05 June 2012

My first EAST meetup

Yesterday I attended my first EAST meetup here in Linköping, Sweden. I met some amazing people and left with loads of inspiration.

But first things first: What is EAST?
EAST is an open network for software testers in the Linköping area, focused on Context Driven Testing. The group's main forum is a LinkedIn group but they also have a Twitter account in case only knowing about the actual events is enough. Apart from the online presence the group arranges meetups roughly once a month with about 15-20 participants. The group consists of well known testers like Johan Jonasson and Johan Åtting as well as newly graduates.

Anyway, this post was about my own experiences so here we go. As soon as I entered I was warmly welcomed and discussions regarding what I and others did started. When everyone finally had arrived we ate together (ordered pizza, not more glamorous than that) and the discussions continued with subjects like values in testing, skills/education and how to spread the knowledge of what we do.

After the food Hanna Germundsson presented her master thesis (or rather results so far) on testing in an agile environment, with a long interesting discussion as the result. Both the presentation and discussion gave me lots of valuable insights and thoughts on subjects like how to educate testers, if it's possible to measure test progress in a useful way and if it's possible to estimate required test time/effort. I also signed up to participate in an open discussion Hanna would arrange to use for her master thesis, something I'm really looking forward to.

Finally the participants who attended Let's Test 2012 talked a bit about their experiences, memories and learned lessons from the conference. If I weren't enticed enough to attend Let's Test 2013 I definitely am now. Just keeping my fingers crossed that the education budget will allow it (not looking too promising, especially not if I, as I've already requested, get to attend RST with James Bach i November, but I'm sure it's possible to solve). Morgan also provided us with a great two minute summary of Rob Sabourin's  Just in time testning presentation on Let's Test.

To summarize; this was a great evening and today I felt really inspired when I left for work. I will definitely attend the next meetup if it doesn't conflict with something really important (with no more kids on the way I doubt that will happen). Hopefully I'll be able to bring a couple of curious colleagues with me as well.

4 comments:

  1. Hej Erik,

    Kul att du fann EAST-träffen givande. Vi ska försöka hitta ett datum för nästa träff (efter sommaren) som vi siktar på att gå ut med innan semestern.

    Om du har förslag på datum, tema eller lokal som du tror passar dig (och eventuella kollegor) extra bra så hör gärna av dig.

    / Johan

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    1. Lokal ska jag definitivt kolla med Ericsson. Tema klurar jag på. Är väldigt nyfiken på hur Secra hanterar sin testning men vore kul att blanda in fler för att ge Secra-gruppen mer utbyte av en sån diskussion... kanske "fundamenten för en välfungerande testorganisation"? (inte ett dyft brett ämne)

      Om intresse finns så kanske det skulle gå att ta en pubkväll/after work redan i sommar, bara man hittar nån pub där man faktiskt kan prata och dricka öl samtidigt. Nåja, skickar det i LinkedIn-gruppen istället, där gör förslaget mer nytta .)

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  2. Hej Erik!

    Nu var jag som du vet inte med på EAST-mötet ovan men jag gissar att namnet du är ute efter är Morgan (och inte Morgon) som gjorde 2-minuterren om Just in Time testing. På Let's Test var det Rob Sabourin som höll en heldags tutorial i ämnet.

    Hoppas verkligen du lyckas komma iväg på RST med James Bach i November.

    /Johan Åtting

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    Replies
    1. Så mycket för att man försöker pricka rätt namn, korrigerat nu, tack för kommentaren! Vart faktiskt så nyfiken efter MorgAns körning att jag sökte vidare på Rob Sabourin och JIT.

      Tack för tummen till november, det fina är väl att blir det ett nej har jag ett ganska bra case för att driva ett deltagande på Let's Test istället (ljuset i mörkret).

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