Tutorial Days at AgileTDUSA
Two days filled with hard work, new learnings, and skills lie behind our tutorial attendees. The tutorial attendees have been challenged with various tasks and thought-provoking questions. Thank you to Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory, Jan Jaap Cannegieter, Alexandra Schladebeck, Huib Schoots, Rahul Verma, and Tariq King for sharing their expertise in these hands-on sessions!
In the evening, we invited our incredible & hard-working speakers to the #AgileTDUSA Speakers Dinner. 70+ international speakers will share their knowledge during the 3rd Edition of #AgileTDUSA. One way to thank our speakers is by hosting a special dinner accompanied by delicious food.
Our attendees had the chance to get to know each other in an informal way with games during the Meet & Greet Networking Night!
Conference Day I
Wow! Conference Day I at AgileTDUSA started really strong with keynotes by Vernon Richards, Melissa Boggs, and Linda Rising! And many people would agree that seeing Linda presenting is "honestly a bucket list tech speaker moment. She’s a speaker’s speaker." (quote by Jenna Charlton).
All the speakers during this day shared so many insights and ideas! It was phenomenal! Our attendees learned so much about security in DevOps from Nancy Gariché (you should check out the OWASP DevSlop Youtube Channel). According to Erin Hess, truer words have never been spoken than when Jenny Bramble said "Create context!! Tests and Automation passing or failing means nothing if it’s not in context.” in her talk "Setting Your Tests to Fail". Also, 11/10 would recommend our Open Space bonus session because they enjoyed insightful conversations happening there!
In the evening, our sponsors welcomed the attendees at the Sponsor Reception with food and drinks to introduce themselves and have informal chats and get to know each other, and build connections. But the highlight of this evening was our notorious costume party, this time in Flower Power and Hippie Style. We danced the night away to legendary songs from this era and let the evening end with some pretty groovy dance moves.
Conference Day II
Our conferences are open to you to tell your stories, to help you in your career, and give you the space you need to be safe and talk. Therefore, we're starting off with the highlight of this day. The panel keynote on diversity and inclusion with Raj Subrameyer, Deena McKay, Tolu Adegbite, and Nancy Gariché! They talked about creating a diverse and inclusive world in the digital age focusing on women and people of color and shared personal stories.
Dr. Melissa Sassi gave her keynote full of positive energy. She is so inspiring! And kudos go to Jan Jaap Cannegieter who delivered a keynote at #AgileTDUSA for the very first time and did an amazing job!
The day was again filled with highly insightful and very personal sessions. Maryam Umar was so brave, transparent, and honest in sharing her mental health journey in her talk "How I became Agile when it came to mental health”. Jenna Charlton shared their testing love story and how putting the users first!
And don't forget our interactive workshops by Lisi Hocke, and Larissa Rosochansky and Rafael Cintra! Attendees were so inspired and motivated!
In the evening, all attendees and speakers could refill their batteries before our AgileTDUSA Night Activities and have food and drinks at the Sponsor Reception. Here also the winners of the AgileTDUSA Passport Game have been announced! Congratulations to all of them! Have fun with your great prizes! At 'The Friends & Allies - Human Space', attendees could talk about uncomfortable subjects but also find support and solutions to help themselves and others in the community. The Agile Games Night is usually loud, full of laughter and giggles and fun because here the attendees and speakers can relax and join fun games.
Conference Day III
Yesterday was the day many organizers and attendees dread to see coming: the last day of a great conference. The last conference day is usually accompanied by mixed feelings: happiness that the event took place, full hearts, and minds after 5 intense days of learning, socializing and connecting, and sentimentality that soon the event is coming to a close.
Our last keynote of the day with the fitting title "The Last Keynote on Software Testing" by Rahul Verma showed great vulnerability as he shared beautiful stories about topics that are important to him. It was also a real pleasure to have Tariq King talking on the AgileTDUSA keynote stage. Tariq gave great examples of why testing is useful along the way of developing and guided us in "Towards a Future of Self-Testing Systems".
And Doc Norton shared important lessons with the AgileTDUSA attendees in his keynote "The Experimentation Mindset". He also illustrated the importance of making new team members feel welcome and experimenting to find what works for a particular team.
Lisa Crispin and Bertold Kolics challenged their workshop attendees in their combo session "Risk-based testing for the whole team". There was a lot of intense learning going on. Janet Gregory and Brandon Jason Valle Tamayo talked about their special developer-tester relationship and gave an honest insight into their story. And Ashley Hunsberger presented her talk “The Ethics of Data Collection” and gave great suggestions to deal with ethics in data collection (and the use of that data).
Although the last night of AgileTDUSA 2022 has come, it was not all over yet. Our speakers, attendees, and the AgileTDUSA team took a moment for some self-reflection & recollection of these past few exciting days at the "Agile Community Evening - Windy City Wrap-Up" with Paul Holland.
Thank YOU
At last but not least, we want to thank each and everyone who attended, presented, laughed, shared, and spread positivity at our 3rd edition of AgileTDUSA. Thank you to our volunteers, who did an amazing job, thank you to our speakers and sponsors, and to our attendees.
We can't describe how much this conference means to us and that you all believed in us is such a great honor. We will leave Chicago with one laughing eye and one crying eye. We will be back in May 2023. Until we meet again, please stay safe, healthy, and as amazing as you all are! XOXO
