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About the Book

This book is a compilation of the answers to the same set of eleven questions posed to software testers around the world. I was inspired by reading Tim Ferriss' Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World, in which he asked the same set of eleven questions to "130+ of the world's top performers...from iconic entrepreneurs to elite athletes, from artists to billionaire investors." It was amazing to read some of the similarities and themes in the answers, but also some of the huge differences thanks to the diverse group of people who responded.

This got me thinking - would a "Tribe of Mentors" style book with contributions from the software testing community be an interesting read? I thought it would, based on interactions I've had with many different testers I've met around the globe during my twenty-odd years in the industry. I crafted my set of eleven questions to pose to testers and here are just a few examples:

• What advice would you give to someone about to enter the IT industry and particularly testing? What advice should they ignore?
• What is it that you know now that you wish you had known when you started your testing career and how might this have influenced the choices you made?
• What book(s) has had the most influence on your work as a tester and what book(s) has had the most influence on your personal life?

In thinking about the name for the book, I reached out to the testing community on Twitter to look for a suitable collective noun for testers and "exploration" seemed perfect. This book aims to explore the different opinions of testers around the world and it's also a nice connection to one of my professional passions, exploratory testing.

And so the concept and name for this book, An Exploration of Testers, was borne! The software testing community has been very good to me during my long career and I hope this book will help others looking to learn from a diverse group of enthusiastic testers from various industries and across different geographies.

My desire to write this book was never motivated by personal financial gain and so I have deliberately set a very low minimum price here on LeanPub. All proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to the Association for Software Testing for use in their excellent Grant program to financially assist organizers of local testing peer conferences, meetups, etc.

About the Author

Lee Hawkins

@therockertester

In the IT industry since 1996 in both development and testing roles, Lee has spent most of his career helping Quest Software teams across the world to improve the way they build, test and deliver software. He currently helps teams and organizations to improve their testing and quality practices through his software testing consultancy, Dr Lee Consulting.

Lee considers that his testing career really started in 2007 after attending Rapid Software Testing with Michael Bolton.

Lee was the co-founder of the TEAM meetup group in Melbourne and co-organized the Australian Testing Days 2016 conference. He was the Program Chair for the CASTx18 testing conference in Melbourne and also co-organized Testing in Context Conference Australia 2019.

He is a co-founder of the EPIC TestAbility Academy, a software testing training programme for young adults on the autism spectrum.

He is a frequent speaker at international testing conferences and blogs on testing at Rockin' And Testing All Over The World. When not testing, Lee is an avid follower of the UK rock band, Status Quo; hence his Twitter handle @therockertester.