What is the Software Testing Clinic, Exactly?

The Software Testing Clinic is a safe environment for those who are new to software testing to learn and enhance their testing skills whilst enabling senior testers to learn and enhance their mentoring skills.  We’re a part of the Ministry of Testing family who are supporting us in offering quality training on key concepts of software testing in a way that is easy to access and isn’t restrictive based upon price.

It’s important to us to help testers be the best they can be, which we’ve been doing for a year with great success and awesome feedback.  We’ve even had had some of our students credit us with helping them find that first job in software testing.  

What should I expect from a meetup session?

Our sessions usually consist of a mix of whiteboarding sessions, talks and interactive exercises that will get you thinking about what skills and tools you need to be a great software tester on a specific topic.  All the while being supported by a group of great mentors who are there to help answer any questions you may have.

In the past year we covered the following topics:

• What is testing
• Testing requirements
• Heuristics and Oracles
• Test Design
• Interviews for Testers
• Communication
• Agile Testing
• Exploratory testing
• Chartering and SBTM
• Note taking
• Automation
• Technical testing

We plan to repeat improved versions of these sessions in 2017.

What about more in-depth options?

Teaming up with Ministry of Testing to run our first full day clinic at TestBash 2017 means we can do some awesome stuff we haven’t been able to do before.  We have a full day to delve into some very popular topics for software testers so we’ll be covering:

• Agile testing – Agile is becoming a ubiquitous word in software development and it’s important as testers we know what it means to us and how we fit into an Agile team.  We’ll look at what it means to be ‘agile’ and what that entails when it comes to working as a Tester in an ‘agile’ team.
• Exploratory Testing – It’s not new news that working with test cases/scripts can be problematic when it comes to testing.  That’s why in our next session we are going to spend some time looking at the benefits of Exploratory testing and how to use the technique in practical scenarios.

We’ll also have time to answer any questions you might have along with the support of our talented mentors

I’ve never done software testing before but I am interested in becoming a software tester

Come along! Our material is put together for both junior testers and those who’ve never done software testing professionally at all.  Our mentors will guide you every step of the way and it will let you get first-hand experience of what it’s like to be a software tester.  It’s also a great way to network with others who may be able to support you in taking that first step into professional software testing.

I already know about Agile testing and Exploratory testing

Software testing clinic is always looking for mentors, especially ones who are fans of The Ministry of Testing, to come support our bright new students in learning.  So get in touch with either Mark or Dan or email us at admin@softwaretestingclinic.com

Ok sounds great, how do I sign up?

If you are interested in going to our free meetups keep an eye out on our events page on Software Testing Clinic or Ministry of Testing.

If would like to attend our full day Software Testing Clinic in Brighton, you can find out more and register online.

If you would like to be kept informed of our activities then sign up to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter.  You can also join us for discussions on the Ministry of Testing slack.