book to which I've contributed a chapter.

A morning presentation for corporate client and their clients on the value of exploratory approaches to testing. The day continued with a lunchtime presentation to the client's testers and programmers, and an afternoon of discussion with a couple of key test managers. Dinner included conversation with the client's staff and a manager from the morning session, and continued into the night (the Swedes have remarkable endurance) with discussion of how to establish a community of skilled testers. And then we more…

A three-day public course of Rapid Software Testing in Umeå, Sweden.

A presentation to a corporate client near Minneapolis, MN, followed by a couple of hours of conversation on test priorities and strategies in a highly regulated, high-risk context.

A three-day session of Rapid Software Testing in Minneapolis, MN, sponsored by the Twin Cities Quality Assurance Association, plus an address (Six Short Talks About Software Testing) on the last day to the TCQAA's monthly membership meeting. For a few members of the board, I also provided an evening's worth of consulting on presenting successful workshops as fundraisers for testing organization.

STAR West 2008, at which I presented a tutorial (Difficult Testing Question and How To Answer Them) and a track session, a requested repeat of last spring's session on test coverage. I also had the pleasure of some development work on the Rapid Software Testing course with James Bach, and the fun of playing testing games over several nights in the Lost Bar at the Disneyland Hotel.

A consulting assignment in which I was asked to observe, analyze, and report on my client's testing and development processes. This was a fairly inspiring occasion; one of the first times that I've even seen a development organization make excellent use of metrics. They used metrics for inquiry, not for control; that is, every measurement was assumed to prompt questions rather than to give answers.

A one-day workshop entitled "Exploratory Testing: Design, Execute, Learn" at the QUEST 2008 conference, Toronto, Ontario.

Four days of onsite consulting for a corporate client in Provo, Utah. This was a refreshing opportunity to present some of the material from the Rapid Software Testing course, but also to have more free-ranging discussions about testing with the company's testers and test managers.

Six Short Talks About Software Testing, a special presentation for a corporate client in Toronto, Ontario.

Rapid Software Testing three-day course, plus a day of consulting and coaching for a corporate client in Toronto, Ontario. This is the second time this client has had me teach. Clients often use our exercises for interviews and training after the course, so a lot of the participants this time had been exposed to some of our regular exercises, so this was a great opportunity to debut and develop new exercises, or to put a new spin on old ones.

When Two Plus Two is Wrong (a half-day workshop) and Numbers vs. Narratives (a keynote address) at the Software Testing Australia New Zealand (STANZ) conference in Wellington, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. I also gave a full-day tutorial, Critical Thinking for Testers, in Wellington.

I acted as Conference Chair for the Conference for the Association for Software Testing (CAST) 2008. Keynotes included Jerry Weinberg, Cem Kaner, Rob and Anne Sabourin, and Brian Fisher. I also presented Testing and Music: Parallels in Practice, Skills and Learning, which I co-authored with Jonathan Kohl, and assisted Jerry Weinberg at the Tester's Communication Clinic.

The fourth Toronto Workshop on Software Testing, which I co-organized with Fiona Charles (Fiona did most of the heavy lifting this year). This year's topic was Deception and Self-Deception in Software Testing.

Rapid Software Testing in a three-day private session for a corporate client in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Nice to be at home for a change!

Rapid Software Testing, a three-day public course sponsored by Sogeti Spain, in Barcelona, Spain.

Six Short Talks about Software Testing, for the Toronto Association of System and Software Quality.

A three-day public session of Rapid Software Testing, sponsored by ENEA in Stockholm, Sweden.

While in transit to Sweden, I had the good luck to be able to attend LEWT, the London Exploratory Workshop on Testing, a peer conference organized by James Lyndsay (and many thanks to him).

Two talks at STAR East: Angels and Devils of Software Testing (with Jonathan Kohl) and Understanding Test Coverage.

I appeared at the inaugural Conference for the Kitchener Waterloo Software Quality Association, where I presented Why I Am Not (Yet) Certified, followed by a half-day Testing Clinic.

The Software Test and Performance Conference (STPCon) in San Mateo, CA. I presented a one-day Rapid Software Testing workshop, and then three track sessions: The Metrics Minefield; User Acceptance Testing; and Exploratory Testing: The State of the Art.

A three-day Rapid Software Testing workshop for a corporate client in Ronneby, Sweden, followed by a day of hands-on testing work and two presentations; one to managers and the other to developers.

A three-day Rapid Software Testing workshop for a corporate client in Ottawa, Ontario.

A three-day Rapid Software Testing workshop, followed by a day of work with small groups of testers, for a corporate client in Istanbul, Turkey.

Rapid Software Testing for a couple of corporate clients in Lund, Sweden.

In the morning, a presentation on exploratory testing and on heuristics for a group of testers, developers, and managers at a corporate client in Lund, Sweden. In the afternoon, a workshop on exploratory testing, featuring mostly a set of exercises, for some of the testers from the morning group.

A one-day presentation of Rapid Software Testing for the Norwegian Computer Society in Oslo, Norway.

Participated in the Workshop on Teaching Software Testing. Presented a couple of exercises from the Rapid Software Testing course. These exercises engage testers' emotions, curiosity, and inventiveness, which seemed of particular interest to the many of the academics.

Rapid Software Testing—a three-day course, sponsored by the Toronto Association of System and Software Testing.

One day of consulting as follow-up to the Rapid Software Testing course for a corporate client in Mississauga, ON.

Rapid Software Testing—a three-day course, followed by a day of consulting, at a corporate client in Omaha, NE.

A Rapid Introduction to Rapid Software Testing—a one-day workshop at EuroSTAR 2007, Stockholm, Sweden.

Rapid Software Testing at a corporate client in Mississauga, Ontario.

Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference, Grand Rapids, MI. I gave a half-day Rapid Software Testing tutorial, a lightning talk on Emotions and Oracles, and appeared on a panel discussion software testing certification schemes (I'm not in favour of the current ones).

Live host for a remote presentation by David Platt on Why Software Sucks.

Gave an Ignite Presentation (a lightning talk) on Emotions and Test Oracles at DemoCamp 15, Toronto, ON.

Presented Emotions and Test Oracles, a track presentation at the STAR West conference, Anaheim, CA.

Three-day Rapid Software Testing course for a corporate client in Tempe, AZ.

Presented a three-day Rapid Software Testing course, with an extra day of followup consulting with the test leads, for a corporate client in Waterloo, ON.

A one-day Rapid Introduction to Rapid Software Testing for a modestly-sized corporate client in Redmond, WA.

Presented three papers for the 25th annual Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference in Portland, OR: Two Futures of Software Testing and User Acceptance Testing in Context (two older talks promoted to papers) and An Exploratory Tester's Notebook (a new talk and paper).