Professional development is a concern for everyone, from the greenest of juno to the most experienced heads. Often, we see only two paths — towards automation or management. However, there are far more specialisations available, both within QA itself and beyond.

In my talk, I will explain how to navigate this diversity, drawing on years of experience developing teams across various companies, as well as my personal practice and mentorship.

I will discuss:

• the construction of a Competency Matrix (CM);
• how to create one;
• how to conduct a self-assessment (if you are a specialist) or team assessment (if you are a manager);
• how to develop an Individual Development Plan (IDP) based on the CM, considering both individual and business interests;
• how to track progress for both the employee and their manager;
• how to use the CM and IDP to assess a team's potential and develop not just individual members but the entire team.

After the talk, I'll share a template of the CM. Join us, it will be insightful!

Often we are faced with a situation where middle-specialists are needed in a company. Specialists who, on the one hand, will not require many hours of immersion and training, and on the other hand, they will not avoid routine in search of research tasks and growth.

And, interestingly, on one very popular job search resource, I noticed an unusual distribution of candidates' CVs:

Junior ~ 40k 

Middle ~ 700 

Senior ~ 760k 

No, this is not a typo, the market oversaturated with seigneurs and senoritas, while you can’t find confident middling with a fire in the afternoon. 

What is it, a consequence of the effect of Daning-Kruger, the transience of life of the middle or the difficulties of self-determination? Where to look for such employees, how to reveal their “true level” and make the right choice? In my story, I will try to find answers. 

The talk will be useful both to those who are in search of people to join their team and to those who are in search of themselves.

We know what a real tester have to to do, what qualities he have to have. 

However, except of basic skills we often have to be outstanding abilities, beyond the classic "care", "skills with BTS" and other "SQL for simple queries," such as communication skills. 

This workshop will allow to see the importance of negotiations in the life of testers with concrete examples, showing a situation where the ability to reasonably defend their point of view allows you to perform a task efficiently. The main vector of communication testers will be considered, and practical advice about successful negotiations will be provided for engineer position. 

The report will allow the newcomers to understand that the good communication skills are very popular in our profession. It helps to structure and improve the knowledge of negotiations for advanced engineers.

The effective organization of the testing process requires a meticulous approach, which is accompanied by difficulties and pitfalls.

In my report I will tell you :
* prerequisites for implementing a new work process
* will consider the tools that may be suitable
* will raise the veil of financial and organisational
* describe the difficulties of implementing and operating tool (on the example of Zephyr for JIRA)
Share success results:
- understanding of coverage functional units - a simple evaluation of the automated portion of the coating and profit from automation - transparent tests that are available to all team members - effective process for the transfer tests in automation
Also talk about the horizons for further development of the process and will share tips with those who are going to migrate to system test management with check-lists and notes.

The report will be of interest to those who are interested to the development of testing processes in the company.

Startling fact - planning the upcoming release often ends upon completion of the development cycle. Subsequent testing, alas, is often beyond the plans of project managers and product owners. My report tells about the consequences of such classical approach, as well as give advice on how to implement the planning tests in your releases.

Barriers to entry into the profession tester is small enough, it can actually be anyone. But grow in the profession is difficult, and well, if a team is senior colleagues who are willing to share their experience. In my report I will tell you about the different options in the tester training unsightly, it would seem, conditions, and about the benefits that we receive after completing the course.