KEYNOTE: A call to explore
“Not all those who wander are lost”
Tolkein had a way with words, and a way of describing how we navigate the world as explorers. As children, we are born explorers. If we’re lucky, we become testers and spend time exploring software, processes and patterns. And it doesn’t have to stop there. We can become explorers of this fascinating and fragile world, of its people, and of ourselves within it. We have the tools we need; we just need to use them.
We’ll use exploration in testing as a starting point for our journey in this keynote, and we’ll quickly move to what it looks like to have exploration as a guiding principle for other aspects of our life. I’ll share how we can use principles of exploration to delve into:
- situations
- ourselves and our patterns
- other people and perspectives
- unnecessary constraints
- the future
- and the present
To make sure that we don’t go too far into philosophy, I’ll use guiding questions and share concrete activities I use to help my exploration. We’ll wrap up with what it means to have the heart of an explorer – how we can experience wonder and joy while also navigating uncertain times - and how it can help us personally and professionally.
Alex Schladebeck is one of the managing directors at Bredex GmbH in Braunschweig, Germany with 7 years of managing experience, and 4 years of managing managers. An effervescent addition to any situation, Alex uses her unique style to her advantage in the corporate world of negotiating contracts and keeping a medium-sized company afloat amidst bigger players. Next to her leadership and strategic activities, Alex still works with customers in workshops about quality, agile and communication topics. She has won the award for “Most Influential Agile Testing Professional”, is a member of the ASQF Steering Committee and has been an active speaker since 2009 and international keynote speaker since 2016. Alex's current career grew from her years of expertise as an exploratory tester. Her presentations on the topic, with her contribution to the field through microheuristics, brought her to the realisation that the same skills of systematically exploring and categorising give her the best tools she could have to both succeed as a manager of managers, and teach others to do the same.