KEYNOTE TALK

Cutting edge or Cutting corners? Let’s bring ethics to the table

Delivering something new, better, faster than our competition can mean incredible payoff. But the risks are equally high. Maybe you wake up to your stocks being worth a fortune, or maybe you wake up to the 189 dead in a plane crash. I know. You are just a tester. It wasn’t your decision to push that to production, a long chain of people likely made a number of decisions that led up to this. But how far can we claim our innocence? Do we let that potential risk slip by even if we know it might potentially cause someone to lose time, money, or even health? What are we, as individuals, responsible for and how much can we hide behind the chain of command?

When building software, we often talk about what is possible from a technical point of view, what a user would want and what would benefit the business. But what about the ethical and moral implications of a solution? Are we building cutting edge software or are we just cutting corners? And what does ethics and morals have to do with software testers. Let’s explore the ethics of software development, focusing on quality in general and testing in particular. Let’s find our red line and look at how to figure out what’s actually the worst thing that could happen.

What you’ll learn

Session details

Lena Nyström

Lena has been building software since 1999, starting out as a developer. She found her passion in testing a decade later and has been focusing on quality in software since then. Her core drive is continuous improvement and she strongly believes we all should strive to challenge ourselves, our assumptions and the way things are done. She is an active voice in the testing community, author and creator of “Would Heu-risk it?”, an avid blogger, international keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. She works as CEO and Test Consultant at the Stockholm branch of Test Scouts.