BCS’ Special Interest Group in Software Testing (SIGiST) is the largest not-for-profit testing community in the UK. Every year, SIGiST hosts an annual conference that brings together industry leaders and experts on topics related to testing and quality. Beth Clarke MBCS reports on the highlights of the recent BCS Special Interest Group in Software Testing (SIGiST) event.
This year’s event covered topics from testing careers to AI and DevOps. The lineup featured 20 fantastic speakers based all over the world, and attracted over 150 attendees in person and online, making it our biggest conference ever.
I spoke virtually at the 2022 conference, and this year not only did I have the pleasure of delivering an in-person talk, but I also got to help host and organise the event as a member of the SIGiST committee.
Here are my highlights and personal takeaways from the event.
Quality as a culture
A number of talks at the conference explored the fact that quality has a large people-based and cultural component that needs to be considered when planning quality assurance (QA) or testing activities. Having the right culture in place helps QA and testing teams understand the ‘why’ behind their work, which can be a key motivator for those who tend to have a systems-based way of thinking, encouraging them to see the bigger picture.
It also helps to remove barriers. There are still a number of stereotypes that exist around what it means to be a tester. Simon Prior, Head of QE at Easyjet, summarised this brilliantly in his talk when he said ‘testers are not solely responsible for quality’. Many software teams still require a mindset shift that takes the responsibility for quality away from testers and spreads it equally amongst the whole team.
David Maynard, Group Lead at Cambridge Consultants and Podcast Co-host at Testing Peers, explained that testers can often struggle with imposter syndrome because their work tends to be more heavily questioned than that of other software roles. This can lead many to question their abilities and career, resulting in a loss of valuable expertise from the tech sector. When isolating cultures are replaced with curiosity and encouragement, testers and their teams can flourish.
This topic of culture extended into other tech domains. Abby Bangser, Principal Engineer at Syntasso, and I both presented on DevOps and platform engineering, and what testers can learn from these worlds. DevOps places a huge emphasis on collaboration and continuous improvement for ensuring success and quality in product delivery. It’s therefore vital to get the cultural foundations right in an organisation before unleashing new tooling on your team.
The future of tooling
There were several fascinating talks that covered current and future tooling to support testing and QA activities, with climate change being a hot topic. Arun Kumar Dutta, Associate Principal of Quality Engineering at LTIMindtree, spoke insightfully about the changes that can be made to reduce the carbon footprint of performance testing — an activity notorious for using large amounts of energy and computing resources.
Other talks focussed on testing activities that can benefit people. Peter Johnson, Senior Software Engineer at GRAIL, spoke about accessibility testing that showcased the importance of tools to allow testers to verify that websites and applications are designed inclusively.
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And finally, AI — unsurprisingly, a very popular topic in the testing world. Dr Carl Adams, Lead Researcher and Publication Editor at Mobi Publishing, looked at the complex task of testing AI: how do we create ‘good’ training data sets, and how do we check that AI isn’t only finding ‘good’ solutions to problems, but also optimal ones?
Elsewhere, several speakers explained how they had used ChatGPT to help them put their presentations together, while Solution Consultant Shajahan Pulikkal’s talk covered the use of AI to automate test case design. The topic of AI will continue to gain popularity as testers and developers alike learn how to get the most from it without sacrificing software quality.
The importance of community
I left SIGiST23 with a new sense of inspiration and drive. Events like this provide a wealth of knowledge, helping those in attendance to develop their skills, as well as creating a forum in which to discuss frustrations and challenges openly and honestly. We all need a community to provide us with inspiration and support, and that is what I love about SIGiST.
If you don’t already follow SIGiST on social media, please check out our Twitter and LinkedIn. To get more involved with our events, email us at: bcssigist@gmail.com
