SQA Days 14. To summarize

    So, there was a wonderful conference on software testing - SQA Days-14 (I recall, it was held on November 7-9 in Lviv). It is time to take stock.
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    After many years of holding conferences, I myself became a critic of them, but personally this conference inspires me satisfaction.
    Yes, there were “jambs” (there are no conferences without them), but everything was quickly corrected.

    In general, as Max Tsepkov correctly noted , this is a conference with amazing energy.
    When analyzing the feedback received, the main thing that we have identified for ourselves is the need to increase the level of reports. Now many are positioning the conference as a conference for people with 1-3 years of experience. Accordingly, some people with more experience prefer not to go to the event, as they don’t learn anything new for themselves.

    Here you can highlight a number of difficulties

    1. Experienced (with rare exceptions) do not want to share knowledge.
    Indeed, with motivation, in people with experience, a strange thing is happening. She's disappearing somewhere. The main argument: "why do I need this?" It would seem that the main motivator is that money should solve this issue, but this does not always work. And the motivator “honor and respect” does not work at all. The task of choosing the right motivation requires a systematic analysis. Everything is very, very non-trivial.
    In addition, if we talk about monetary motivation, then we must not forget about the balance of the price of the event. Paid participants are a separate budget that affects the overall price of an event. You can invite a lot of stars and the price for the conference will also be stellar. There is no desire for this, because at least our policy is that events should be accessible to most visitors.

    2. The crisis of the genre (?)
    It would seem that many of the topics in testing are told / retold. Many people come to the conference for a ready-made solution, and when their expectations are not met, they are upset. But the conference should only encourage us to solve problems and does it successfully.
    Each conference reveals the main trends in the testing world. This time it is automation and, damn it, management. At the same time, there is no need to talk about something breakthrough. The industry does not change so quickly. But for this, a lot of people work in the industry, and more and more new people join the industry every day. Maintaining the relevance of knowledge for all is an urgent task that the conference solves. Therefore, the repetition of certain topics, perhaps in different interpretations, is always useful. And the invention of the bicycle is a useful thing, because, first of all, it is not the bicycle itself that is interesting, but the way the author of the report came to such a decision. It is in the way that lies ideas that quite themselves can be used in other directions.

    3. Who are our "stars"?
    Everyone knows Rex Black, Michael Bolton, James Whitaker. And all these are stars from the American continent. Now name the stars from the EU, Asia from the CIS? And then oops happens!
    Yes, suspecting a small noise about this item, many will call Alexei Barantsev, Natalya Rukol, maybe a couple more people. And these people we have regular participants in the conference. But excuse me, where are the stellar names? And what are the reasons that they do not appear with us, and we do not know about them.
    It seems to me that there are several reasons:
    - untapped potential (see paragraph 1 above);
    - inability to position oneself;
    - inability to present content professionally;
    - Too lazy to write professional articles and books. Books give amazing visibility to their authors, but only if the author himself maintains his visibility in public by speaking. There was Savin’s book, but where is Savin himself? No one knows. The author does not contact.
    - just laziness and lack of any motivation.

    See how energetically and charismatically some of the authors spoke on the English day (November 7). We lack such energy and charisma. She needs to be trained.
    I am sure that, with due aspiration, the appearing stars will flare up in bright supernovae.

    4. The expectation of a breakthrough or smooth evolution.
    Considering that mega-experts do not want to share knowledge with us, and the star composition is not defined, it seems to me that the evolutionary path of the conference along with the participants seems to be correct, when newcomers, speaking, self-develop and begin to professionally deliver content and the content itself becomes more difficult. In this case, of course, no need to stop. It is always necessary to strive to teach experienced people to act and pull them out of the captivity of demotivation. Experienced and vibrant speakers are what we will see in the coming years among our audience.

    5. Value to the industry.
    At a certain stage of the epic thread on facebook, opinions arose that the conference does not carry knowledge and produces amateurs. Is this so let's figure it out.
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    There is a testing conference (I won’t call, I’ll find it myself without difficulty), at which people from the scientific community speak and people from the same place in the program committee. Yes, yes, universities are trying to study testing, but not from the point of view of a living life cycle, but from a scientific point of view, often with a mathematical foundation, theory of algorithms, etc., and, accordingly, the material is presented in an appropriate manner. Is such a conference needed? Here opinions are divided. Because for a certain audience you need, like our conference. Another question that is more relevant at the moment is a conference that works with live projects, or mathematical models that are very difficult to apply. Given the option that everyone expects a “silver bullet”, in my opinion the more viable version of the conference is with live reports, because this is a slice of knowledge from the very peak of modern technology, while scientific and pseudoscientific materials are extremely difficult to apply in the modern IT world, where everything depends on dynamics. At the same time, I would leave some strategic function behind a scientific conference. Suddenly something that we do not even suspect will be born. Of course, on SQA Days I would also like to see reports on a scientific basis, but only with models already working on live projects. And there were such reports. Take, for example, Alexandrov’s report on metrics, or Nikita Nalyutin’s report " and on SQA Days I would like to see reports on a scientific basis, but only with models already working on live projects. And there were such reports. Take, for example, Alexandrov’s report on metrics, or Nikita Nalyutin’s report " and on SQA Days I would like to see reports on a scientific basis, but only with models already working on live projects. And there were such reports. Take, for example, Alexandrov’s report on metrics, or Nikita Nalyutin’s report "Mathematics for testers ", or Dmitry Mayevsky’s report" Predicting the process of detecting defects in software testing . "

    6. Program committee. Authorities, non-authorities, or" wedding generals. "
    Turning again to the discussion in the facebook thread , various opinions arose who should evaluate the reports , what should be the level of qualification, how many years of experience, what is the visibility of the person entering the PC.
    Considering the program committee mentioned above the scientific conference, you can see that there is a solid faculty and the size of the PC is really very large. The backfill question: “How many of the readers of this blog really think that gray-bearded uncles will diligently review the reports, and then also work out these reports with the speakers”? .. The question is rhetorical.
    Now to the question of size. They tried to reproach us that the current size of the PC does not allow us to adequately evaluate all the reports. Where does this confidence come from? Personally, I do not hold wedding generals and refuse attempts to introduce such people. Why are they? What is the use of them?
    Also, I do not keep people who showed up and then do nothing. I drive out right away. As a result, only motivated people remain in the PC, who not only give feedback to the speaker, but also work with them, honing the presentation and skills of oratory and removing what is not needed at all. Do you think many speakers can speak without such preparation? But using a PC, this becomes possible. And well, once the problems are solved, you need to inflate the PC additionally. I think no.
    Toward a paper selection policy. There is no purpose to directly kill everyone, although this also happens, but only when the situation begins to look completely inadequate. On the contrary, we are going to meet the speakers and if the topic is interesting, we help to reveal it. Yes, maybe the speaker does not have enough experience. But he will grow up and will be cool very soon. This is the evolution I wrote about earlier.
    Authorities, non-authorities in the PC. Do you need reputable participants in the PC? Certainly, but not to be confused with "wedding generals." If this authority does not work, then why is it needed there? For check? As for the other participants in the PC, then, in fact, they are selected through the manifestation of their active position. A man who has visited the conference more than once comes up with rational ideas that will really improve the conference. Why not let such a person prove himself in such a responsible matter? I believe that a person with experience of 3 years or more can adequately evaluate reports. If semantic conflicts occur, then this is also very simple, everything is decided individually, and even with the involvement of third-party experts.
    Of course, the level and quality of reports needs to be improved, and with each PC we are working on it. A lot of rational ideas are generated. And I believe that everything will work out. We draw conclusions and hear our participants.

    On this, allow me to take my leave. Sincerely yours, Vladislav Orlikov (SQA Days organizer)
    PS The opinion and position of the author may not coincide with the opinion of other readers. Good luck and good to you.

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