Today’s task is to share an online resource that has somehow helped you in your career. It could be a blog post, podcast, article, video, course, webinar, or conference. Whatever it is, make sure it’s something you think others would benefit from too.
Here’s how to complete this task:
In reply to this topic, post a link to an online resource that has helped you in your career.
Explain why you found the resource helpful.
Browse the fantastic resources that other people have posted.
Like or comment on other people’s posts that you’ve found useful or that you’ve also accessed and learnt from yourself.
Bonus step
Share your resource and participation in this 30 Days of Testing challenge with the wider community on social channels (e.g. Twitter or Linkedin) using the #30DaysofTesting hashtag. You can also use this I’m Taking Part badge.
It’s a great way to learn new knowledge and skills that can help you advance your career. There are a wealth of online resources available that can teach you new skills or knowledge to help you advance your career. By sharing and learning from shared online resources, you can expand your career opportunities.
It’s a great way to network. Taking part in this 30 DoT task is a great way to connect with other professionals who share your interests. By sharing and learning from online resources, you can build relationships with other professionals who can help you in your career.
It’s a great way to give back to the community. By sharing an online resource that has helped you in your career, you can help others in the community learn and grow. This is a great way to give back to the community and make a positive impact.
Test Automation University for all upskilling especially Angie Jones, Amber Race, Marie Drake, and Lisi Hocke courses.
Books Perfect Software and Other Illusions, Lessons Learned in Software Testing, Agile Testing Condensed, Testability by Rob Meaney, Testing Computer Software by Dr Cem Kaner
Cartoon Testers Blog
Happy Book Reading Book Club by Ajay Balamurugadas, Tristan Lombards Devops BookReading Club
MOT Master Classes
Good Friend - Rahul Parwal
BBST Courses
So these were a few
As for conferences, all the conferences conducted by the Test Tribe, MOT Test Bash, Geekle Test Summit, and Testing Stage Conference have been good contributors too.
I think all these resources have helped me because if I look back at the older version of myself and the current version there is a notable change, Take those promotions in my career, and find a voice for myself in terms of speaking up.
I have not been great at making use of online resources for testing specifically. But I have found Simon Sinek’s podcast, “A Bit of Optimism” to be a great listen over the past couple of years. I listen on Spotify but it’s available elsewhere too I’m sure. Some insightful pieces about leadership, and just being a decent human.
Stackoverflow chats: You need to have an account to get into this good bit though, because the hidden gem of stackoverflow is actually the chat hangouts. Hard to find, but invaluable because it does not have any of the problems that the curated bits of SO has. Immediate answers to immediate questions, delivered without prejudice by peers who care about your question and you.
There were so many of them, I took a piece of each one. In the beginning, I learned mostly from people and practice. But if I had to mention something that made a more significant change, it was probably the syllabus for ISTQB, which brought some order to the chaos and pushed me to think a little differently again. And then the Testing United conference (but it wasn’t online), which sparked my motivation to push myself further.
For me it’s mostly online testing labs since they’ve taught me more to think outside of the box to break down applications. So Labs like: Portswigger or TryHackme.
I first encountered Systems Thinking as a concept several years ago and it has been instrumental for me in thinking about inputs/outputs and processes. Finding the root causes for issues allows teams to treat the cause, not the symptoms of critical problems in organizations.
Understanding how giving the right input to the right systems/loops at the right time can have massively compounding impacts!
This place is probably the biggest, most helpful resource. It’s the folks here that gave me the courage to start submitting abstracts to test conferences, and to come out of my shell.
Other online resources that have helped would be:
Pluralsight - which I used mostly to improve my coding skill for test automation
SQA Stack Exchange - where I’ve been moderating for a couple of years now, and have been a member since open beta - and have learned a lot about general principals and the like
The Big List of Naughty Strings is a must for a list of strings to use when testing software
https://www.w3schools.com/ is a wonderful resource for the less popular coding I’ve needed to work with like XSLT to transform XML
https://www.stickyminds.com/ has a nice selection of articles on general testing principles which I browse intermittently
Other than that, my search engine is my friend. I’ve found so much by searching for it - and learned a lot about picking the right search keywords along the way.
This may not count as an online resource of knowledge per se, but a tool I have started using to collect, manage, read, and take note/highlight all written resources I want to digest:
Still in beta with what that entails, but I find it very valuable for me with what it can do now.
Day 2 - Thanks everyone for these sources. One video I really enjoyed was this one on YouTube: Journey of a Technical Tester made by Quality Spectrum . It kind of puts all testing and testing activities in one video using story telling Journey of a Technical Tester - YouTube
It is such a good comparison between “10 Principles for Agile Testers” from her and Janet Gregory and “Modern Testing Principles” from Alan Page and Brent Jensen. If you don’t know theses principles listen this talk and tell us which principles resonate with you.
In my case, I listen (again) this talk to prepare my last job interview
Additional Info: This talk was recorded during a French national lockdown (COVID). That’s why it was online, good for me
Article about testing as social science
All of this I strongly recommend.
When study testing again and again for a lot of time, it opens with different sides. Very interesting.
Below is the link to Daniel Knott’s channel on youtube, which helped me and his book pass the ISTQB-CTMAT, also the Arabic online courses at QACart by Hatem Hatamleh, which is the best Arabic language course in the Automation testing context, and the third is the Zhimin Zhan posts at Medium, which always brings interesting topics.
1- Software Testing by Daniel Knott - YouTube
2- https://qacart.com/
One of the best resources that I have come across was introduced to me via a course through MoT regarding test biases, which led me to read a very impactful book: Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman. There are many aspects of this book that were very key in me being aware of my own personal biases and allowed me to recognize them in a non-judgemental way, to limit their effects. While I do recommend that you read the entire book, 3/4 of it is on Youtube for free: Daniel Kahneman: Thinking, Fast & Slow (Audiobook Full) - YouTube.
