I'll be giving a free evening public talk in Clerkenwell, London for SkillsMatter on 8th September at 18:30pm. The talk is applicable to anyone on an agile team or running agile projects...

Testing is an integral and prominent aspect of agile development, however, new teams form and existing teams prevail with uncertainty about how testers fit into the process. Even those projects that don’t have testers dedicated to them can still feel there is a void in how they ensure that they are building the right product and building the product right.

High Demand Causes Three-Day Software Testing Conference to Add Fourth Day

Ok, so I know that this is all about CAST, and all about AST being true to it's word to adapt the conference on the fly to follow the energy and interests of the participants (in fact, that's why we refer to folks who come to the conference as participants, not attendees or delegates), and all about the fact that even during one of the worst economic years I can remember, CAST is so cool that we had to extend it!

I'm proud of whatever part I've played in making that happen as AST's Executive Director, and I'm extremely grateful to all of the volunteers who have worked hard to make this conference happen. In fact, if you're not already planning to be there, you should. It is the testing conference you won't want to miss, you know.

Ok, you guessed it, I came up with that tagline, but it is the one testing conference each year that I refuse to miss. Not because I'm AST's Executive Director, but because of the participation, conferring, facilitation, and challenging topics. So seriously, if you're still on the fence, (or your boss is still on the fence) take a look at the CNBC.com article http://www.cnbc.com/id/25091786/ (or take it to your boss), and then decide to come out and join us.

Below is the paper I submitted as a prologue to an experience report, discussion, and (hopefully) additional research that I'm presenting for the first time during:

A followup reminder for CITCON, following on from my original post

After a venue search that started at Southbank and slowly crawled its way north across the Melbourne CBD as we discovered Melb conference venues were pricier than all the other CITCON cities, we finally have a venue!

The Open Information Foundation, co-founded by Jeffrey Fredrick and Paul Julius, presents CITCON Asia-Pacific 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.

This post is largely copied from Cem Kaner's blog because I saw no need to re-write the same information :)

You’ve read about the Association for Software Testing’s free software testing courses. Now find out how you can get involved in teaching these for AST, for your company, or independently. This workshop will use presentations, lectures, and hands-on exercises to address the challenges of teaching online: Becky Fiedler, Scott Barber and I will host the Live! AST Instructors’ Orientation Course Jumpstart Tutorial On July 17, 2008, in conjunction with this year’s Conference of the AST (CAST).

The 3rd Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2008

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, July 14-16, 2008

Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing

Keynote Presentations by Gerald M. Weinberg,

Cem Kaner, Robert Sabourin, and Brian Fisher

Tutorials by Gerald M. Weinberg, Scott Barber, Hung Nguyen, and Julian Harty

The Association for Software Testing is pleased to announce its third annual conference (CAST 2008), to be held July 14-16. The meeting will be held in Toronto, Canada, a city which features enormous diversity in culture, businesses, educational institutions, and the arts. Toronto is the perfect location for a conference on this year’s theme: "Beyond the Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Software Testing".

You can view the most recent brochure here, and you can see the conference program here.