👋 Welcome to December’s issue of MoT Monthly. Once a month we share a round-up of our testing events, new content we’ve shipped and ways to help each other.
We recommend exploring the following links. Let’s go! 🚀
🗓️ Join these events
New events are always added, so keep checking the events page for up-to-date info.
- This Week in Testing Fri 6 Dec
- Auckland Meetup Tue 10 Dec 🇳🇿
- Berlin Meetup Thu 12 Dec 🇩🇪
- Manchester Meetup Thu 23 Jan 🇬🇧
- London Meetup Thu 30 Jan 🇬🇧
- TestBash Brighton 2025 Wed 1–Thu 2 Oct 🤩
All recorded events are added to the Ministry of Testing catalogue. Professional members have access to the entire catalogue of learning material. 🤩
🥞 Collections
Curious and Courageous Career Paths for Testing Professionals
The Community's Guide to Regression Testing
The Community's Guide to Test Charters
The Community's Guide to Onboarding
TestRail: Test Management Platform
Software Testing and QA Reporting
Xray - Native Quality Management
Software Testing and QA Skills
Allure TestOps & Allure Report
📊 Testing trends
What defines a junior software tester?
What’s a red flag for hiring a software tester?
Do you delete tests as part of your testing strategy?
Half of testers think prompting will impact test case design
🎓 Certifications
At Ministry of Testing we are finally doing something about creating something educationally different. Software Testing Essentials Certification (STEC) is a true alternative to ISTQB.
We believe testing and quality matters. STEC is built with those who believe that too. You will smile as you learn. You will meet people along the way. You will have the ability to build your network and tap into the mindhive of a global testing community.
🎄 Early bird pricing ends 22nd of December, the perfect Christmas bonus.
🖼️ Memes and memories
Photo memories and memes create history and stories for the testing community. Add a meme or photo memory today.
All the tools - yet Excel prevails
Vancouver QA TrailTalks meetup
TestBash TestMatch Memory lane
Where's Bug and Cosmo? – No. 7
Auckland NZ MoT Community learns about AI
the only web developers in the world who love finding bugs
When you can't quite commit to accepting and checking the rebrand
🎓 Articles
Software testing careers: Many paths to success by Oleksandr Romanov.
Quality engineer: What’s in a job title? by Stuart Thomas.
AI-assisted accessibility tools: pros and cons by Ady Stokes.
The germination of a test manager: A (former) seed’s tale by Swathika Visagn.
Failing with grace: A tester's guide to error culture by Stefan Dirnstorfer.
Express yourself through writing. Share your thoughts, ideas and stories with the community via an MoT article. Share an idea for an article. 📝
🎤 Talks
The intricacies of hiring, interviewing and onboarding software testers. Essentials - The Testing Planet News - Episode 06 with Elizabeth Zagroba, Alessandra Moreira and Jesse Berkeley.
Cosmic conversation on how to learn about testing with Cassandra H. Leung, Ady Stokes, Tristan Lombard and Barry Ehigiator.
Fireside Chat: Onboarding from both perspectives with Scott Kenyon and Maddy Kilsby-McMurray.
Cosmic Discussion: How to better approach interview questions with Tristan Lombard, Jesse Berkeley, Ashutosh Mishra and Nataliia Burmei.
Creating a personalised learning schedule with an AI assistant with Christine Pinto.
Tester Obsolescence: How to Compete in a Modern QA Job Market with Patrícia Duarte Mateus.
Building product-specific test strategies that go beyond “best practices” with Vitaly Sharovatov.
AI & Testing - A Synergy for Success with Rahul Parwal.
Stoicism and testing, ancient wisdom meets modern techniques with Stephen Platten.
Myths, cognitive biases and mental sets in QA with Vitaly Sharovatov.
🎧 This Week in Testing podcast
Episode 60: Learnings from TestBash, including tips for applying conference takeaways back at work and practical advice for using AI in testing responsibly. There are also stories of first-time TestBash attendees, AI-driven testing approaches, and the importance of meetups for building professional connections.
Episode 61: This episode features a lively 99-second talk segment, where testers on the show share quick insights, personal stories, and useful advice.
🔥 Hot topics
Join the conversation on The Club, our dedicated forum for all testing professionals and beyond.
K6 and Artillery for load testing
Introductions Thread – Q4 2024 👋
Add to the Software Testing Glossary
What to do with out-of-scope features?
What approach does your team practice?
How do you recognise empathy when hiring?
What types of requirements are often hidden?
How do you document and communicate risks?
Benchmarks or industry standards for QA KPIs?
When and where have you used systems thinking?
Moving from customer service to a first-time tester
What different types of requirements have you used?
Who is the real tool decision maker in your company?
What tools and techniques do you use for system analysis?
What did you do when you first started interviewing testers?
How is 2016 different from 2024? What Do Software Testers Do?
How would you use GenAI Pair Testing as part of your testing toolkit?
How do you know if you’re adding value as an individual or as a team?
What nifty tips and tricks do you have for finding testing opportunities in requirements?
How does a user’s budget, use and experience influence how they interpret quality?
🆙 Product and Community updates
Ready to make your mark at TestBash Brighton 2025? - Call for Contribution closes on the 22nd of December.
Professional Members can now add collections.
New MoT Swag! Beanie, toque, mütze, gorro, muts, hue and gorros. Get yours today.
Everyone can now get an MoT Profile.
New! The Open to Work Database.
Software Testing Essentials Certification (STEC), a true alternative to ISTQB.
🎡 Continuous Call for Contributions
We are now accepting abstracts for talks and workshops for TestBash Brighton 2025. Go for it! Submit an idea. ⚡️
Contributing to the testing community is a positive way to support your career. Unsure how? There are many ways for you to contribute and be rewarded. The bonus: Sharing your knowledge supports everyone's career growth!
Look out for specific requests in the "Help MoT" channel on the MoT Slack, particularly requests for contributing to the MoT-STEC. ✨
Need inspiration? Look at the contributions page. 👀
🤝 Let's connect
We're committed to connecting testers no matter what challenges the world brings us. Here are the safe and inspiring spaces we are providing and curating for the software testing and quality engineering people: Slack, Threads, Bluesky, LinkedIn, Instagram, The Club, TikTok and Mastodon.
🎁 Recommend the Scholarship Fund
Ministry of Testing gifted our first scholarship in 2013. Since then we've committed to match all funds raised and donated by the community.
Anyone can apply for our scholarship fund to be used towards a Professional Membership, Certification or TestBash Conference. Know someone who would benefit? Share the scholarship page and encourage them to apply.
🧭 Test how far you can take your career
What's Ministry of Testing Professional Membership all about? A look inside at how we're supporting the software testing and quality engineering industry.
♾️ Simplicity with Unlimited Membership
A lot is going on at Ministry of Testing and our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to access everything we do. We’ve seen how much of a stumbling block getting sign-off for budgets can be. To address this we’ve packaged everything up into one annual, much-reduced price and Unlimited membership. What do we mean by ‘everything’?
- Everything included in your professional membership plus
- Attend any TestBash
- Get certified with any of our 3 Test Automation Certification Courses
- Be the first to access and get certified with our Software Testing Essentials Certificate
- Any certification, event or TestBash we launch in the future.
That’s over £3,000 in value for less than £1,499 (+ tax) a year. Go Unlimited. ♾️
👋 That’s all for now. Have a good month and we’ll see you around the community.
Simon Tomes, Community Lead at Ministry of Testing
