Thank you for joining us for episode 121 of the Testing Peers Podcast.This time, join Chris, Tara, Russell and David as we discuss tools for testers.Before diving into the main topic, to mark the festive period, Tara poses the ice-breaker question of the Peers' favourite Holiday movie.It's a Wonderful Life, Die Hard, Home Alone, Spirited, The Grinch and Violent Night are included.Then we move on to the main event.....tools for testers.The Peers discuss screen readers and recorders, AI, comput...

Welcome to another Testing Peers podcast episode.This time, join Chris, David, Richard Bradshaw and Al Goodall (whose surname Chris had some real issues remembering, sorry Al!)In this episode, the Peers talk about the role of the SDET. Is it SDEad?To break the ice, Al leads the group into a discussion about the best live albums, in our humble opinions. Shout-outs to Linkin Park, Sky, Raye, Live Aid, Iron Maiden, U2, Seal and Hoobastank!The main topic dives into the main topic - the role of th...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. On this episode, Chris is joined by Vernon Richards, Heather Carter and Richard Hinton to talk about career journeys and making that decision around next steps.Before that, Heather kicks off the banter by asking for 2 Truths and 1 Lie from each of the hosts. You'll need to listen to work out which ones are which.Chris starts the conversation about what is next for our careers, and the topic moves toward Personal Brand/Professional Reputation an...

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Testing Peers podcast.This time, join Chris, David, Simon and first-time host, Butch Mayhew.Ahead of the main topic, Butch asks the group about their ideal superpower. We discuss controlling time, teleportation, flying, awareness (we'll come back to that later in the episode) and Butch's idea to have mustard and ketchup fly out of his fingers, because why not?The Peers then dive in the topic of authenticity - inspired as a topic by Simon's post o...

Welcome to episode 117 of the Testing Peers podcast.This time, join Chris, David, Russell and Heather as we discuss closure and letting go!Heather kicks us off with a discussion around last-minute travel decisions and we think Russell probably wins!The Peers then jump into a discussion about letting go.Changing roles. What is your identity? Who am I (professionally)?What am I good at? What do I enjoy? What will I do when I retire?Is it out of your control?What can we do as leaders? How can we...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast.This time, Jesper Ottosen joins Russell, David and Chris as we discuss single points of failure.As ever, we begin with our first email handles - as it turns out ours weren't so embarrassing and have persisted, but at least we break the ice!Diving into the main topic, the group quickly talk about the single points of failure as people."what if they go on holiday?" " what if so and so wins the lottery?" and so on.Are there robust handover ...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. This time, join Chris, Russell, Callum Akehurst-Ryan & Leigh Rathbone as we talk on the topic of "No Testers, No Problem".Before the main topic, Callum asks the group for their favourite fictional AI. From GLaDOS, I.N.T.E.L.L.I.G.E.N.C.E., the Terminator and Max Headroom.What's your favourite fictional AI?Leigh then introduces the topics of trends in the industry, touching on his #PeersCon24 talk, are we moving towards or away from ...

Thanks for joining us for episode 114 of the Testing Peers podcast.This time, Ben Dowen joins Russell, David and Chris as we dive into the topic of learning fast (as a different take on failing fast).For this episode's banter, Ben asks the group about what their reasons to be cheerful are. A lot of learning, project closing and summer time activities (or lack of activities) ahead!The Peers then dive into the main topic. Russell explains the power of the language and cognitive biases around fa...

Thank you for joining us for episode 113 of the Testing Peers podcast.This time, Sanne Visser & Vernon Richards join Chris & David to discuss Emotional Intelligence.By the way, if you haven't already heard - Vernon hosts the Vernon Richard show: https://www.youtube.com/@TheVernonRichardShowAfter Vernon's hot drinks ice-breaker we dive into the main topic.Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high em...

Thank you for joining us for episode 112 of the Testing Peers podcast.This time around we are talking on the topic of building testing teams, with Simon, Russell, David & Chris.The banter focuses in on favourite or memorable plot twists.Then Simon poses this hypothetical scenario - If you landed in a role and you were the first person there who has been given the task to build a [test] team, what would you do?Russell wins the 'it depends on the context' prize, but of course he is right.Qu...

Thank you for joining episode 111 of the Testing Peers podcast. This time Chris, David, Dermot & Sanne talk on the theme of 'This is the way', otherwise known perhaps as the gospel according to....Before the main discussion, Sanne asks the group about any new to the Peers recipes or restaurants, so now I'm a little hungry.*good time to pause for a snack*Chris then introduces the Mandalorian theme. What are those absolute truths that we see some follow.Is it testing/checking? The testing p...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers Podcast. Chris, David, Russell and Simon talk about one of the big buzzwords in the industry at present being the term of Quality Engineering, what it means, how it differentiates from "Testing" and what it means for the future.For the banter, Russell asks us all what our favourite pizza toppings are, unsurprisingly there is talk of "it depends", and pretty much every topping is mentioned from the peers.We start by talking about what Quality Eng...

Hello friends, thank you for joining us for the latest episode of the Testing Peers podcast.This time, join Russell, David, Chris & Dermot as we discuss Presentations.Before diving into the main event, Chris asks the group to go back in time to when they first travelled for work. Our thoughts and experiences of that, and how that will have changed over our careers.As the Peers move on, we discuss different presentation styles, contexts, tools and 'weapons of choice' - hello PowerPoint my ...

Welcome to episode 108 of the Testing Peers podcast.This time, join Russell, David, Callum & Dermot as they talk requirements, emergent ones at that!Before diving into the main event, Dermot kicks the Peers off with a conversation around fandom and eras, initially with Dr. Who.Moving on, the group discuss what emergent requirements are.Undocumented, not (yet) asked for, potential unknown complexity, not refined, just an idea.The team talk about maturity, the need to sometimes be comfortab...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. Chris, David and Russell are joined by Bruce for this one to discuss the topic of "Square Peg, Round Hole" and how we sometimes may not always feel like we or some tools fit and how we can address those challenges.Bruce starts with the banter and asks everyone what gets them up in the morning, everything from running, coffee and children are mentioned as things that get us started every day.Chris starts off the topic by asking about using the w...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers. On this episode, Simon, Chris, David and Russell look back at the huge success that was the first Testing Peers Conference held in Nottingham on 14th March.Before diving into it, David leads the banter and asks the peers about the most retro thing we all own and the Peers all reminisce with all things tech, cars and movies.With the main retrospective, the Peers divide the conversation into 4 main sections using our MetroRetro board - including ...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. Simon, David, Chris and Sam spend some time discussing the topic of linguistic gatekeeping and how sometimes our language can exclude people from conversationsChris starts us off with the banter topic of our experiences of "I Told You So" moments, after discussing several scenarios from our childhood, with everything from beach balls in the sea to broken bones as the outcome, it seems we have definitely learned the hard way.The key to t...

Welcome to episode 104 of the Testing Peers podcast. This time around we have a special trio of Callum Akehurst-Ryan, Russell Craxford & Ben Dowen, as the Peers talk about owning your career. Callum starts us off with important banter on snackage, before we head into sharing our own career stories and discussing what owning your career means along with our own challenges and some words of wisdom.  [email protected] Twitter (https://twitter.com/testingpeers) LinkedIn...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. Beth Marshall joins Chris, David and Russell to discuss the topic of saying no. Chris starts with the banter, asking the peers which films they have turned off or left the cinema because they were rubbish, various films mentioned, although the northerners on the recording seem to never walk out on anything. On the main topic, the discussion around what we've said no to in the work/community environment, from not doing talks or taking on...

Welcome to episode 102 of the Testing Peers podcast. This time around join Tara Walton, Chris Armstrong, Russell Craxford & David Maynard, as the Peers talk about measuring. On the week of our first #PeersCon event, Tara breaks the ice, asking us our favourite and least favourite parts of conferences. Then we dive in. The team discussed the traps of bad metrics, gamification, toxic culture and talk about the importance of value and relevancy in what we report on with a few tales from...

In this episode Rich Bradshaw, Simon, David and Chris talk all things automation. Banter this week is brought to by Rich as we discover TK Maxx is the perfect way to explain exploratory testing. We dive into our first experiences of automation, going back a while, talking about different tools, tech debt and the frustration. We talk about the joys of source control. We talk about going full circles from automation to aid us to focusing on the UI automation then end to end testing then back to...

Testing Peers podcast has reached 100 episodes! Beth Marshall (10 episodes), chairs this special look back and forward episode, joined by Simon Prior (78 episodes), Russell Craxford (88), Chris Armstrong (93) and David Maynard (96). Beth skillfully guides the conversation to talk about the podcast and beyond, what are we most proud of? A few little peeks behind the curtain, including some insight into how long the editors typically take per episode. Many thanks to you David and Russell 3 The...

One away from the big 100, what better way to celebrate than talking about our experience with failures? Simon, Chris, Russell and David share stories of failures from their careers and what they have learned from them. Before diving into the main topic, Chris leads the banter and asks the Peers about their failures when it comes to computer games, which ones did they really suck at? :) Sports games seems to be the main theme here. The peers cover a lot of ground on the topic of failures, but...

Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. On this episode, Chris, Russell and David are joined by a new guest, Jon Robinson. The topic they all discussed was the wonders (or lack of wonder) around Meetings. Jon leads the banter and asked everyone for their weirdest/craziest meetings, this covers everything from awkward situations, to lack of context, to managers taking over and sending meetings in different directions. Russell asks the peers for their favourite meetings, this...