I'm the director of quality advocacy for WWT, serving a team of over forty testers in five cities. My goal is to write code that breaks code to make a better product for the user. I train technical testers who can help a team release awesome products that make client's lives better. I've been in QA since 2005 and I love getting into the code to test more thoroughly. I've written test code in Java, C#, JavaScript, and some basic Elixir. Outside work, I'm a black belt in Chinese Kenpo and have fun sparring every week. I also knit a lot of hats. Originally from England. https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea 2019-03-09 08:26:02 -0500 Leadership for introverts How to lead a team of 40+ people when you don't have the mental energy to do people stuff. Hello, my name is Alison and I'm an introvert. Groups of strangers make me nervous, parties exhaust me, and I'm scared of talking in public. Also, I run a team of over 40 people. This is how I do it and maintain my sanity. Leadership for introverts How to lead a team of 40+ people when you don't have the mental energy to do people stuff. Hello, my name is Alison and I'm an introvert. Groups of strangers make me nervous, parties exhaust me, and I'm scared of talking in public. Also, I run a team of over 40 people. This is how I do it and maintain my sanity. Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400 https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/leadership-for-introverts https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/leadership-for-introverts Power-leveling the padawans How to mentor someone 1:1, developing people without creating clones of yourself Leaders have a responsibility to find and train new leaders. This talk is about how to power-level those potential leaders without turning them into a clone army. Power-leveling the padawans How to mentor someone 1:1, developing people without creating clones of yourself Leaders have a responsibility to find and train new leaders. This talk is about how to power-level those potential leaders without turning them into a clone army. Wed, 19 Aug 2020 00:00:00 -0400 https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/power-levelling-the-padawans https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/power-levelling-the-padawans When you’re the only QA, how do you instill quality practices and build that mindset into the wider company? I'm going to walk through how we went from eight to forty-five quality advocates, and talk about recruiting, training, fun, multiple remote offices, delegation, velociraptor-avoidance techniques, staffing, blood, sweat, and tea. I’ll share the potholes we fell into so you can fall in different ones, and build a practice of awesome testers. Building a QA practice requires buy-in from management and developers, and can mean changing the process to include up-front quality advocacy, instead of end-of-the-line quality control. Quality starts before the project is sold to the stakeholders, and it doesn't end until after the product is in the hands of the end users. Growing a practice means finding the right people to work with, and communicating well with clients, users, sales, management, and developers. When you’re the only QA, how do you instill quality practices and build that mindset into the wider company? I'm going to walk through how we went from eight to forty-five quality advocates, and talk about recruiting, training, fun, multiple remote offices, delegation, velociraptor-avoidance techniques, staffing, blood, sweat, and tea. I’ll share the potholes we fell into so you can fall in different ones, and build a practice of awesome testers. Building a QA practice requires buy-in from management and developers, and can mean changing the process to include up-front quality advocacy, instead of end-of-the-line quality control. Quality starts before the project is sold to the stakeholders, and it doesn't end until after the product is in the hands of the end users. Growing a practice means finding the right people to work with, and communicating well with clients, users, sales, management, and developers. Fri, 23 Aug 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/building-a-qa-practice-from-scratch https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/building-a-qa-practice-from-scratch Once Upon A Time in Software Once there was a project that was frustrating, it had lots of bugs and made the team unhappy. For the next project, we tried something new: the QA on the team would learn C# and she would write automated tests before the developers started coding. The team was happy, and the app runs to this day with only bugs caused by bad data the client told us could never exist. The end. Or is it really... The Beginning? This talk is the story of a learning quest, what I've discovered along the way teaching QAs to write test automation in Java, C#, and JavaScript, and my own journey of picking up new languages for fun, like Elixir. It is aimed at QA testers who want to broaden their testing skills, and at developers who want to help them get there. No prior coding knowledge is required for the QAs. Once Upon A Time in Software Once there was a project that was frustrating, it had lots of bugs and made the team unhappy. For the next project, we tried something new: the QA on the team would learn C# and she would write automated tests before the developers started coding. The team was happy, and the app runs to this day with only bugs caused by bad data the client told us could never exist. The end. Or is it really... The Beginning? This talk is the story of a learning quest, what I've discovered along the way teaching QAs to write test automation in Java, C#, and JavaScript, and my own journey of picking up new languages for fun, like Elixir. It is aimed at QA testers who want to broaden their testing skills, and at developers who want to help them get there. No prior coding knowledge is required for the QAs. Thu, 22 Aug 2019 00:00:00 -0400 https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/a-heros-journey-manual-tester-to-automated-qa https://speakerdeck.com/britishkoalatea/a-heros-journey-manual-tester-to-automated-qa