AgileTD Open Air Recap

This year Qase is proudly sponsoring not just one, but all three Agile TD events! The first two are now (sadly) over, and they were so amazing we don’t know how we’re going to wait until November for Potsdam!

We're still recovering from AgileTD Open Air in Cologne and spoiled forever by having a conference on a beach. Networking barefoot in the sand? A band made up of attendees and organizers? The most well-known testing experts in the industry speaking? Giant unicorn floats you can take out on the lake between sessions? What?!

The conference kicked off with a workshop by Lena Nyström & Samuel Nitsche, with instruction and practice for better leadership communication and meeting facilitation skills - a great warm-up for conference networking!

Then it was paddle boarding time (like, seriously?). I have to admit our team did not dress for being on the water — next year we’ll come prepared with Qase Hawaiian shirts and board shorts!

Daniel Knott gave an eye-opening talk on transitioning his department focus from Software Testing to Product Quality Engineering, why he did it, and what the process was like.

Ps - Daniel has an amazing Software Testing channel on YouTube and has reviewed Qase on it, so naturally we like him a lot :)

Tariq King gave a talk on force multipliers and how important they are to optimized your workflow - from adding more automation, having playbooks, better training and mentoring, and even better company culture. He also ran a fun and instructive workshop on getting started with AI/ML as well!

We loved Lisi Hocke’s sketchbook notes on everyone’s talks:

Sophie Küster shared her experiences with imposter syndrome, and helpful advice for self-advocacy.

Richard Bradshaw from Ministry of Testing gave an insightful keynote on rapid feedback loops and why they are so important for closing knowledge gaps.

There were too many other great talks (and free drinks) to watch them all, but we hope to have the chance to see some we missed at the next event!

We loved being in an environment where everyone understood the importance of testing, and we were privileged to speak to many attendees one-on-one about their testing pains. Some things we heard a lot: there's a steep learning curve and adjustment period when adapting new tools, comparing new tools is time consuming and daunting, there's a lot of performance issues with the leading tools, wanting a platform that is on the cutting edge of AI integration, and wanting more informative and actionable testing analytics. If this resonates with you, we would love to connect.

We hope to see you in November in Potsdam – we’ll be there with our new logo and a fresh supply of mood rings ;)