The Ministry of Testing Discuss Session Based Testing in Leeds

FDM has been sponsoring the Ministry of Testing (MOT) Meetup events in Leeds for the last six months. These talks have covered a broad range of topics including monitoring performance metrics using a range of tools, transferable skills within testing and mental health in the IT industry. Daniel Horan has been involved with these events since the beginning and shared his thoughts on the latest instalment which delved into session based testing.

These talks inspired me to get involved in the sessions myself. I have a background in training and I have always been passionate about passing on my knowledge and experience to help people learn and develop themselves. I spoke to the event organisers and asked if I could deliver a talk. They were keen for me to focus on a subject that would appeal to the variety of people attending the event. This includes testers with years of experience, junior testers and people looking to get into the testing industry.

After much thought, I decided to do my talk on Exploratory Testing Using the Session-Based Testing Technique. I chose this topic because it is:

• Testing focused so it would engage the audience.
• Not too technical so an audience made up of different abilities would be able to follow along.
• A relatively unknown technique so people in the audience would be developing some new knowledge they could use at a later date.
• Easy to apply in real-life test scenarios so the audience would be able to apply the technique to improve their testing activities.
• A practical activity which doesn’t require any tools or software which made it easy to create interactive exercises that the audience could complete as part of the talk.

To ensure a successful talk, I put a lot of effort into the preparation of all the elements required including the:

• Presentation – Covering exploratory testing and session based testing in detail.
• Handouts – Providing examples the audience could take away with them.
• Exercises – Creating practical exercises where the audience could apply what they had learnt in the talk to a Sudoku puzzle.

The talk was delivered at the April MOT Leeds Meetup on Thursday 25^th April and it went very well. The feedback from the audience was very positive and I thoroughly enjoyed helping everybody in attendance to learn more about a subject that they didn’t have much prior knowledge of.

Delivering presentations is an essential part of the technology industry as you’re often required to impart information to a variety of stakeholders. My advice would be to start developing these skills now and always think about how you can improve.

The next Ministry of Testing Meetup will take place on Thursday 23^rdMay and will follow an automation and technical theme.