Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. This week join Russell, David, Chris and first-time host, Beth Clarke, as the Peers discuss careers in software testing. After a cuddly toy-themed opening, the group talk about paths into software testing, with the group's academic paths coming from biology, astrophysics, architecture, humanities & politics. We have talked before about #MakeATester and the clearly defined entry points into a career in testing is once again debated. The...
Aug 13, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 87
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. Tara Walton and Vernon Richards join Chris on this week's episode as we talk about content creation. Before diving into the main topic, Vernon introduces the banter topic of travelling pet peeves - familiar topics covered included comfort, fear, other people, hidden costs and more. Then we dive into the main topic of content creation. We cover what motivates us to create content? To vent, respond, share, build a personal brand, share skill...
Jul 30, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 86
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. This time, join David, Chris, Simon and guest-host, Steve Watson, as we talk about red flags. Before diving into the main subject, the Peers discuss if they've ever been told that they're a lookalike for anyone famous. Diving into the topic of red flags, the Peers cover all manner of red flags that they look for, have experienced and any advice that they might have for dealing with these things. From culture, to processes, micromanagement,...
Jul 16, 2023•33 min•Season 1Ep. 85
Welcome to episode 84 of the Testing Peers podcast. This week, Sam Nitsche joins regular hosts David, Russell and Chris as we discuss deadlines. After initially covering our relationships with deadlines while in school, we jump into the main topic, deadlines that impact, or are impacted by testing. The conversation touches deadlines as a tool, agility, cadence, quality and risk. Are deadlines fixed, negotiable, a chance for a conversation? Are deadlines a necessary evil? We hope you found the di...
Jul 02, 2023•37 min•Season 1Ep. 84
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. A fully stacked panel for this episode with Simon, Russell and David being joined by Shey and Beth (shows the hole that Chris leaves when he's not around that we need to replace him with 2!). The topic for this episode was to focus on the leadership activity of delegation, looking at it from both the leader who is delegating and the team being delegated to. How to do this effectively and any stories from our experience over the years. Russell kick...
Jun 18, 2023•39 min•Season 1Ep. 83
Welcome, this week, join Russell, David, Chris and special guest host, Vernon Richards as we discuss healthy workplace expectations and if we're normal! Before diving in, the Peers discuss annoying software from ITV player to MsTeams and banks software, a lot of software seems to annoy us. Russell introduces the topic, how we balance the pressures we put on on ourselves and other put on us for doing our work. We talk about increased flexible and multinational companies changing the simple 9-5 no...
Jun 03, 2023•46 min•Season 1Ep. 82
Welcome back for another episode of the Testing Peers. We are releasing this on the back of Mental Health Awareness Week 2023, which has the theme of Anxiety, so the Peers will dive into their experiences with Anxiety and how they have combatted it in the past. Before going into the main topic, Simon brings up the topic of "Peers Con" which the Peers have aspirations to run this year, but has hit a stumbling block around finding a venue which will then allow us to get a date, call for papers up ...
May 21, 2023•38 min•Season 1Ep. 81
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast, and this release falls almost three years after episode one. Thank you for joining us on this journey. This week, regulars David and Chris are joined by Steve Watson and our first American, Tara Walton. In Peers tradition, we kick off with some banter, and Tara gets the ball rolling by asking the group about our most recent board gaming experiences. A couple of standouts there are Hue and Blokus . Steve then leads the discussion, asking wh...
May 07, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 80
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Regular hosts Chris, David and Russell are joined by the Semi-Regular host Shey to discuss all about Quality Shift moments, where our understanding or perspective around aspects of testing/quality may have changed forever. Before diving into this, Chris starts the banter with looking at "aha moments" and without doing it intentionally, anchors the discussion into computer games, before David breaks the mould and talks about when his swimming impro...
Apr 24, 2023•34 min•Season 1Ep. 79
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. This week, join Russell, David, Simon and special guest host, Dan Ashby as we discuss growth as testers. Before diving in, the Peers discuss things that they have grown and taken pride in, from careers, to children, to plants. The topic is introduced by Dan, speaking to the current climate in our industry, discussing personal growth, motivators and helping others in their growth, as leaders. The conversation covers both formal and informal...
Apr 09, 2023•36 min•Season 1Ep. 78
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers! This week, join Simon, David, Russell and (semi-regular) Shey as they talk about leadership in testing. The episode kicks off with a discussion about leadership icons outside of testing, before diving into leadership in testing. Shey shares his journey into leadership, and how he discovered unhelpful leadership traits from his first lead. The Peers discuss what makes a good leader, words like passion, respect, confidence, humility and more come th...
Mar 26, 2023•40 min•Season 1Ep. 77
Welcome to the new episode of the Testing Peers. On this episode, the peers talk about experience with moving onto new opportunities. For this we had a special extended panel, joining Chris, David and Simon were Beth Marshall and Samuel Nitsche. For the banter, Chris asks us about any new equipment we've received when joining a new role which didn't work for us, we discuss everything from ergonomic mice for Left Handers, old monitors, CEOs cleaning our desks for us. This lead us onto leaving job...
Mar 13, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 76
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Regulars Chris, Simon, Russell and David this week talk all things strategies. Before diving into the main topic, we talk about strategies in our home life. We then try our best to describe what is a strategy, we all have slight different yet similar definitions. We share how context impacts strategies and we mention Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin agile testing books and a few things they share to consider. The discussion moves on discuss about st...
Feb 26, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Chris, Russell and David are joined by a special guest and artist of the amazing Testing Peers logo, Bruce (the Legend). Before diving into the main topic, Bruce leads the peers into a discussion about their skincare routines, do the Peers wash their faces? Do they use moisturiser? How do they improve the resilience of their skin? This was certainly a curveball with the banter which we all learned something new about our heroes! Russell and Bruce ...
Feb 12, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 74
Hello and welcome to episode 73 of the Testing Peers podcast, where this week we are talking about glue work. This week, regulars Chris, David and Russell are joined by the brilliant Vernon Richards. Before diving in, Vernon asks the Peers about their favourite non-work books. Chris then introduces the main topic of glue work, shouting out to Cassandra Leung for bringing the brilliant talk 'Being Glue' by Tanya Reilly into their world. You can find the talk here: https://noidea.dog/glue The grou...
Feb 01, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 73
elcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast, this time we have a slightly different show for you. Regular host, Chris is joined by the wonderful Heather Reid, as we look back over the brilliant article Heather wrote back in 2017 - 30 Things Every New Software Tester Should Learn on the Ministry of Testing site. Before we look back at Heather's article, we talk about anything from our past online that we might find a little cringey. Then we review the article, written almost exactly si...
Jan 15, 2023•43 min•Season 1Ep. 72
Happy new year! We hope all our listeners have a great 2023. Thank you for being with us on the journey, we hope you all continue to enjoy the podcasts we provide. In relation to that, in this episode, we review what the Software Testing Market Trends are for 2023. Joining Simon, Chris and David for this episode is long time friend, fan of the podcast and all round testing superstar, Beth Marshall. Before diving into the main topic, Mr Bantz himself, takes us on a trip down memory lane about bra...
Jan 01, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 71
Hello and welcome to episode 70 of the Testing Peers podcast. As we're drawing toward Christmas this week we thought we'd do a special. Taking a leaf from 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens we do a little retrospective and take a look at Christmas past, present and future. We're joined by the usual crew David, Simon, Chris and Russell and we have some festive messages from some of our testing friends Dan Ashby, Steven Warburton, Beth Marshall, Emna Ayadi and Neil Studd. We share some terribl...
Dec 18, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. The original crew (Chris, David, Russell and Simon) are discussing how we can stay connected in the testing world, especially in the times of the social media landscape changing. Before diving into the main topic, Russell takes us on a journey back to times in our lives where we had enjoyed successes as part of a team. We had stories of football team successes (well, almost), D of E expeditions, Military marching events and basketball successes. S...
Dec 04, 2022•33 min•Season 1Ep. 69
Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. Join David, Simon, Russell and Chris as we talk about planning and estimation. But, before we dive into the topic we take a brief look into the approaches the Peers take towards researching personal purchases and we discover Simon likes a good review! This week's topic was inspired by Jo Richards and her tweet about story points. https://twitter.com/iamjorichards/status/1583146372873990144?s=20&t=YFF4jtmXM8bRgskwTS6ic...
Nov 20, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 68
Hello and welcome to episode 67 of the Testing Peers podcast. This week we have special guests Beth Marshall and Steven Warburton who joins regulars, David and Russell, as we discuss Testing Conferences and what they mean to us and our teams. Before we delve into the main subject Beth takes us down memory lane on funny stories at conferences. We start discussing conference season and our bucket lists of conferences. We talk about DevOps conferences, RoboCon, not just testing and wanting to go to...
Nov 09, 2022•37 min•Season 1Ep. 67
Hello and welcome to episode 66 of the Testing Peers podcast. This week we have a special guest Ugne Litvinaite who joins, David, Russell and Chris as we discuss Testing debt. Before we delve into the main subject we first explore our favourite Dinosaurs. Chris explains what we mean by debt and references back to a blog he wrote in 2020 " It's all just a little bit of history repeating... " and the different types of debt: culture, document, shortcut, later, and process debt. He also quotes from...
Oct 09, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 66
Hello and welcome to episode 65 of the Testing Peers podcast. This week, join Simon, David, Russell and Chris as we discuss Switching Off. Prior to the main topic, Simon introduces the topic of switching off in meeting horror stories. We discover how triggered the Peers get over shared screens and talk about a few awkward situations. Moving on, Russell introduces the main topic. Starting off by defining what we mean by switching off from work and if we have any mechanisms that we use. David stil...
Sep 25, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 65
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast - and sorry this one is a little late. This week, join Simon, Russell, David and Chris as we discuss the topic of test cases. Before we dive in, David asks us to fill our suitcases (see what he did there?) and we see another cheeky mention of the PeersCon idea that we've been playing around with. After the banter, we introduce the topic and ask are test cases valuable, are they still important? We talk through our experiences, touch on diff...
Sep 14, 2022•43 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers Podcast. Join Shey, David, Russell and Chris as we discuss hybrid working. We begin with Russell asking the Peers about favourite festivals and live music we've experienced. Then we dive straight into the topic. What does hybrid working even mean? How the pandemic has swung the pendulum from office-first focus to home-first focus toward hybrid working for many of us. The Peers then talk about the value of time spent together in person and how we ca...
Aug 28, 2022•38 min•Season 1Ep. 63
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers Podcast. In this episode we're joined by two special guests, Shey Crompton and Steven Warburton in lieu of Simon and Russell. We discuss the best and worst ways we find to communicate in this modern era of remote/distant working. Naturally the Testing Peers are drawn to discuss context but this time from the view of meeting invites - do you tell people what your meetings are about? Do you use a meeting when a message is good enough or message when ...
Aug 14, 2022•36 min•Season 1Ep. 62
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers Podcast. Before diving into the topic of complacency, the newly crowned 'Mr. Bantz' asks the Peers to dive into their memory vaults to reveal which computer games consumed their adolescent years. Chris introduces the definition of complacency that will be used for this episode: a feeling of calm satisfaction with your own abilities or situation that prevents you from trying harder https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/complacency Seei...
Jul 31, 2022•35 min•Season 1Ep. 61
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Chris, Simon, David and Shey are here to discuss another great topic. This time it is one that was suggested by a friend and podcast listener, Mr Stuart Crocker (@StooCrock) Shey starts off the session with the banter around which fantasy world would we like to visit. Lots of great answers, most in places where we may be in some form of potential danger On the main topic, we discuss the benefits of aligning testing to business goals and how it can...
Jul 17, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Chris and Russell have returned from their EuroSTAR adventures, to join the other regulars to talk toxicity in testing. Before diving in, Simon leads the banter around what three apps would you keep on your phone, if you were allowed only three. Thankfully, no toxicity there! Onto the main discussion, the Peers discuss everything from behaviours, misunderstanding, misappropriation, unrealistic expectations to politics and more! On the note of know...
Jul 03, 2022•30 min•Season 1Ep. 59
Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. With Chris and Russell galavanting off at EuroStar 2022 in Copenhagen, Simon and David drafted in some equally awesome replacements in Shey and Beth from the Testing Peers bench and with that, two who have been involved in our #MakeATester endeavours. So we thought it made sense to provide an update on what we have been up to. We started with "Banter with Beth" and she asked us all about how we make Testing fun. A lot of the collaborative activiti...
Jun 19, 2022•31 min•Season 1Ep. 58
