What is Professional Testing?

by | Syndicated

Wikipedia has this to say about what a professional is:

A professional is a member of a profession or any person who earns their living from a specified activity.

Hmm. So what’s a profession then?

A profession is a vocation founded upon specialized educational training, the purpose of which is to supply disinterested objective counsel and service to others, for a direct and definite compensation, wholly apart from expectation of other business gain. (also from Wikipedia.)

That’s all settled then, right? Wrong. Because in MEWT 5 we’ll be asking – what exactly does it mean to be a Professional Tester? And, since I already cited the quotes above. You won’t be allowed to. In fact, we’ll expect you to delve deep and reach far and wide into the many and varied facets of what it means to demonstrate professionalism in the face of a rapidly changing technological and sociological landscape.

We will be looking for presentations, questions, strategies, models, insights and experience reports – lasting in the region of 10-15 minutes – covering important aspects of professional testing. Such as:

  • Engagement with and use of a body of testing knowledge, tools, models, approaches and heuristics.
  • Effective decision-making within changing, uncertain and unpredictable situations
    Making sense of and managing risk when dealing with potentially incomplete and conflicting information
  • Considerations when working as a lone tester, or as part of a team – both wide and small
  • Thriving in the midst of the unknown and the unexpected, in addition to the routine and predictable
  • Heuristics and principles to aid in the resolution of complex ethical and moral matters
  • Personal and team-wide learning and development strategies
  • Working within regulatory frameworks
  • And many more besides.

MEWT 5 will take place on the 9th April at the fantastic Attenborough Nature Reserve venue (checkout photos from previous events!)

Invites have been sent, but if you’re interested in attending – please contact the organisers (Bill, Richard, Vernon or myself) and we’ll be happy to try to accommodate you. If you’ve already received an invite, please send your abstract (title, brief outline, bullet-point summary of talk) to me by the 27th March, and we look forward to engaging with you and your specialist subject area on the day.