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Accepting Ignorance – The Force of a Good Tester – Patrick Prill

7th April 2016

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Patrick Prill

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Talk Description

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.“ – Socrates

When I say ignorance, I mean the positive definition of identifying, and constantly striving to discover (and possibly know) what you don’t know.

In this experience report, I will describe the journey I took in the past 3 years of my 12 years as testing professional that simply started with attending a webinar. I will share with you my discoveries about the importance of ignorance and the benefits to use it effectively.

Together we will explore some common examples of everyday testing terms, and discover where the frontier of ignorance might already exist. We will look at psychological phenomenon that influences the awareness of knowledge. And I will share a few handy tips how to utilize ignorance.

The key takeaways for participants of my talk are:

Ignorance is the driver for your self-learning
Basic idea of psychological effects that might influence your self-learning
The helpfulness of re-evaluation of your knowledge to gain confidence and precision in using it (for bug reports, test reports, risk assessments, etc.)
Some starting points how to utilize your ignorance

About Patrick

Patrick Prill has over 12 years of experience in software testing. After four and half years as a tester he became test manager, coordinating the work of ~50 people for another 5 years in a big test project. His new job as test lead for a software and consulting company for the automotive industry brought him back to a smaller test team and the hands-on experience of testing software again. This experience and following the discussions and articles of the testing community relighted his fire for testing and bug hunting.

Patrick is living outside of Munich, Germany and is a proud husband and father of a wonderful daughter. In the little spare time he is a wood turner. Patrick tweets at @TestPappy and blogs at http://testpappy.wordpress.com.

By the end of this session, you'll be able to:

Patrick Prill

Patrick has over 15 years of experience in software testing. After working for 10 years in the same big project but in nearly every role there was from tester to test manager, he became test team lead for a small team in a product and consulting company for the automotive industry dealing with projects all over the globe. For more than two years now he is working as a test consultant for QualityMinds supporting different clients with his hands-on experience. In 2017 Patrick organized the first TestBash in Munich, and retired from that job immediately after. Patrick is living outside of Munich, Germany. In his little spare time he continually tries to improve his skills as wood turner and carpenter.