February 7, 2017

Feb 7, 2017: Software Testing Lean Coffee @ John Harvard's in Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA

Tonight, I organized my very first Ministry of Testing - Boston event, a "Lean Coffee".

Picture a dinner-and-discussion event run like an Agile end-of-sprint retrospective, where members write down on Post-It Notes things they want to discuss, and people vote on the topics.

https://www.meetup.com/ministry-of-testing-boston/events/236646569/


I haven't run an event in at least five years, since I was part of the Nerd Fun - Boston Meetup running five events a week, back in 2008 - 2011. Back then, my favorite place to meet was at John Harvard's Brew House, holding discussions at a large round table that seats fifteen. It is situated under a stairwell, and with the lower ceiling, the acoustics are much better than you would think in the crowded pub atmosphere.

I met up people before the event around the corner in the food court of the Harvard Square Garage mall, with my "Hello My Name is T.J." nametag, and a big red MEETUP sign attached to my black messenger bag, just like the old days.





We filed in at 6:30 pm, and had a lively discussion! Some of the discussion topics:
  • Scrum as a QA Process
  • How Can We Tell If Automation is Improving Quality
  • Favorite Automation Tool for Agile
  • Cucumber vs TestNG vs JUnit
  • Should QA be in DEV teams?
  • Picking Stable Jobs/ Compaines
  • Suggestions for Agile Training
  • "Testing" or "QA"
  • Lean Coffee at Work
It was a good break for me. I have been doing nothing but try to set up interviews for the past few days, trying to find my next automation development gig.

If you want to keep track of the discussion, I have posted a conversation thread on the Ministry of Testing - Boston Message Board at https://www.meetup.com/ministry-of-testing-boston/messages/boards/thread/50584497/

Happy Testing!

-T.J. Maher
Twitter | LinkedIn | GitHub

// Sr. QA Engineer, Software Engineer in Test, Software Tester since 1996.
// Contributing Writer for TechBeacon.
// "Looking to move away from manual QA? Follow Adventures in Automation on Facebook!"

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