Sometimes in your career, you face obstacles that prevent you from moving forward or you struggle with difficult situations at work. And sometimes you meet people – not necessarily in person – who make unmatched contributions to help you in terms of your career to overcome those obstacles and problems. People who have influenced you quite a lot in the field of software testing, who taught you skills, changed your way of thinking or pushed you out of your comfort zone.
It is probably safe to say that who you are now results in great part from multiple people who have had a great influence on you. As you sit down and look back, you will certainly realize that there are many people who have impacted you in your life. Your parents might have been a great influence in your life; your teachers throughout your education might have had a significant impact on your life as well as your friends. But there are just a few people who have affected your career in a way that your parents, teachers, and friends cannot. You will realize that much of who you are now in your career is due to these few people among the many you have known through the years of your life. People who directly taught you key skills that were required in your career, aided you in your learning process, encouraged you, shared a bunch of knowledge, or who showed you how to grow from mistakes.
It is important to focus on how you have grown within your career because of these people. Their guidance, positivity, mindset and their encouragement through hard times allowed you to develop and thrive in your career as a software tester.
Regarding people who influenced others the most in the field of agile software testing, the Agile Testing Days honor the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Persons since 2011. The MIATPP Award celebrates outstanding testing professionals who have positively influenced the testing community. With the feedback from others in the space on who has influenced them the most, the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person is based on the ratings from the community. Therefore, the MIATPP Award is from the community for the community.
This year, Huib Schoots was voted by his peers as the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person and given the MIATPP Award at the Agile Testing Festival by his laudatory speaker Alex Schladebeck and Jose Díaz.
(foto credit: Cirilo Wortel)
The testing community voted for Huib because he is an inspiring tester who has done a lot to organize knowledge exchange amongst testers in the Netherlands and throughout the rest of the world. He is passionate about software testing and does everything with energy and passion, regardless of whether he practices continuous learning, speaks at numerous conferences or plays in a carnival brass band. He is a great source of inspiration for many in the Dutch and international testing community. He is someone who is always willing to help others with their questions and on their agile testing journey.
The community did not nominate and vote for Huib alone. There were a bunch of craftspersons who have significantly influenced others and have been nominated as well. The following list shows the Top 10 nominees:
Rank 10
Ash Coleman
Ash has focused her efforts within technology on bringing awareness to inclusion of women and people of color, especially in the Context-Driven Testing and Agile communities. She is great and inspiring speaker on behalf of diversity and equality of women in tech and models ways to address these issues.
Alastair Smith
Alastair is a developer and enjoys writing C# on the back end and HTML/CSS/JavaScript on the front end. His real interests lie in good coding practices and ensuring software quality with automated tests. His testing ethic and body of work are excellent and a huge influence on many in the testing community.
Liz Keogh
Liz Keogh is a well-known blogger and international speaker, a core member of the BDD community and a contributor to a number of open-source projects including JBehave. Her work with teaching BDD and Cynefin to testers for many years now is absolutely amazing.
Pete Walen
Pete Walen has been in some form of software development for over 25 years. His “do what makes sense”-attitude and his long term and persistent work around Robot Framework make him most valuable to the testing community. He is an excellent live blogger, and many people consider him to be "The voice of Agile Testing".
Selena Delesie
Selena is an international leadership and transformation coach, keynote speaker, and trainer. She is a trusted guide for technology leaders who seek to improve quality, value, and speed of delivery. Her passion for creating empowered and collaborative organizations helped many leaders through personal transformation.
Rank 9
Göran Kero
Göran is a context-driven tester, agile enthusiast and inspiring speaker who is always curious about learning new things. He is also passionate about finding out what the customers really need.
Jez Humble
By fostering Continuous Delivery, he started a major change of the full industry. His involvement in building the Continuous Delivery approach increased awareness among the QA community and helped achieve several important benefits.
Rank 8
Angie Jones
Angie has been a prolific contributor to the international testing community over the past 12 months. She has a vast knowledge of Automation and Agile concepts in general. Her informative and pragmatic posts and blogs are truly inspiring, and people can relate to them all the time. She is also very encouraging to juniors and peers.
Mark Winteringham
Mark's work is dedicated to move the testing craft forward and to educate the next generation of Software Testers. He has tonnes of initiatives running and more to come. His educational heart goes a long way! Mark has given many members in the testing community an amount of support and people are constantly learning from him.
Gitte Klitgaard
Gitte immediately brightens up the room with her positive energy, also her hugs are priceless. She is very inspirational and motivates the audience to be better persons with her speeches and presentations. Gitte always gives so much of herself to support people within the agile community both publically and privately. She embodies the passion and the heart of what everybody is trying to do within agile, to build communities.
Rank 7
Janet Gregory
Janet is a recognized authority in the testing community. Together with Lisa Crispin, she has published two books promoting Agile in the field of testing, which are a great source of inspiration and help for many people. Janet has won the MIATPP Award in 2015.
Rank 6
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
Maaret always puts a lot of effort in preparing fresh material, in working with testers and in supporting people in tech. She works full-time in the testing profession and therefore provides many day-to-day real work problems and their suitable solutions in her insightful presentations. She is a great speaker and a real eye-opener. Maaret has won the MIATPP Award in 2016.
Rank 5
Gojko Adzic
His practice-oriented books, blog, and talks still continue to challenge the norms and break boundaries. And he is still a great source of inspiration. Gojko has received the MIATPP Award in 2011.
Rank 4
Lisa Crispin
Lisa has been wonderful in helping to promote diversity in Agile through agile testing. Together with Janet Gregory, she has published two books promoting Agile in the field of testing. She is very supportive and helpful. She always has an open ear and offers valuable advice to many people which helped them lot in their personal and tester development. Lisa has been voted as the Most Influential Agile Testing Professional Person in 2012.
Rank 3
Katrina Clokie
Katrina has been contributing to the community through blogs, talks, and articles for years while maintaining a very high standard. She always provides new angles to look at things. She volunteers with testing organizations in New Zealand and offers her time and energy. She just published a much-needed book on testing in DevOps.
Rank 2
Alexandra Schladebeck
She is very active and energetic and shares her experiences regularly in blogs, publications, and at conferences. She has been very influential in turning life lessons into opportunities and guidelines within her agile testing environments. She has strong knowledge, understanding, and empathy that makes her a leader in what she does and she always has a smile on her face.