MoTBucks - Claire Reckless - A Shy Persons Guide to Speaking Up

For our seventh event, Simon and Stu are pleased to welcome long-standing international test speaker Claire Reckless to talk about her experiences from the quieter end of the testing spectrum. Claire will offer tips and insights into having your voice heard, relevant to all testers (whatever their natural volume!).

As you are no doubt painfully aware we will need to modify the format so that our meetup can go ahead, given the current Coronavirus restrictions. As such, we've spoken to our colleagues at Ministry of Testing and arranged a Crowdcast (webinar) format for Thomas' talk instead.

On behalf of MoTBucks please stay safe, be kind to yourselves and others, and we'll look forward to seeing you online on November 25th!

Speaker: Claire Reckless

Title: A shy persons guide to speaking up

Abstract:
I was always really shy as a kid, all my school reports said 'really quiet, needs to be more confident'.

As an adult, in almost every job I've had, I've received feedback around confidence, and again, being "too quiet". 'Needs to speak up more in meetings' was a common one until a few years ago.

To add to this, I've had a number of experiences during my career that made me even less likely to say something when it was needed.

So, as a tester in an agile team, how do I do a job where it's necessary for me to overcome this and speak up, ask questions, challenge people, tell people news they might not want to hear?

Well, with great difficulty. That's how. But I've recognised it, owned it, worked on it, argued with it, got angry with it and well, got a bit better at it. I'll talk about some things I've done to try to break down those internal barriers which caused me to stay silent.

I'll look at what I learned from my experiences, and what you and your leaders can do to empower yourselves and make everyone's voice is heard.

Bio:
Claire is a Test Lead at MoneySuperMarket in Manchester, working with testers across multiple teams on both web and mobile apps. She also has experience working in both financial and security enterprise software. Originally from a tech support background she’s worked in testing for over 12 years. Claire has previously spoken at a number of conferences both in the UK and abroad, as well as co hosting Software Testing Clinic Manchester.

Please register for the crowdcast before the event to avoid delays in logging in on the night.