And the 2019 MIATPP Award goes to…
For the 9th time the "MIATPP Award" has been awarded by the agile testing community during the Agile Testing Days. At the glamorous and rocking Award Night, the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person of 2019 has been officially announced.
There was a lot of anticipation for this year’s event. The MIATPP Award is a peer-based and honored award tradition during the Agile Testing Days, always aiming to dazzle and bring appreciation to the achievements of the “most agile testing professional person”, who is voted by the people in the agile testing community for who influenced them the most this year. The people in the agile testing community had nominated a total of 111 inspiring agile enthusiasts and testing professionals. Many votes were submitted online and in the end, resulted in the overall ranking.
This year’s MIATPP laudatory speakers were Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispon but before they could announce the winner to the over 396 guests and present the MIATPP Award, the winners of the first Xtestathon at the Agile Testing Days were announced. The Xtestathon, hosted by Bart Knaack and Andrei Contan and sponsored by Inflectra Corporations, was an exciting event and competition, where six teams had a lot of fun testing thoroughly the web browser provided by Vivaldi Technologies for its accessibility features and solve other testing related challenges with a twist. There has been a nail-biting neck-and-neck race at the end of the competition between the two teams Eagle’s Bug and the Number of the Beast but in the end, Iancho Dimitrov, Nikita Talele, Amr Atya and Sanmati Varur from the team Eagle’s Bug won the competition.
After the dinner, it was time for Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin to hold the laudatory speech, present the Award and announce the winner of the 2019 MIATPP Award. In their speech, Janet and Lisa mentioned some of the characteristics that an “ideal MIATPP” should have. The first one was “to be influential”. Usually, influential people are more likely to be heard and respected and can effect action and change more readily than others. Influence can be a result of wealth, status, or celebrity. However, to be influential in the agile testing community means to “share your ideas with others in a manner that people are affected positively and that you don’t hold them to yourselves”, said Lisa. Janet added that another characteristic should be “the ability to inspire”: “[To be] passionate about your ideas, uplifting, and encouraging to others.”
After giving away some hints who the MIATPP of 2019 could be, Janet and Lisa finally presented the Award together with Toyer Mamoojee to Elisabeth Hocke. Taken by surprise and completely overwhelmed, Elisabeth offered thanks to the community and friends in the software testing industry.
Elisabeth received the Award in recognition for her motivation and passion for actively sharing her know-how and experience on agile testing with the community motivating others as well as for her willingness to learn new things and her influence on others to question and challenge themselves to find their way to improve, learn and grow. Especially her Tester's Journey and the code-confident challenge were a great source of inspiration to many people who started their own journeys.
Later that evening, José Díaz has been honored as the “Secretly Truest MIATPP of AgileTD”, an alternative award, by his friends Bart Knaack, Huib Schoots, James Lyndsay, and Alex Schladebeck. Taken by surprise and deeply touched, José appreciated and gladly accepted the reward. He also thanked his friends, his team and many, many others for supporting and helping him.
When José organized the first Agile Testing Days in 2009, he set the scene for an active and thought-leading European Agile Testing Community! “I love to work with people, to support and challenge them. I believe in creative leeway, in experiments and above all in ideas and visions. I can - and I can do that very well - sell ideas and visions and move people for things. I can give anyone the security they need to take the next step. I can do that well. [...] In that sense that I love people, encourage and challenge them regardless of certain factors, I gladly accept this award from my friends and supporters. It is an honor for me. Thank you!”, he later wrote in an article on LinkedIn.
In addition, the following list celebrates our 2019 Top 10 nominees:
Rank 10
Abby Bangser
Abby is an insightful technical expert who shares her lessons at conferences. Her most recent work is teaching AWS and we look forward to seeing all the things she is sharing. Abby is one of the most thoughtful and analytical individuals, and her sharp mind has made an impact on watching her easily tackle some of the most challenging tester games at conferences.
Rank 9
Marianne Duijst
Marianne is a software engineer with an emphasis on testing. She is a proud IT Nerd, and one of the developers who have found testing fascinating enough to focus on it. She inspires many with her wonderful sketch notes.
Rank 8
Richard Bradshaw
Richard is a director and tester at FriendlyTesting. He is also a well-traveled public speaker and has spoken at many events all over the world. Richard is a really active contributor to the testing community. He is a strong believer in automation in testing, this being the use of automation to support testing.
Rank 7
Martin Fowler
Martin works as a “Chief Scientist” for ThoughtWorks and has helped many people change their perspective towards how proper testing is done. The testing pyramid strategy defined by him is something that many relate to most often.
Rank 6
Eddy Bruin
Eddy is an Agile Coach and Game at Work Facilitator. He uses gamification to help with the Agile transition. He is always thinking ahead and encourages the people around him to find creative ways to improve their Agile, even when their circumstances are sometimes very suboptimal. He's an optimistic person and encourages others to develop their own Agile style.
Rank 5
Anne-Marie Charrett
Anne-Marie has been an influencer, educator, and leader within the testing community over many years. She has been unconditionally committed to testing and has delivered amazing sessions at conferences, webinars, and podcasts. Her passion for sharing and learning is beyond inspirational. Anne-Marie embodies everything the manifesto for agile software development encompasses: trust, respect, collaboration, and community.
Rank 4
Paul Holland
Paul’s passion for testing is infectious. He is also a great mentor and pushes others to be better and to think ahead. Paul is an amazing voice in the community, funny and critical. He leads from wherever in the room he sits.
Rank 3
Gitte Klitgaard
Gitte immediately brightens up the room with her positive energy, also her hugs are priceless. She is very inspirational and motivates the audience to be better persons with her speeches and presentations. Gitte always gives so much of herself to support people within the agile community both publically and privately. She embodies the passion and the heart of what everybody is trying to do within agile, to build communities.
Rank 2
Angie Jones
Angie promotes whole team quality by advocating for both sensible automation along with testability and great exploratory testing. She remains a positive influence on bringing more intersectional diversity into teams. Her informative and pragmatic posts and blogs are truly inspiring, and people can relate to them all the time. She is also very encouraging to juniors and peers.
Want to find out who the winners and nominees are from the previous years?
Find them here:
Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person 2018