I attended some workshops because I enjoy learning for the sake of learning. They covered tools which I don’t currently use at work. You never know when you might need to use these in the future, so some basic background knowledge is always useful.
Mocks and Testability by @ahaydar was especially good as I learnt about Docker for the first time.
Others allowed me to build confidence in tools that I use at work.
For examples
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API Testing with Postman by @suman.bala - I mostly focus on UI testing at work, but have occasionally had to work with APIs and use postman. First time I used Postman was scary, but this workshop helped me gain confidence and I am able to complete work a lot better on the rare occasion when I am required to use Postman.
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Uncovering the Power of Browser DevTools by @utchbe - I’d only really used dev tools to help setup locators on automated tests. This introduced me to some of the other features that dev tools have to offer.
One workshop that actually made me change something in our current process was Introduction to Creating Test Strategies by @huib.schoots. I took some of the ideas from the workshop, and shared them with the team. I felt we were wasting a lot of time writing test plans which were so rigid in design and often contained information that wasn’t really needed. We started writing test strategies where we investigated the product itself as well as the requirements, and used this to suggest an approach to testing rather than a concrete plan.