MOT Bosses - How do you make TestBash so great?

[lgibbs (Louise Gibbs)]

Really not sure which category this should go in.

This is a question for the Ministry of Testing Bosses. I’ve just seen the Call for Contribution topics for TestBash Autumn and love the range of ideas and opportunities for contributing to the event. How do you decide which topics to include at TestBash events?

I loved the activities you did at TestBash UK last year, and the feature spotlights that you are planning for TestBash Autumn also sounds interesting. The 99 second talks are a favourite session of mine at all TestBash events. How do you come up with these different format ideas for conferences and how do you assess the success of these new and unique ideas? How do you decide if you should continue with the idea or try something else?

[dianadromey]

@lgibbs first of all, thank you so much for putting these questions here! They’re very good questions!
I’ll try my best to answer them and I’m sure the rest of the MoT Team will also add their comments soon. Here we go:

1. How do you decide which topics to include at TestBash events?
During the normal Call For Papers (for talks) community members submit their papers on all different topics and these are then anonymously voted by the community. Once the voting is over, we gather the most voted ones and decide on the lineup for a TestBash. We put the top ones up to the MoT team to vote too, based on variety of topics, diversity, timezones, etc.
As for other sessions, that do not follow the normal Call For Papers, we decide the topics based on our joined knowledge of what the community is currently interested and talking about.

2. How do you come up with these different format ideas for conferences?
It’s usually based on the joined team knowledge of what the community is currently talking about and interested in doing. We also always like to experiment with new things and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t too
We also tend to ask the community what they want to see or do at a TestBash and some of the ideas shared are then explored internally and new formats develop.

3. How do you assess the success of these new and unique ideas?
Mostly based on the engagement and comments from the community. We truly value the community’s feedback and is based on that, that we either keep or try to find new learning opportunities. Our main goal is to create sessions where attendees can engage, learn and takeaway something new back to their work or careers.

4. How do you decide if you should continue with the idea or try something else?
Same as above. Feedback is key. But when we don’t have the feedback or are not sure if a session was successful or not, we try again. We might even change it slightly or change the way we explain what a format is…

We’re constantly looking for ways for the community to learn new skills, improve their current knowledge and connect with each other. We believe our events are not just about the content, but about the community coming together to teach and learn from each other.

I hope I answered your questions, but feel free to ask more. This was a great exercise for me too!

[friendlytester (Richard Bradshaw)]

Thanks for your question Louise!

How do you decide which topics to include at TestBash events?
Mostly we ask the community. We also have data from the platform, what terms are being searched for. But also we observe and digest what the community is talking about. What have the popular threads on The Club, Chat, LinkedIn, Twitter all been about, and try to make mental notes about them.

How do you come up with these different format ideas for conferences and how do you assess the success of these new and unique ideas?

Mostly I put myself in the attendees shoes. For UK I felt that given the abundance of online conferences/talks now, why would I go to a conference and sit in silence for two days listening to talks? How can we take advantage of having all these people in the same room, and maximise that. That led us to thinking about more hands on things, we led us to think about what we’d done at past TestBashes. 1/2 workshops came to mind, TestBash Circus at Philly, The UnExpo, and we tried to take all the learning from those and create something even better. Or a better version of those things than the previous year.

We are also blessed to have a lot of experience in MoT. Testers who have been to many events. Sarah, our LearningBoss has lots of experience and knowledge on teaching. Including classroom style activities and techniques. Diana has seen many events from her experience and observed what has gone well and not.

For their success, we attend a few ourselves, then the majority comes from the attendees. Surverys. But also what we over hear during the event. ‘I’ve just been to this great workshop’, ‘have you tried the accessibility activity?’

How do you decide if you should continue with the idea or try something else?
Feedback. Gut feel. Attendance. But sometimes we have a new idea and something has to go for us to try it.

Overall, we are always looking to experiment and push the boundaries, while focusing on the core ideas of a conference, such as; connections, conferring, sharing and education.