I was in Ukraine two years ago. And I liked it here, so when the opportunity to speak here happened, I took it in an instant. Today We will talk about QMO.

QMO What is that?

QMO Conference (QMO stand for Quality Management Office) is a conference organised by SoftServe. And at first glance, they don’t seem too different from other conferences. But if you take a longer look, you will realise it is a little different beast.
The agenda is much shorter and have more space to breathe.

What I mean?
Usually, conferences start registration at 8 am and at the opening is happening around 9 am. then you have talked up until 17 -18 Pm.

Here registration started at 10 am and opening at 11 pm, and the conference ends at 17 pm with at least 15 minutes break between talks (and 1h lunch break)

So what it means?
Since there were 2 tracks, it had only 10 presentations! This made this event one of more cameral and quality of talks was high.
Another thing that makes this conference unique it fact it happens twice a year. Outside of brand conferences (ergo same name but the different country – for example, testbash), I don’t know any other conferences that happen twice a year.

How was Lviv?

Before the Event, while flying to Lviv, I have met Petra Boušková a crazy yellow Vulcan of energy, going on sightseeing with her was fun. Lets not forget the most crucial thing the food it Lviv is soooo good. Bellow gallery is from my adventures before and after the conference.

The Event

The first thing that made an impression on me was. The place – it was building belonging to some university, and there was a lot of thought-provoking art.

Presentations

Since there were two tracks, but in each slot, there was only one presentation in English I had choice cut out for me.
Let go over a few of presentation I saw.

Michał Buczko – Building Ethically Strong Organization 
with important role of QA 

I like the idea of talking about ethics – a Few years ago I wanted to have a panel on this subject – cause I had some huge ethical dilemmas in my work.
So I am glad that Michał is tackling this subject.

But I think the fact that it was a conference presentation hampered it.
What do I mean? As far as my understanding goes, people come to talks looking for a fast solution, actionable advice that can be used the next day.

I think such talks as ethics should work as food for thought – It should make you aware of some topic and make you ponder it.
Not necessarily providing your solution.
Michal did his best to fit this topic into a presentation format. But in my opinion, it diluted the message. Speaking of ethics, this article by uncle bob is must read.

Next was my presentation.

WORD OF ADVICE – don’t drink sparkling water before speaking. I wanted to hiccup during my whole presentation :/
But In general, I was satisfied.
My slides and some code example are available here.

Petra Bouskova – 4-1-4: Four ways how to communicate 
1 thing to 4 different people 

Do you remember from school that girl/guy who always before the exam was like “oh I am so unprepared, it won’t go well!?” And you know it is his/her stress talking cause he/she is the biggest head in class, and as expected he/she will get the best grade. – That is Petra. Before her speech she was like “oh I am so not ready, there are so many good speakers here” And guess who got the best speaker award?
I have seen this presentation on TestDive, and it was great to see it again, especially since it evolved.

Do you want to know how powerful her performance was?

Insight colours dominated all the discussions for the rest of the day.

But There is one problem:
her Call to Action – she had distributed to people the stickers with colours, so we all would display our colours, she also asked to talk with other people in a way that their colour would like it.
That is a great idea. BUT when her presentation is in the middle of the day, and the only portion of the audience will see it, it’s a little wasted potential.

So here is my CALL TO ACTION for conference organizers: when you are getting Petra make sure she is either morning keynote or in one of the first slots that day.

I have skipped the next slot to take some photos, play with VR, and just unwind.

Tomasz Olszewski – Design thinking – 
how to improve your way of working 

presentation I know Tomek for a while but mostly as organizers of test fest. But I haven’t seen any of his performances. And it was good – I like the idea of having „mini mind map” as chapter marks, but I think it wasn’t readable enough.

And he has an amazing plot twist in his presentation where removing the QA environment lead to better quilty code. Thing is I am not convinced by his arguments why it worked, but I can’t argue with results.

The Afterparty.

Here is another difference between QMO and other conferences speaker dinner happened AFTER the conference not before.
And again the food was terrific. We have talked a lot, and Petras colours were brought into the conversation a lot.

There is one regret I have. I haven’t met so many new people I like. And if not a Yellow hurricane I think I would attend even fewer. But this is my field for improvement, and I will work on it !

Massive Thank you to organisers for having me.

Another Thank you to Petra, Michał and Other who shard with me their photos.

That is all for now.

In a few days, I will be in Poznan on PtaQA, and that will be probably the end of my talking season.