Last week, I attended the latest SIGiST Israel evening conference. SIGiST Israel is the Special Interest Group in Software Testing, Israel, and they hold evening events about 3 times a year, a 4-day testing conference once a year, and other test related activities every now and again. The subject

And now, last but absolutely not least, the "Best Presentation Award", which went to Danny (Danko) Kovatch. Danny's talk was a double session, and it could easily have been a 1 or 2-day tutorial. His subject was "Scrum: the Roles and Responsibilities of QA", and included a short

OK, so we come to the last presentation in the Test Management track for the day. There are actually two more test management presentations the following day, but I'm giving my own presentation in the Testing Methodology track, so I'll be missing them. Mieke Gevers, from aQis in Belgium, is our last speaker. Mieke lives and breathes Testing, and in fact she told me that she is "passionate about testing - it is like blood running into her veins". In addition to her 20 years' experience as a software developer, analyst, project manager and ultimately QA Manager for several companies in Europe, including Borland and Segue, she is a regular conference speaker throughout Europe, the United States, Asia and Australia ( I really do envy her!). Mieke is also EuroSTAR's country coordinator for Belgium, and was a team member of the EuroSTAR 2007 committee.  

3rd Session: Dr. Avi Ofer, Intel, on “The Battle for the Mouse: the Art of ATP“. Accompanied by some wonderful photographs from his ATP (acceptance test plan) travels around the world, to India, Taiwan and Italy, Avi explained why getting formal acceptance from the customer is probably the most important milestone in the life cycle of

OK, I've caught up on sleep after 2 very busy days at SIGiST 2008. And looking at my blog posts till now, I think that I'm going to do a few shorter ones for a bit. Here's the next session from Tuesday's Test Management track. 2nd Session: Katy Podolner-Rotman, Aternity, on "Surviving "crunch time": Dealing with constant change, high workload and communication issues". Katy started off by giving us her list of "unwritten rules" about how to deal with these issues at crunch time: DO:

• Plan for tired people
• Make time for rest/fun
• Appreciate people's work and effort
• Improve "while running"
• Communicate - within the team and between teams
• Laugh :-)

• Over schedule
• Multitask
• Overwork yourself and others
• Let small issues develop into huge ones

1st Session: Yaron Tsubery, Comverse, on "The Psychology Behind Test Management" Yaron started off the morning with a presentation that can be summed up in three words: "Communication, Communication, Communication". Yaron started off with 4 messages that he then elaborated upon during the presentation: After that, he moved on

Hi there again, Today was the first day of the track sessions at the SIGiST Israel 2008 conference. I was honoured to be Track Chair for the Test Management track, which meant that I didn't have to break my head over which presentations to go and listen to! The day started with an introduction

Unfortunately, I couldn't attend the tutorial days at SIGiST 2008 - I had to polish up my own presentation for the conference itself! So, I had a chat with 2 of the tutorial lecturers, and one of the attendees, to get their impressions of the tutorial days. Thanks to all of you for giving me the time. Logistics and Stuff The tutorials were given at the Sela offices in Bnei Berak, but to make it into a more conference-like atmosphere, all the classrooms on the ground floor had been closed off for the tutorials, and there was regular conference-style registration, t-shirts and refreshments. I heard that all the logistics were taken care of very well. On the other hand, it sounds like each tutorial took place at its own pace, and the attendees went out to lunch at restaurants in the area. I'm guessing that it was really worthwhile to use the offices, rather than the Sheraton Moriah Hotel, which is the venue for the next 2 days of conference, otherwise it's possible that the tutorials wouldn't have take place at all.

Along with the European and Indian speakers, there are some great Israeli speakers giving tutorials. On Sunday the 22nd of June, we have 2 one-day tutorials from Nancy Clayman and Michael Stahl. Nancy, the founder of NCQA, will be giving "TPI in a Day", a really good introduction to the TPI

So, what's on at Sigist 2008? The first 2 days, the 22nd and 23rd of June, are dedicated to 1 day and 2 day tutorials, half of which will be given by 4 highly experienced Test Professionals coming in from India and Europe. Vipul Kocher, co-founder of Puretesting and President of the