In the spirit of gamification, Sydney Testers Meetup have definitely levelled-up. Significant advancements in structure and commitment have seen a robust
platform to operate the meeting format from.

Last Wednesday’s evening on Test Automation, Vibe Hotel Sydney CBD, was a very successful event.

We hit a capacity crowd of 100 people, a new record for the group. We had 30 first-timers join in on the informational and entertaining event. The attendees were from a wide variety of testing levels from manual testers to test managers, and a good dose of technical and automation testers present.

Entry to the popular event was free, and the principle sponsor (Attribute Group) helped out with providing the venue, food and drinks for everyone attending.

The meetup was organised and carried out to plan. On the door was Mila, who ensured everyone had a label to allow for easy networking amongst us all. It was here that you collected your complimentary drinks voucher too.

The chairperson, Devesh, organised the agenda, and kept the speaking segments moving with smooth transitions; thank-you’s and warm welcomes.
The timing of the speaking segments was kept under control by George, the time-keeper, with giant green, yellow and red cards to communicate with speakers to “keep going”, “wrap it up”, and “stop, get off the stage”.

Richard (Club President), got the content underway by announcing the Club News. We grew by 150 members last month. We have grown to seven committee members who organise education, speakers, new members, job seekers, social media, and general organisation. The committee can be found here.

With content provided by Brian (Education Officer), Richard took us through what has happening in the testing industry around the world. This included international testers, twitter gossip, security news, and conferences and events.

The most important was the upcoming Let’s Test Oz conference, 15-17 September 2014. If people enjoyed the Meetup, then they will absolutely love Let’s Test.

The main talk was next, Automation Design Principles – Asking good questions and building good design to reach reasonable Automation outcomes. Richard kept the audience informed and entertained as he flew through the material.

The theme of the talk was about knowing how and when to implement the described design principles. It all matters on the environment and context you are operating in.
Richard summarised the design principles into a simple keywords heuristic SCRIMPS-STD, which was a clever play on the concept that management are only interested in automation for cost reduction. You can download the slides here.

The theme on automation testing was rounded out with three experience reports from Ariel, Priyo and Paul. This added more ‘hands-on’ information about automation trends and implementation experiences out there.
Bruce took control of question time ensuring we got a variety of viewpoints discussed and an equal share of talking time.

The final segment of the meeting was about opportunity-seekers. We had nine testers complete four challenge questions. The answers went up on the board for everyone to see. You can see all of these, the reviews and summaries, here.

The audience attention, with regular nodding of agreement and no signs of nodding off, meant the presentation was equal parts informative and entertaining. The flood of positive comments afterwards were somewhat overwhelming for the speaker.

If you want to be part of the action, come along to the next meetup to hear James Bach talk about the REAL Agile Testing Quadrants.

See you then
Richard Robinson
President, Sydney Testers