Earlier this month at EuroSTAR in Edinburgh, I was unexpectedly honored with the Testing Excellence Award after being nominated by my team at KPMG. Undeservedly receiving the same award as one of my heroes, Jerry Weinberg, I was also introduced on the evening by one of my mentors and friends Michael Bolton.

As I said on the night, software testing is a team sport, and for over 25 years I’ve been working with some of the best testers from around the globe (12 countries) on countless projects for Fortune 100 companies. One of my most proud achievements in managing the careers of software testers is that my teams have produced a CTO from UC Berkley, 11 Global Heads of QA, 7 Test Directors, 11 Vice Presidents, 2 Global Product Owners, and 2 Heads of Engineering from companies all over the world. 

I have also tried to contribute to the software testing industry body of public knowledge through publishing 100s of articles and interviews on Quality Remarks, LinkedIn, and loads of personal and professional journals/blogs. I’ve also had the privilege to present talks and workshops at testing and technology conferences and meetups all over the world on topics including test strategy, managing test teams, and working with C-level sponsorship including: AST CAST, QAI, EuroSTAR, STARCanada, STAR East, KWSQA, BCS, MOT, ATD, RTC, Copenhagen CT, STP Con, QualityJam, NSTC, Tricentis Accelerate, and expo:QA. 

Happy to be included in the 276th issue of Software Testing Weekly – thanks, Dawid Dylowicz!

My starter pack reading list for AI in software testing…please feel free to add to the list in the comments! We got a lot of work to do friends, being informed is just the start…enjoy!

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want – Emily Bender and Alex Hanna

Artifictional Intelligence: Against Humanity’s Surrender to Computers – Harry Collins

On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? – Emily Bender, Timnit Gebru, Angelina McMillan-Major, Margaret Mitchell

The Illusion of Thinking: Understanding the Strengths and Limitations of Reasoning Models via the Lens of Problem Complexity – Parshin Shojaee, Iman Mirzadeh, Keivan Alizadeh, Maxwell Horton, Samy Bengio, Mehrdad Farajtabar

The Pursuit of Fairness in Artificial Intelligence Models: A Survey – Tahsin Kheya, Mohamed Jenek, Sunil Aryal

Against the Commodification of Education – Dagmar Monett, Gilbert Paquet

AI Now Landscape Report – Kate Brennan, Amba Kak, and Dr. Sarah Myers West

Developer Testing in the IDE Patterns Beliefs and Behavior – Beller, Gousios, Panichella, Proksch, Amann, Zaidman

Hiroshima Process International Code of Conduct

Responsible AI: Implement an Ethical Approach in your Organization – Olivia Gambelin 

Full list of my resources here: QR Resources

Ale Moreira is one of my oldest friends in the testing world, we got to know each other when we were elected to the Association for Software Testing Board of Directors together and then hung around in NYC while we worked at various companies and consultancies.

She has always been a fantastic hands-on engineer in testing, and we see a LOT in common when it comes to talking to the business about the value of testing. Her newsletter Road Less Tested is on my list of “must read” testing blogs and she co-hosts the Engineering Quality podcast with a couple of her pals, so listen as we talk selling testing to the business, life after testing “death”, and what it takes to lead quality engineering teams in this brave new world…enjoy!

Links from the chat: Association for Software Testing Mindset – Dr Carol Dweck Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman Rethinking Expertise – Harry Collins Leading with Quality – Ministry of Testing The Quality Coach’s Handbook – Anne-Marie Charrett

Another one for the AI “what could possibly go wrong” file…

From the article, apparently they want the General Services Administration (GSA) “to operate like a software startup, and proposed a whole-of-government, AI-first strategy to automate much of the work done by federal employees today.”

Aside from not even being able to launch properly without leaking their entire plan on GitHub, it’s pretty clear why there has been an all out assault on State-level AI regulation via a proposed 10-year pause of “any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems.”

Further evidence as well that the majority of AI fanboys are saying the quiet part out loud behind closed doors: AI hype is sold as a way of getting rid of all these damn people…

Buckle up my tester friends, it’s going to be a long, hot summer…

Your regular reminder as apparently, FOMO and euphoria have taken the day:

• Thinking critically about a technology is NOT being AGAINST it…
• Considering safety and harm in a technology’s use is NOT being AGAINST it…
• Being critical of the marketing of a technology is NOT being AGAINST it…
• Having principles and values drive your adoption of technology is NOT being AGAINST it…
• Calling out unverifiable claims used misleadingly to sell a technology is NOT being AGAINST it…

As a software testing community, we can do a LOT better than this and frankly, right now people need us to…

What a week in beautiful Edinburgh for EuroSTAR 2025 – I had a great time with the team from KPMG who sponsored a booth in the Expo for the first time. As in other times in my career, I am so lucky to have passionate testers to work with who care about our craft and community, and the team and EuroStar Conferences was amazing to work with in getting us over the line in time!

The theme this year was “AI on Trial”, and through what I observed and conversations I had over the week, which was an inspired choice as it really feels like we are at an inflection point in the software testing business. René van Veldhuijzen‘s “FOMO Sapiens” could not have been more spot on with the mood right now, as we careen back and forth between “AI-first-all-the-time-bandwagons” and AI skeptics being dismissed with the feverish pitch of tulip speculators!

So what were some of my observations and take aways from the week in Scotland:

Very happy to share that I have been awarded Chartered status by the Chartered Management Institute. Thanks to KPMG for sponsoring me and everyone in the Quality Engineering and Testing team for the support!

This is a great talk from Michael Bolton about how software testers should critically think and talk about AI in testing.

IMO it is our responsibility as testing professionals to cast a (very) sceptical eye on any claim, but even MORE so in the age of AI hype…enjoy!

Here’s my podcast with James Bach he referenced: QR Podcast – James Bach | Quality Remarks Keith Klain

Happy to be included in the 272nd issue of Software Testing Weekly – thanks, Dawid Dylowicz!