KEYNOTE TALK

Bright Future or Dark Age: Why Testers Matter

Technology can reduce work, make people’s lives easier, and eliminate human error. Or it can disempower us, mislead us, and destroy our data. Which is it? How will things go? We may have our hopes and fears for the products we build, but we don’t have to settle for unwarranted beliefs and assumptions – we can get facts and hard evidence.

That’s what testers are for science helps us learn about the way things work in the physical and social worlds, and testing does the same for software. Testing is to technology what science is to the wider world: a set of beliefs, principles, and practices that help us to get to truths about things.

A builder must be optimistic to make cool new things. Builders focus on the benefits of their creations. They must have a certain faith in their tools and tech stacks, because otherwise they would be overwhelmed and paralysed by the prospect of having to evaluate them. This presents an internal conflict, because effective testing requires a reversal of faith – anticipating failure instead of envisioning success. For a builder, successful testing means discovering problems, potential loss of face, accusations of incompetence or time-wasting, and the necessity of fixing the problems that have been found.

In this keynote with Michael Bolton, you’ll see the way to resolve the conflict is having a dedicated tester: someone who has the time to test because they don’t have to build; someone happy instead of embarrassed to find problems; someone with perspective at a distance from that of the builder.

What you’ll learn

Session details

Michael Bolton

Michael Bolton is a consulting software tester and testing teacher who helps people to solve testing problems that they didn’t realize they could solve. In 2006, he became co-author (with James Bach) of Rapid Software Testing (RST), a methodology and mindset for testing software expertly and credibly in uncertain conditions and under extreme time pressure. Since then, he has flown over a million miles to teach RST in 35 countries on six continents. Michael has over 30 years of experience testing, developing, managing, and writing about software. For over 20 years, he has led DevelopSense, a Toronto-based testing and development consultancy.