Melissa Benua, engineering manager at mParticle, discusses the role that containers play in test environments. She answers questions like: Why do you need containers? How is your team going to benefit from containers? What is the first step in getting started with containers? Melissa provides resources for learning how to make a container and on how containers will aid you in maintaining control over data and code.

John McConda, principal consultant at Mozer Consulting, discusses his workshop designed to aid testers who work in a regulated environment to implement agile and automated testing. He talks about how those who work in businesses that are regulated by federal agencies, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and other compliance requirements can still work within those rigid specifications to introduce agile and automated processes.

In this interview, Jason Wick, senior manager at MakeMusic, discusses his STAREAST presentation about eight ways you could be making your one-on-one meetings completely useless. He discusses in depth what he feels is the number one way to ruin these meetings: holding back on feedback. He also offers advice on how you can educate your team leader to avoid the pitfalls that lead to ineffective one-on-ones.

In this interview, Melissa Tondi, senior QA strategist at Rainforest, discusses the foundation you need in order to have a positive introduction for new tools and technologies. She explains why the team leader has to understand what motivates each individual and how to get them excited about their job. Melissa says team members also have to realize that if they are in any way involved in testing software, they are a technologist, so they have to embrace the tools and technology that will continuously improve and streamline repetitive tasks.