Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growth. Show all posts

Sunday, December 1, 2024

Reflecting on November of Hosting, Speaking, and Connecting

I don’t generally write monthly reviews, but this time I wanted to share about four events from November so I  thought of capturing everything in one place. This post is more of a personal journal to look back on later.  Normally, I share updates about the events I attend or speak through LinkedIn, but I thought it would be a good to compile everything into a blog. 

1. Final Internal Quality Community Event

On November 13th, I hosted the final internal quality community event of the year at my company. Our guest speaker was Jakub Cagiel, who delivered an insightful talk on Quality at Atlassian. Jakub shared Atlassian's approach to quality and their journey to achieve it, focusing on processes that empower developers to own and build quality effectively. Highly recommend this talk, Jakub was an absolutely fantastic speaker. 

This was the sixth event I organized this year as part of our internal quality community at CFC. Here’s a recap of the other incredible sessions. I'm so grateful to all the speakers who agreed to speak.

I enjoyed hosting these events and am very grateful to my colleagues who attended that kept me motivated to continue organizing these sessions. I look forward to continuing these events next year as part of our internal quality community

2. Women in Silicon Roundabout

On November 28th, I attended and spoke at the Women in Silicon Roundabout London conference for the first time. My session, on “Elevate Your Career Through the Power of Networking and Personal Branding,” shared my journey into public speaking and how mentors like Angie Jones and Maaret Pyhäjärvi helped me in my speaking journey. I talked about how I initially had no awareness of testing communities and had never attended a conference. Now, I am involved in several communities and have the opportunity to speak at conferences. I shared about TestBash Brighton 2019 being my first conference and the first community I was introduced to.

In today’s world where layoffs, redundancies and uncertainty, personal branding and networking have more relevant than ever. Watch these short video clips by Kelsey Hightower on how everyone has a personal brand  and Angies Jones on networking

I shared actionable tips and stories about how these skills can open new doors, help you stand out, and elevate your career. 

The audience engagement was excellent, with a full house of 340 participants attending the session. I’m always happy to present this talk at meetups, conferences, or internal events. If you’d like me to present this session to your organization or event, feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.


3. Ministry of Testing Panel

It was an honour to join Jitesh Gosai and  Barry Ehigiator as a panellist on The Testing Planet’s discussion on why shifting left isn’t enough hosted by Gwen Diagram. We kicked started by answering the first question 

What are the limitations of shift-left testing?

For me, when we talk about shifting testing to the left, it often leads to the misinterpretation that it's solely about automating early or starting testing sooner. This perspective can miss the importance of a shift-right approach or a more holistic view. 

 It was an engaging conversation where we explored the challenges of shift-left testing, balancing speed with quality, and identifying gaps in current testing practices. Have a read at this post by Jitesh who has written a detailed summary on the testing planet event here

If you missed it, don’t worry, Testing Planet sessions are available on-demand. Thanks to Ministry of Testing for organising this.

4. The Test Tribe London Meetup

On November 29th, I hosted the second Test Tribe London Meetup. Even though we were a smaller group of 16 people, it was a wonderful evening of meaningful interactions and learning. The first one was hosted on 25th September where Simon Prior gave a talk on "Testing SaaS - Quality in a "Buy not Build" World". 

The Test Tribe community is organizing events in various cities, and when they reached me to help host a meetup in London, I agreed to it. I had never hosted any external events like this before, so I wanted to contribute to the community in a new way. It was an exciting opportunity to be involved being on the other side. We had two amazing speakers for the second meetup:

Lewis even gave away a signed copy of his book to a participant who asked a great question during the Q&A! Lots of discussions over pizza and networking. There will be more meetups by The Test Tribe London Meetup in 2025, so keep an eye out for that.

November was a month of events, from organizing internal events to speaking at conferences and hosting meetups, it was a month filled with opportunities to learn, share, grow, contribute and give back to the community. Apart from these events, I got an opportunity to contribute to Anne-Marie Charret's November Newsletter on Quality Coach Book on the topic of  "Building Cross-Functional expertise in a team"

If you attended any of these events or found the topics interesting, I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

Monday, January 1, 2024

Year in Review : Reflecting on 2023

As we wrap up another year, I spent some time on reflecting on the highs and lows of 2023, a year that brought its fair share of challenges and achievements. This tradition of year-end reflection not only helps me appreciate the journey but also sets the stage for what lies ahead.

I've been doing this tradition of reflecting back on a year for the last four years, and it's been great to look back at each year-end review. It's like flipping through the pages of a personal growth journal, seeing the progress, the lessons learned, and the challenges overcome. Here's a snapshot of my 2023 story:

  • 2023 kicked off with me joining Ship30for30, a writing course that taught me the importance of consistency, generating ideas, and embracing constructive feedback. Check out my 30-day writing adventure here.
  • Throughout the year, I had the pleasure of being a guest on various podcasts, discussing topics like observability for testers, the importance of representation, and the concept of shifting testing left. You can catch some of these conversations 👇
    • Shweta on QA Q & A - here
    • Interview with Nicola Lindgren - here
    • Marie Cruz and Nicole van der Hoeven on Adobo & Avocados - here
    • Conversation with Ruslan Akhmetzianov - here
  • My time at Thoughtworks was like a journey through a place where I learned and grew a lot. Working with great co-workers on different projects, making friends forever, and tackling challenges have all contributed to shaping a better version of myself.

"Growth always happens when you step out of your comfort zone."

  • One of the personal milestones of the year was delivering workshops at conferences. From a 99-minute session on continuous testing to an in-person workshop on inclusive cross-functional requirements, the feedback from attendees was incredibly rewarding. You can find more about these workshops here. If any conference is seeking workshops on these topics, feel free to reach out to me as I'm looking to do more of these in 2024. Apart from these workshops, I got an opportunity to be part of a panel discussion on 'Driving a culture of quality' at TestBash Autumn 2023. It was an honour to be part of this alongside Ben Dowen and Calab Grandall.
  • Said goodbye to Thoughtworks and jumped into a new role as the Quality Practice Lead at CFC. The first month has been a rollercoaster of learning, and I'm excited about what's coming next.
  • In response to health challenges stemming from remote work(not taking frequent breaks), I committed to a journey of healthy eating habits. Shedding 12 kgs wasn't just about adopting healthy habits but also about dedication, consistency, and bouncing back after setbacks. This achievement stands out as a personal highlight for me in 2023.
  • Being named a RisingSTAR Finalist was an honor. While my idea on cross-functional requirements didn't take the top spot, standing among brilliant finalists was a win in itself.

  • Additionally, I contributed as part of the program review team for Testμ 2023 by Lambdatest, adding my voice to the testing community as a reviewer. I was also invited to be a Llambdatest Spartan which is a great community to be part of.




As I bid farewell to 2023, I acknowledge its ups and downs. Each challenge has contributed to my growth, and I'm proud of how I've navigated them. Despite falling short on consistent blogging, 2024 holds a simple goal—write at least 5 blogs. Putting it out here for public accountability! 😄

In closing, I'm grateful for the experiences and lessons of 2023. Here's to growth, resilience, and the untold stories awaiting in 2024! 🌟🎉

Stay tuned for more adventures! ✨

Saturday, December 31, 2022

A Year In Review - 2022

 

It's the time of the year to look back and reflect on what happened during the year 2022. It's not just about reflecting back on growth and success but also to look back at the challenges and various different decisions that helped me to grow throughout this year. The common theme for me this year has been - "Getting out of comfort zone".  I have been doing so many things that were absolutely out of my comfort zone throughout this year and it has definitely helped me to grow in many ways and to learn about my ownself.

  • The year started with settling in at thoughtworks and the project that I was working on. It was a complete new experience to work on such a huge product with 12+ cross functional teams. Initially I was totally lost to get to know so many teams and to understand where I need to focus on. Slowly I got into the flow and focused more on my team and the area of the product that our team owned. I was the only tester on the team, I took this as an opportunity to coach, mentor and influence my team all about quality and testing. The goal was to enable the team so I don't become the bottleneck and be the only person to test the stories/features. It was slow and challenging process of months but it was worth it. I was focusing so much more on the whole holistic testing and all types of testing that was required. Running workshops, organising knowledge sharing sessions, pairing with all different roles and creating a community space for observability are just few of the highlights to mention. So much more that I was able to do and deliver on this team.
  • I wanted to have all my focus on the work I was doing on the team so I had to say no to few conference speaking opportunities which was not easy to say no to but had to. I got an opportunity to speak at XConf Europe in July which was a thoughworks organised conference. This was my first in person conferece since the last one being in 2019. Absolutely new experience of presenting the same talk at 3 different locations in 3 days with Day 1 at Stuttgart, Germany, Day 2 - Manchester, London, Day 3 - Madrid. Here's the link to all the recordings - link and a link to my talk - A Peek into observability from tester's lens.

  •  One of the absosolute hightlight of the year was being invited for a keynote, a dream, a goal that was on my list.

  •  While preparing and working on my keynote since I came to know I'll be delivering a keynote in November , I also started working on a new project which was completely backend and api focused. It was yet again absolutely different experience to work on such project. It was hard to leave the previous team and project that I was working on but I guess that's how a consultants life is going to be like. I was sad to leave my old team but at the same time I was happy and excited to work on the new project with all new challenges. 
  • Finally the time came to deliver my first ever keynote AgileTD Potsdam in November, a very very special one in many ways. A huge thank you to José Díaz who believed in me and entire AgileTD team. I talked about influencing skills, how they can help us build the quality within the teams and  how to develop those skills. Infact more than what I mentioned here, a story of my own experiences. Here's the sneak peek of my keynote on these sketchnotes
    • Sketchnote by Lisi Hocke - Link
    • Sketchnote by Eveline Moolenaars - Link
  • Special thanks and mention to Tristan Lombard and Helen Scott who have helped me throughout this journey of keynote. They have constantly supported and motivated me by continuous feedback from the idea generation phase to dry runs. I am forever thankful to both  💖. A huge thanks to Lisa Crispin for helping me through dry runs and feedbacks. Thank you to Lisi Hocke, Samuel Nitsche and Vera Baum for helping me with your valuable feedback and dry runs that helped me in delivering my keynote. Apart from being a keynote speaker, it was so great to meet Toyer, Marie Drake, Emna Aydi and many more for the first time in person. 
  • I also mentored and met so many people through mentoring platforms like  Mentoring Club and ADPList
  • I got an apportunity to be an AWS Community Builder and was also invited by Manoj Kumar to be a LambdaTest Spartan which I'm so looking forward to contribute and learn from this community. I was also invited to be on a panel by Lambda Test which was a great chance to meet few Spartan's - Link to the panel recording
  • Towards the end of year I started giving more importance to my own health by making sure I do some kind of workout atleast twice a week and eat healthy which I'm going to take this forward for the next year too. 

Few things for 2023 

  • I'm hoping to present the same keynote or even a new keynote talk at any other conference this year. 
  • I want to try my hands with running a workshop as my next goal.
  • I also want to write and share consistently which I have not been doing since last 2 years and I really want to get back on this If I can. 
  • I want to work on being more technically confident tester(If there's anyone who would like to pair with me on this or someone who is looking for an accountability partner please reach me out as I would love to have someone). 
  • I want to focus on improving my existing skills and want to learn new skills.

I'm excited for the next year and thanks for reading this post. Wishing you all a very happy new year 2023!