In about seven years of being active in software testing, I never got to experience any one of the Agile Testing Days conferences as a visitor or speaker. So I was very thrilled when two of my submitted papers...
In about seven years of being active in software testing, I never got to experience any one of the Agile Testing Days conferences as a visitor or speaker. So I was very thrilled when two of my submitted papers were accepted for AgileTD in Cologne, Germany.
The location
AgileTD Open Air is held at "Blackfoot Beach" at the Fühlinger See (a pretty big lake) in Cologne, Germany. Since Düsseldorf is only a short train ride away from Cologne, this was probably the shortest distance I ever had to travel for a conference.
The whole conference takes place on the beach, so it's naturally sandy and breezy. The main stage is covered, but all four sides are open. This can be quite distracting when you want to follow a presentation, as you can see the lake and blue sky in the background. There's also the regular public crowd, so you'll see people bathing every now and then. The conference area is separated by cords, but every now and then a bather strayed onto the premises and asked where to buy fries.
Main stage on the beachOutside the conference, there was plenty of room for recreation, conversation and leisure activities. The whole event really felt like a vacation in between.
2023-06-13 - Kick-off evening
The day of my arrival, there was a kick-off evening. The official check-in was at 4:00 p.m. and it was like a pre-conference day to get familiar with the venue, the people and the overall organization. This was pretty nice and I haven't seen something like this ever before in a conference.
Invasion of the Gummy Bears: Fighting Back
This was a great session by the legendary Janet Gregory and the first time I have seen her speak live. She was talking about why brains can get stuck (she called it "having gummy bears in your head", hence the title of the talk) and what we can do to fight this. She had a lot of valuable tips like establishing focus sessions without any distraction and taking regular breaks to reflect your progress. Overall, a perfect session to get into the conference mood without being too overwhelming.
Dinner
After Janet's session, there was a BBQ which was really nice. Having food at the beach while talking to a lot of nice people from the software testing domain - what could be better?
The food was quite niceOverall, I have to say that the food across all days was quite exceptional. I've been to a conference recently and unfortunately it was a bit different (I'm not naming names).
Social activities
After dinner, there were a number of group activities. However, I did not participate in any of these activities as I felt comfortable just being there and talking to people. I took the first shuttle bus back to the hotel as I had some preparations to make for my presentation the next day.
2023-06-14 - Day 1
I had worked a lot on my presentation the night...
