Next up in our ‘Meet the Speaker’ Series for UKSTAR 2018 is Thomas Mantsch.
Thomas is a professional Software Tester, Consultant and Scrum Master at Ebcont proconsult Gmbh in Vienna.
He started as a developer but put his focus on software testing and quality.
Thomas puts quality on two pillars, software testing and agile/lean methods and thinking. During his career he has worked in several industries like sports betting, finance and government in Vienna and London.
You can find more from Thomas on his blog: http://blog.tmantsch.com
Thomas will present his session ‘What You See Ain’t All There Is‘ at UKSTAR 2018 in London.
1. What is your favourite testing book/blog? Why is this your favourite?
My favourite testing book is not really a book about testing. It is more a book about the way we think. “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman is definitely one of my favourite books related to my profession as Software Tester and Scrum Master. The central idea of the book is to highlight the two modes of our thoughts. System 1, the fast, instinctive and emotional part and System 2, the slower, more deliberate and more logical part. Additionally the book describes some heuristics and biases which once understood helps a lot in daily business with software testing and communication.
2. How do you keep up to date with the software testing industry?
I have organized the Vienna Tester Gathering for a while but unfortunately I had to stop due to private time constraints. I follow quite a lot of software testers on Twitter and Blogs and I occasionally attend some local meetups in Vienna organized by the Austrian Testing Board. I also love to go to conferences like EuroSTAR and Agile Testing Days and I am a regular at the Agile Coach Camp Austria.
3. What is the biggest misconception about testing that you’ve heard?
The biggest misconception I have ever heard is the idea that testing can only be done at the end of a project. In my opinion this is not the way it works. In the past years I have been working on some agile projects doing Scrum. Testing was always part of the development process which helped us to design the software for testability, to pair-test with developers and to point out potential problems early on. I totally agree to the idea that testing is not a phase but an activity that needs to be done throughout the whole project. Quality does not come from testing alone. Everyone involved in a project has to take a stake in it.