Testing Peers

In this episode, Russell, Chris, Tara, and David explore what a testing consultancy could look like if you stripped it back and built it around values, experience, and honest reflection.
Starting with some light-hearted conference banter, the conversation quickly turns to consultancy models, what works, what does not, and what they would do differently.
Outcomes over outputs
A recurring theme throughout the discussion is the importance of focusing on outcomes rather than outputs.
The group reflect on:
Delivering meaningful change, not just activity
Avoiding long-term dependency on consultants
Measuring success by what happens after you leave
Enablement and sustainability
Rather than doing the work for clients, the conversation leans towards:
Setting up repeatable processes
Enabling teams to continue without support
Leaving organisations self-sufficient
The idea of making yourself redundant comes up as a sign of success.
Working with context
The discussion explores how consultants engage with existing client environments:
When to adapt to existing processes
When to challenge and improve them
The importance of pragmatic, context-informed decisions
There is no single answer, but a strong emphasis on informed choice and transparency.
Thought leadership vs “bums on seats”
The group question traditional consultancy models, particularly:
Staff augmentation
Long-running placements
Value tied to time rather than impact
Instead, they explore a model centred around:
Short-term, high-impact engagements
Strategic and cultural change
Supporting teams rather than filling roles
Follow-ups, iteration, and lasting change
A key challenge raised is what happens after consultants leave.
The group discuss:
Returning at later checkpoints
Supporting incremental change
Preventing regression to old habits
The idea is less one-off transformation, more ongoing iteration.
Consultancy as connection
An alternative model emerges during the conversation:
Acting as a connector of people and expertise
Matching specialists to specific problems
Leveraging community rather than a fixed bench
Blurring the line between consultancy, partnership, and network.
Who would this be for?
The group gravitate towards:
Startups and scale-ups
Organisations open to change
Teams looking for guidance, not just delivery
With less interest in:
Large-scale augmentation
Traditional long-term consultancy models
This episode explores
What good consultancy looks like in practice
Outcomes vs outputs in client engagements
Enablement and making change stick
Navigating client context and constraints
Thought leadership vs staff augmentation
Alternative consultancy models and community-led approaches
Referenced in this episode
Fiona Charles – 10 Commandments for Ethical Testers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQHt4Pao2Vs
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This episode of Testing Peers is published in recognition of International Women’s Day (8 March).
International Women’s Day is a global moment to recognise the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women, while also highlighting the continued work needed to achieve gender equality. It is also a call to action to accelerate progress and support women’s advancement around the world.
You can learn more about the campaign and its initiatives at
https://www.internationalwomensday.com/
Episode Overview
To mark International Women’s Day, this episode brings together Linda van de Vooren, Rachel Kibler, Tara Walton, and Christine Pinto for a conversation about their experiences working in software testing and technology.
The discussion ranges from workplace dynamics and technical credibility to confidence, identity, and the importance of supportive communities in tech. Drawing on experiences across different countries, organisations, and career stages, the panel reflect on the challenges and opportunities of working in the industry today. International Women's Day
Episode Highlights
Theme songs for the moment
The episode begins with a bit of Testing Peers banter as the hosts share the song that best represents their current stage of life. From Eye of the Tiger to Crowded Table and even a song from Frozen 2, the choices reflect everything from startup survival mode to building strong personal support networks.
Being a woman in tech
The panel discuss how experiences can vary depending on company culture, geography, and team dynamics. Several hosts reflect on the need to prove technical credibility, particularly in environments where testing already sits in tension with development.
Finding allies
Support within teams can make a real difference. The group share how allies often emerge through one-to-one conversations and how a single supportive voice in a meeting can change how concerns about quality or risk are received.
Competition and the “crab bucket” effect
The conversation touches on the crab bucket effect: situations where people unintentionally hold each other back in competitive or unhealthy environments. The group reflect on how workplace pressure and culture can contribute to this dynamic.
Glue work and invisible labour
The panel discuss glue work, the essential tasks that keep teams functioning but often go unnoticed. From meeting notes to coordination, these responsibilities can disproportionately fall to certain people unless teams actively share them.
Identity and personal expression
From purple hair and tiaras to red suits and owl dungarees, the hosts reflect on how personal expression can influence confidence and help people show up authentically at work.
Safety and confidence
The discussion acknowledges that confidence and self-expression depend on feeling safe at work. Moments of inappropriate behaviour or boundary crossing can quickly undermine that safety and require time and support to rebuild.
Continuing the conversation at Agile Testing Days
Towards the end of the discussion, Rachel Kibler highlights an opportunity to continue conversations like these at Agile Testing Days.
[Placeholder: add Rachel’s exact forum/session name and wording here once confirmed.]
The value of community
The episode closes by reflecting on the strength of the testing community and spaces like Testing Peers, where people can share experiences, offer support, and remind each other they are not alone.
This episode explores
Women’s experiences in software testing and technology
Building allies and support within teams
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Welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast.
In this episode, Veerle, Chris, Russell and Tara explore how hobbies influence the way we learn, collaborate and grow within testing and quality engineering.
Before getting into the main topic, the Peers open with some classic banter, covering unusual fruit sizes, strange dreams and the small details that spark curiosity.
The idea for this episode comes from talks and experiences shared within the community, where hobbies such as gaming, storytelling, crafting and sport have inspired lessons that translate into professional practice.
From Vikings and Dungeons & Dragons to pro wrestling, knitting, baking and gym routines, the group reflects on how skills learned outside of work can shape communication, experimentation and continuous improvement. Bring your hobbies to work
In this episode, the Peers discuss
How hobbies help develop storytelling and teamwork skills
Seeing testing opportunities in everyday life
Different personal paths into testing and quality engineering
Learning through experimentation, failure and iteration
The role of data, metrics and context in decision making
Growth mindsets inspired by fitness, crafting and gaming
Bringing personality and individuality into technical spaces
Key reflections
This episode highlights how hobbies create spaces to experiment, adapt and learn without pressure. Whether journaling gym progress, inventing house rules in games or developing creative skills, these experiences mirror the iterative nature of testing itself.
The Peers also explore how progress is not always visible in the moment. As skills evolve, expectations rise, which can make growth harder to recognise even when it is happening. Bring your hobbies to work
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast. This time, join Chris Armstrong, Rachel Kibler, Tara Walton, and Russell Craxford discussing what it means to create change in teams that are worn down, frustrated, or stuck in longstanding patterns. 
In this episode, the Peers talk frame the discussion around practical reflections on joining difficult team contexts, building agency, identifying friction, and shaping improvements that matter without creating burnout.
The group focuses on the difference between technical problems and people or adaptive challenges, the value of curiosity and influence, and the power of small, intentional actions that reduce unnecessary friction and build momentum toward better ways of working.
Key themes and ideas
Teams with history and fatigue
Teams carry context, history, and stories long before new people arrive. What looks like dysfunction to a newcomer may be normalised pain to those who have lived with it. Past failed efforts at change often create deep scepticism.
The “WTF list”
Rachel introduces the idea of keeping a personal “WTF list” when joining a new team. This is a record of things that confuse, frustrate, or cause unnecessary pain. It is a tool for reflection, learning what to ask about, and identifying areas for low effort improvements while separating technical fixes from people or adaptive challenges. Some items are best kept for private reflection or manager conversations rather than shared openly.
Technical problems versus people problems
Technical problems usually have known solutions and can be addressed with the right expertise. People problems require influence, trust, and time. Effective change begins by asking why things are done the way they are before assuming what should be done.
The risk of bonding over complaints
Shared frustration can bond people quickly, "trauma bonding", but venting without action often leads to stagnation. Reflection and curiosity help teams ask what could realistically be done differently next time.
Context before action
Change attempts fail when history, constraints, or social dynamics are ignored. Newcomers often see pain points that existing teams have normalised. Without understanding the background, even good ideas can trigger resistance.
Agency, choice, and acceptance
Sometimes, change is not possible in the short term. Actively choosing to accept a situation can be more empowering than feeling trapped by it. Doing nothing can be valid when it is a conscious decision rather than passive resignation.
Small wins and incremental change
Not every improvement has to be dramatic. Small changes that remove friction can build trust and momentum over time. Cultural shifts often start with fixing minor but irritating problems rather than attempting wholesale transformation.
Positivity and recognising progress
Testing roles are often framed negatively, both by others and by the people doing the work. Creating space to acknowledge progress and success helps rebalance that narrative and improves team morale.
Leadership and advocacy
Leadership involves passing feedback upwards and advocating for change even when the leader cannot fix the problem directly. Choosing where to invest influence is an important leadership skill.
Takeaways
You cannot change everything from every position.
Context and history matter more than frameworks.
Influence is more effective than instruction in people-related challenges.
Small, deliberate improvements build momentum for bigger shifts.
Conscious acceptance is still a form of agency.
Recommended Reading
Your Leadership Edge by Ed O’Malley and Amanda Cebula
A practical guide to the competencies and mindset requir
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Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of the Testing Peers podcast.
In this episode, Chris, Dan, David, and Russell come together for a wide-ranging conversation about flow, what it really means, and why it matters far beyond speed or delivery metrics. The discussion starts with some light New Year banter before quickly moving into systems thinking, value, and the often unseen friction that slows organisations down.
The group explore flow as something that exists across people, processes, and systems, not just CI/CD pipelines. Using plumbing analogies, real-world examples, and a healthy dose of scepticism about simplistic metrics, they unpack why optimising individual components rarely improves outcomes if the wider system is ignored.
A recurring theme is the idea that quality is about the removal of unnecessary friction, and that debt shows up in many forms, not just code. Documentation, onboarding, learning mechanisms, and organisational processes all contribute to how effectively value moves through a system.
The conversation also touches on how difficult flow is to measure meaningfully. While metrics like DORA can tell part of the story, they often focus on speed rather than outcomes, impact, or sustainability. The hosts discuss the importance of qualitative signals, trending over time, and understanding what good actually looks like in a given context.
A significant part of the episode focuses on the human side of flow, including onboarding, learning, feedback loops, and psychological safety. The group reflect on how better onboarding and clearer purpose can help people contribute sooner, feel more connected to their work, and understand the impact of what they do.
From a testing perspective, the discussion highlights how testers already have many of the skills needed to assess flow at an organisational level. Curiosity, critical thinking, risk awareness, and communication all play a role in identifying friction, asking difficult questions, and helping teams improve. At the same time, the hosts are careful not to position testers as uniquely gifted, recognising that good systems thinking comes from diverse roles working together.
The episode closes with reflections on trust, credibility, and the role of testers as trusted advisors. Being listened to is not about job titles or tools, but about doing the work, understanding the system, and backing up insights with evidence and experience.
Links and references
DORA metrics: https://dora.dev/guides/dora-metrics/
The Phoenix Project: https://itrevolution.com/product/the-phoenix-project/
Theory of Constraints: https://www.leanproduction.com/theory-of-constraints/
Stu Crocker on quality as the removal of unnecessary friction
Post Office Horizon IT Scandal: https://clarotesting.wordpress.com/the-post-office-horizon-it-scandal/
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£30.
And as always, we are looking for sponsors to make this event the success it has been for the last 2 years, get in touch if interested
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