Folk in the road MEME, straight ahead reads "Quote literally anyone else", the turn off reads "Quote Jane D'Cruze" then at the bottom it reads "Testing planet new presenters"

Pokemon Team Rocket meme, reads: When you love making memes, and collecting badges prepare for trouble, and make it double

Human driven testing activities, that are not using or focused on building automated checks. Manual testing may still make use of tools and code, but is driven by a human and not a computer.A potentially broad term, manual testing could be applied to any part of software testing. However there is a good chance, people use the term manual testing to mean, human driven test execution.The term can be controversial, because it is sometimes used to down play the skill needed for testing, outside of the value of automation.It used to be said, that there is no such thing as manual testing, because all testing is manual in the same way that all development is manual. This line of thinking is currently being challenged by the introduction of generative Ai tools that are, with varying degrees of success, attempting to automate development, as well as testing.

In my experience working as a Quality Engineer, it has given me the opportunity to get involved in many of the same quality building activities I did as a Tester, but now people don't look at me weird, like I'm doing something strange and beyond my role.Quality Engineering is technical leadership, and you can break that down fundamentally equal parts challenging, and supporting teams to deliver better products. Sometimes it's as simple as making space, and giving permissions for teams to challenge their existing processes, practices, tools, frameworks and design decisions. Sometimes it is about supporting them to make decisions, explore possible solutions or simply getting stuck in and completing work as part of the team.Hang on, doesn't that sounds an awful lot like the job of an Engineering Manager, CTO, or Head of Engineering? Well, you'd be right, and all of those roles, and more, can support teams on their Quality Engineering journey, you need not always have a named "Quality Engineer". If you are lucky enough to have budget and capacity to bring in an expert in Testing and Quality, a QE can support one or more teams, and work hand-in-hand with other technical leaders.

Debrief the week in testing as the community explores debugging wins, building and scaling communities of practice, leadership in testing, and much mote

When you tell testers to ignore your post, so you go viral

First day of 99 Second Talks at TestBash Brighton 2024

Plate of food, bettered fish, peas, with a coke in the background

Ben Dowen taking selfie with other TestBash attendees in the background socialising and a sunset at OhSocial

Selfie of Ben Dowen looking back at tables of attendees at the workshop

Selfie of ben looking back on the audience for 99 second talks

Antonella, Maite and Ben