F14-11/4: Effective Communication for Testers

Track/s: Leadership

Have you ever been in a situation where:

  • You find a bug, but your developer does not listen to what you have to say and ignores you?
  • Your stakeholders ask you the status of the project in spite of you reporting its status periodically?
  • You give the necessary status updates in stand-ups and your team still cannot understand what you were talking about?
  • You are stormed by your project manager when you least expect him and commit to something out of fear or without thinking and then realize that you have made a major mistake which you will regret for the rest of your life?
  • You are handling a remote team located outside the country and find it hard to collaborate although you give them all the resources they need for proper communication and status updates?
  • You are talking in a team meeting and a majority of the team members start looking at each other and access their mobile phones and laptops without paying much attention to you?

If you answered YES, to any of the above questions, then this is a session for you. These are all common communication issues, shared by many software testers. Based on our real-time experiences, attending other presentations and talking to various software practitioners we identified some of the components/ behavioral patterns which would help to address some of these issues. As the saying goes, “Solutions are often simple but getting to it is complicated”.  Come join us as we share our research and experiences, and discuss how software testers can become more effective communicators.

Attendees will learn:

  • How to tell a compelling testing story
  • Different type of communication patterns
  • How to have an effective Developer/Tester relationship
  • How to have an effective Manager/Tester relationship
  • Understanding cultural differences in communication
  • Safety language and examples of it – Why you need it and how to use it properly


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Please Note: The presentations are intended for attendees only. The presentations page is password protected – contact info@softwaretestpro.com for verification of attendance and the password to access the presentation.


Session Speakers:

Carlene Wesemeyer – Quality Assurance Associate
Carlene SubrameyerCarlene, a graduate of Marietta College, has participated in public speaking for 10 years. During her three years on the Marietta College Forensics team, she competed regularly against other speakers on the state and national level, winning various individual and team awards. Carlene is Vice President of the Marietta College Alumni Chapter of Pi Kappa Delta, a Forensics Honorary, and serves as a judge for Forensics tournaments. She has traveled extensively throughout Europe, including living in Germany for 4 months as a student, and 10 months as an au pair, both experiences with German host families. Carlene has worked in Sales and Customer Service at a large outdoor equipment manufacturer, where she also took on a training role. She now works as a Quality Assurance Associate for a software company in Cleveland, OH, where she also resides.

Speaker Details:

Carlene Wesemeyer – Quality Assurance Associate
Twitter: @cswesepieces
Past Events: STPCon, After Dinner Event, Wilcox Tournament at Marietta College


Raj Subramanian – IT System Test Engineer, Progressive Insurance
Raj SubrameyerRaj is a passionate tester, who has previous experience working as a developer and moved t testing to focus on his passion. He graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology with a Masters in Software Engineering, worked as a developer for a payroll processing company and currently works as a test engineer for a major insurance company. He has been pretty active in terms of learning and contributing to the testing society by speaking at conferences, writing articles, blogging and being directly involved in various testing related activities. He currently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

STP Radio Interview:

Speaker Details:

Raj Subramanian – IT System Test Engineer, Progressive Insurance
Twitter: @epsilon11
LinkedIn: Raj Subramanian
Website: rajsubra.com
Past Events: Better Software Conference East, KWSQA, STPCon