Next up in our ‘Meet the Speaker’ Series for UKSTAR 2018 is Martin Zedeler.

 

Martin is a freelance Test Manager with over 12 years experience. He has worked for some of the largest IT organizations in Denmark.

Working mainly in Financial Services. His main focus has been Test Management, but has helped develop requirements and has lately dabbled in Selenium based Test Automation.

Martin spoke at EuroSTAR in 2016

 

Martin will present as part of a storytelling session. Martin will present his story ‘Stick to Your Guns, But Think of Your Context’ at UKSTAR 2018 in London.

 

1. What is your favourite testing book/blog? Why is this your favourite?

Lessons learned in Software testing by Cem Kaner, James Bach and Bret Pettichord.

293 lessons which you can use to improve your awareness of the problems you can face in your testing activities. It is always great to hear  from others, or in this case read from others. It is one of the best ways to learn. Whenever I run into a problem I skim the book for a lesson or two that can inspire me to find a solution.
The TMAP “manual” is also pretty good. I have used parts of it many times when entering a new organization and need to update my knowledge of a technique or find a “tool” to get some test activity done. It is a nice go to guide.
If you work in an agile context then I would highly recommend reading “User story mapping” by Jeff Patton. It was really an I opener for me. It is not test focused, but it is extremely Quality focused. Seen more from the Product Owner role, but by reading it I am sure that you become a more valuable team player focused on delivering the right thing the right way with great quality.

 

2. How do you keep up to date with the software testing industry?

Well, conferences are a big thing for me. Since becoming a freelance consultant I try to attend at least one conference a year. Just to hear what others are experiencing, and how others see the market develop.

Compared to most European countries Denmark has a rather small IT landscape. The diversity in testing, is in my opinion, not that great. Here is where international experiences help me develop my skills.

For example: I had always wondered where the Test Manager role fits in an agile context. At EuroSTAR 2016 I heard more and more people talking about the Test Manager as a Test Mentor – mentoring the testers to become better at what they do. Or in other cases the Test Manager is there to make sure that the testers think of the bigger picture and not just at what is happening in their team. Food for my thoughts.
LinkedIn is also a good source of knowledge. There are stacks of people in my network who like or share articles/publications/blogs from all over the world. They are a good read.

 

3. What is the biggest misconception about testing that you’ve heard?

I think the largest misconception is the excessive need for very detailed test cases /test procedures.

I have been on projects where huge sums of money have been spent on developing test cases. Often for single use only. And many times the test cases were not even close to being correct because we – as the customer – did not have the knowledge needed to write things in better detail.

Over the years I have read more and more about agile testing and context-driven testing and here there are a lot of good ideas on how to write effective and efficient test cases, or the use of other test techniques that can achieve the same as the “classical” black box technique.