The year 2018 is slowly coming to close. It is time to take a look at the road I have travelled in the last 12 month. And A lot has happened since last Look Back.

Why we look back?

When you go day by day, doing step by step you don’t see how much progress you do, you can see only how much progress you lost when you tripped and have fallen.
I know it is cliché but one that is true. That why in Kanban you keep stories in done for some time. To see how much you really did!
And honestly, It is really important. Because IF you asked me a few days ago: how was your year what did you do? I would say not much. It was a disappointing year. But looking at my notes and numbers. There is a completely different picture here.

We will start With neutral stuff:

I have returned to Poland, and I am content with this decision but I can’t say if it was a good or bad decision. It has as many pros and con. I have also changed the company. Since February I am working for Objectivity. As with everything it has pros and cons. I have great opportunities outside my project. But I am feeling that I am stagnating in the project itself.

Ok now what was bad

All the health goals I had screwed up. I failed keto experiment, I have gained weight and I can’t keep regular exercise schedule.

This very blog lost its focus and original purpose.
In a whole year, I have published One Flower!
My goal for this year was to try to do Podcast – I have reached a hand too few people. Cause I didn’t feel like I am able to handle this on my own. Some Did want to give it a try. Over this year I had 4 attempts with different partners. But every time project failed before even one episode was released.

I think I have conference fatigue – I overdid with the number of events this year I will limit it for next year. (I will talk about it later.)

Oh, and Do you remember that positivity goal from 2017? I have failed it yet again. Ok So I did whine as I have in custom so let’s do something else something that is much harder for me. Being positive.

In the Chinese calendar, this year is a year of Dog.

And in my life, Luis has happened. His name has special meaning from me, it is a way of me saying thank you for men who gave me chance and hand taking me out of very dark place that I was in the middle of 2017. Luis is prideful beast difficult to tame but I am happy he is here.

Speaking

So this year I have presented on 13 Events, 3 meetups 10 conferences. That is more event in the last 2 years combined!
I have spoken in different countries, on different stages including a cinema and a theatre. I had done different “performances”, presentations, discussions panel, workshops, whole day tutorials, lightning talks and Debate. There is still lots of work in front of me. But I have come far.
This year was also the first time for me when I was invited to speak on events. It is kind of funny that year was opened and closed by an event I have been invited on.
I have also recommended a speaker for a conference and she did speak there (granted she had to go through CfP but still I feel happy about it)
I had a goal to try to do my part in breaking silos. So I’ve put my papers for few non-testing conferences and two of them accepted my talks.

There was also a Testing cup. I was one on the winners of Testincup humanistic challenge. Somehow me a Dyslectic who spend literally 3 hours on preparing an article on the last day of the challenge, won! As the reward, I’ve got a ticket for the championship and conference. There were some talks about publishing my article on testerzy.pl but it didn’t happen.
I admit I like testing but lately, I am not doing it too much so I was afraid that I will be last. My goal was to be at least second to last. And I was 20 out of 25 individual competitors! So success!

Writing

My article may have not been published in testerzy.pl but, one of my articles was published on my company blog, I am was asked to write articles for few magazines and I’ve decided to write some for one. You will see them next year. I’ve have given few interviews. One for Automate the planet, for women in technology about mentoring. Which leads us to:

Techleaders

Techleaders 3rd edition started last year but it finished this year. It was a great learning experience for me. I did follow up with my mentee a few months later and she changed her path she was promoted to leader. So most of the things we did won’t be as useful to her on a new path but I hope she will be able to use some of it.

Work

I’ve become a Test Automation Community leader in my company. I am still trying to find my place as its leader. But I made the community much more visible and to some degree, I’ve generated interest in it from people outside of testing silo.

This Blog

My blog is slowly growing slowly but steadily. I had planned to get to 5k view in the year in 2019. But again I managed to cross that border this year.
I am quite satisfied with changes to my blog. I’ve finally fixed SEO. I did layout change. For now, I am planning what to do next year.

Last thing I was Mentioned as one of the candidates for Tester worth observing by Testerzy.pl. Even though I haven’t achieved enough to be mentioned in their summary of the year. I still think it was a success.

People I meet

There is a long least of people

There is one last Point I’ve met and talk with literally dozens of great people
contact with them challanged my way of thinking, expanded my horizons.

Marta Firlej , Michał Buczko, Bart Szulc, Kasia Balczerzak, Aleksadnra Kornecka, Emila Lendzion… And the list goes on.

They accepted me and I think for the first time ever they made me feel that elusive feeling of belonging. And For that, I am great full to all of them.

So what’s next year?

I will limit my conference presentations – I am aiming for 6.
Polish Meetup scene is active and I want to spent some time there.
I will read more books and maybe it is time to do some certification – definitely not ISTQB.

So that all for this year it was a journey thank you to all of you who were there.

See you next year.