March #MidsTest: "Testability is everyone's responsibility" with Ash Winter

We are pleased to announce that the international speaker Ash Winter will be joining us at MidsTest in March, with his talk "Testability is everyone's responsibility".

Testability is a first class concern for all disciplines within software development. There, I said it. No hedging, no nebulous phrasing, maybes or it depends.

Too often we labour under systems that are hard to test, manifesting themselves with frantic searches for more testers, lengthy acceptance test runs, fearful testing for regressions with a hopeful release at the end. Worst of all, it usually ends up with a project manager sat on the testers desk asking 'when will testing be done.' It's never done, it can only stop, just so you know.

Throughout my career, often the testability of a system has been deemed to be the testers business. If something was hard to test, then it was the testers problem. However, the causes of low testability effect the activities of all disciplines, whether it be speed of feedback to developers or flow of value generating features for product managers.

I'll cover:

• How testability is a key advantage in building systems of ever increasing complexity.
• Why it's important for developers and operational stakeholders to build inherently testable systems.
• What testers can do to be catalysts for testability improvements.

The activity of testing is rarely the bottleneck, how testable your system is, that’s your problem. Poor testability cannot be remedied by one discipline alone. It's for all of us to care about.

About Ash:
Ash Winter is an international speaker on testing and the co-author of the Team Guide to Software Testability. He has spoken in Europe, North America and Africa. In 2019, he delivered the keynote address on testability at Romania Testing Conference, operability tutorials at Nordic Testing Days and Romania. Plus unit testing workshops at CAST Florida, testability talks in Amsterdam and many more. Closer to home he co-organises the Leeds Testing Atelier, a free one day testing conference. As well as all this he was the resident testability expert on Ministry of Testing's Ask Me Anything and Power Hour sessions. He is an independent consultant who works as an individual contributor on development teams and coach for various clients around Europe.

You can find him online on the below platforms
https://twitter.com/northern_tester
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ash-winter-7a435614
https://diagramindustries.com/blog/

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Networking is until 19:00, so you are welcome to arrive early, chat with people and use the pool table.
Then the presentation will begin, followed by complimentary food & further networking until 21:00 (but you don't have to stay that late if you don't want to).

After the talk there is the opportunity for all attendees to take part in 99 Second Talks, where they can use the time to trial a presentation they plan to give, ask for help to the community, share something they are passionate about, virtually anything they can think of.

There will be food and drink for our attendees, courtesy of our fabulous sponsors - Woodrow Mercer, who will also host us in their offices in central Birmingham.

Finally, due to the location, we are unable to have you attend if you are a recruiter for another company, apologies.