I'm in Manchester, U.K. this week presenting at and attending EuroStar 2006. The key theme of the week has been "wet"!
I guess I should have expected that. I'm glad I brought an extra pair of shoes. That allowed me to have one "wet pair" and one "dry pair!" Although the weather has been a little dreary, the conference has been good.
Seriously, the theme this week for the conference has been "Building the Dream Team" and the focus has been on the human aspects of software testing. Scott Barber, one of three or four us here from the USA, gave a very good keynote talk on Wednesday on "Special Teams" in testing. His focus being performance testing, Scott did a great job in comparing how the critical functions, such as Configuration Management, Performance Testing, Security Testing, etc., are like the special teams on a football team (US version). You can win and lose games based on the performance of the kicking team, punt return team, etc. Good analogy!
I attended a session that discussed the feasibility of trying to define a Body of Knowledge for software testing. There certainly are many issues and challenges in doing that, but I could see some value, especially if it were an open contribution, such as wikipedia. More to come on that.
I also attended a great session today about testing the accessibility of software by people with disabilities. I came away with an increased awareness of the importance of this type of testing and some good ways to perform it, so look for some of those ideas to be developed into an upcoming article in my newsletter.
It's been great to see friends here again. The folks at Grove Consultants are always a joy to be around. I must find a way to keep Lloyd Roden from buying all my meals. Thanks Dot, Lloyd, Mark, Clive and Julie for your hospitality! Thanks to Graham Freeburn for being a great track host and for the use of a cell phone while here! Thanks to all the people at QualTech for 1) inviting me to speak and 2) for being great hosts as well.
It's been a challenge to find Wi-fi from my hotel, so I resort to trying various places. So, I must sign off now. I'm back to the USA tomorrow (Friday) and will post again soon.
Thanks for reading!
Randy
