Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland and UK

Our services

We're consultants, not a staffing company. We're test experts, not commodities. If you need a tester to do more than simply fill up a chair at your company, then you've come to the right place.

The Rebels

House of Test is synonymous with challenging the status quo. Each member of our team tears down the traditional conventions in their own unique way. Together we are bringing hardcore testing into the mainstream.

Whats going on?

Catch a glimpse of what's going on inside the walls of House of Test and the minds of our consultants. Our blog is where we share our thoughts on the latest developments in the testing world.

Glory to the Brave

Testing is a challenging craft that requires sharp skills. To hone our skills, we reject the status quo and refuse mediocrity. The wild ones dare to be different and think outside conventions and norms. We not only embrace change, we also create it and grow with it. We value our integrity and follow our passion – heart and soul. Because of this, we call bullshit on dehumanizing factory testing, bogus certification schemes, and feeble testing standards. Testing done right delivers valuable information, and we will meet the challenge.

We choose to take the high road because we care about you, our customer.

What we do, we do for the love of testing!

We only settle for greatness, because you expect nothing less from us!

Some call us rebels.

We call ourselves House of Test.

 

Passion for testing

What separates House of Test consultants from the average, run-of-the-mill test consultants out there, is our unstoppable drive and thirst for knowledge about software testing. We pride ourselves on being the number one context-driven testing company in Sweden, with some of the world’s leading trainers, coaches, and test experts on our roster. Regardless of your testing problem, you can rest assured that House of Test can help you solve it.

Consulting

House of Test consulting is not your common staffing company or resource provider. Our consulting focuses on contributing as much on a strategic level as on the project deliverables. House of Test can offer a complete range of testing services, but we always make sure that our customers feel that working with House of Test means value both for the current project, and for future ones.

House of Test offers competence-based consulting services in terms of shorter assignments and part time assignments such as mentoring, coaching, assessments, and reorganization. We are also able to take on longer, full time contracts, either assigned to teams or with us as project leads.

Our Consultants

At House of Test, we cultivate excellence. We dare claim we have some of the best test consultants in the world. Our consultants are experts at analyzing and getting up to speed in new contexts which means we deliver value from day one. Collectively, we’ve done work in every industry imaginable and are able to excel in any context, from mobile and web, to regulated medical environments or with defense industry contractors.

What truly makes us unique though, is the way we approach skills development within House of Test. Many companies claim to have good knowledge sharing, but very few take it as far as we do. We meet as a group 4-5 times per year for two day long workshops on testing, and in between we do internal status reporting and give feedback to each other on our latest testing ideas or challenges we might be facing. This isn’t something we have to force. It’s simply what happens when you put kick-ass people with a common passion together.

Coaching

House of Test is home to some of the most experienced test coaches in Europe and South Africa. We tailor our coaching to the needs of the organization, teams and individuals, depending on the situation.

A coach’s job is to facilitate the exploration of needs, motivations, desires, skills and thought processes to assist the individual in making real, lasting change. When we coach, we use a socratic approach with questions and answers guiding the individual being coached towards new insights and learnings.

Our coaching is always goal-based and we continously evaluate and adapt to make sure that we’re steering towards the agreed goal after each coaching session. If we’re off course, we adjust the course, and if the goal is no longer relevant, we update the goal.

Mentoring

The difference between coaching and mentoring can appear subtle, and the focus between coaching and mentoring often changes several times during a client assignment. The goal of our mentoring sessions is to pass on knowledge and experience and open doors to otherwise out-of-reach opportunities of learning for individuals and team. Our coaches have decades of accumulated testing expertise between them and are also experienced trainers and educators, which guarantees a highly effective relationship between mentor and mentee.

Test Management

We believe testing is inherently unpredictable and our collective experience backs that up. As a counter-measure we like to spent as little time on planning as possible and instead put most of our efforts into navigating and enabling testing. We do make plans. We do make strategies. But we refrain from burying our heads in them and staying with our knowledge and beliefs as they were at the beginning of the test project. We know that we all get smarter, wiser and better. Not all checks stay valuable. Not all areas stay at the same risk level.

Our toolbox is highly valuable, low-tech and customizable and is generally non-intrusive and complimentary to what tools and methods you may already have in your organisation: we use mindmaps and white board dashboards for overviews. It helps visualising status and goals, while not restricting us in getting new ideas. Whenever possible we like to use either session-based or thread-based testing, as that utilizes the power and freedom of the testers to do amazingly good testing, while still keeping everything in control and to the point.

A large part of test management is logistics in getting people and their skills, software, data, environments and everything else ready at the required time. We tend to focus on the testers, their skills, their professional growth. We prefer to manage people rather than test cases. We use coaching and mentoring, because we do not just settle for average. We think that testers who are confident, skillful and generally shines with pride of their work also performs the best. Who wants to be a commodity, doing average work?

We encourage several ways of reporting test results to you, as different decisions and needs shouldn’t be met with the standard one-size-fits-all form that the local tool can generate. We aim at always being able to report results on time, to the point, on purpose and including the accuracy and insecurities of the testing done. How else can you use our results?

Ultimately it is all about getting trustworthy and understandable information to the right people at the right time.

 

Test Engineering

Our consultants are some of the world’s leading experts in context-driven testing.House of Test is able to send consultants to work directly in your test team or embed themselves in your agile teams to both perform great testing, and train the rest of the team to do the same.

We’re at our best when we’re able to enter into a project in its early stages and work directly with requirements gathering and analysis, which we then base our test strategy on. Of course, verifying requirements is just a tiny part of what value-based testing is and by working proactively and updating our test strategy and plan as we learn more about the explicit requirements of a project, we also gain insights in how to deal with the implicit requirements and find the “unknown unknowns” before you need to ship.

When there are testable deliverables available, our consultants will dig in and attack the software (or hardware) from all angles. We have extensive experience with testing products in a wide variety of contexts and business domains, ranging from mobile applications and web based services, to military simulators and medical devices. And everything in between. We recognize that your organization is unique, but we dare say that we’re able to bring a lot of our collective experience to the table as a value add that will let us quickly orient ourselves in your project and start delivering quality related information that you can depend on.

Performance Testing

One of the most challenging testing tasks for many organizations is that of performance testing. House of Test has extensive experience in setting up and executing performange test strategies with tailored reports that will let your organization pin point exactly where your performance improvement efforts should be placed.

Test Automation

Our continuous integration experts can help your organization move towards an always releasable state and tackle the testing challenges to make your product release worthy. We’ll help you find the right build environment and select a feasible and effective unit test strategy, based on your specific product and team.

We can also help automating your business level tests which will help you gain information about the business worth of releasing at a certain point in time.

Automation can enable your testers to focus on exploration rather than checking and supply you with the right information at the right time. Your business decisions will then rest on a solid platform of up-to-date, quality related information.

Finding that special someone

If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s the ability to spot a good tester in a crowd. We’re offering to come on board and help your organization weed through the CVs and application and pick our the ones with true potential.

When you’ve selected a handful of candidates for the position you’re looking to fill, our consultant will pre-screen them all and put them through a series of exercises and questions to qualify a subset of them for another round of interviews with your team.

We prepare the screening by talking directly to your teams and employees to find out what the most pressing needs of your organizations are, which will also let us develop an understanding for the company culture and group dynamics that the candidates might find themselves in if hired.

We’ll help you find that special someone

  • “To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It’s freedom.”

    Patti Smith

  • “Punk rock is very rebellious, of course, but it also means thinking for yourself.”

    Dexter Holland

  • “Questioning anything and everything, to me, is punk rock.”

    Henry Rollins

Training

Public Training can be found here: https://rebelsof.it

House of Test provides tailored training, mentoring and coaching packages for individuals and organizations who want to further and evolve their testing knowledge and skill within today’s cutting edge testing techniques and methodologies.

House of Test also cooperates with well-known experts in context driven and rapid software testing approaches to further strengthen our training offer. Look out for upcoming training sessions with world-leading test experts, such as James Bach and Michael Bolton.

 

Abstract

No matter which side of the table you’re on, interviewing for a new job can be a daunting task. There is never a shortage of applicants, but if you’re hiring, how do you attract the truly talented? It can be tough enough to make sure they see your ad, let alone make it attractive enough for them to apply. If you’re a candidate, how do you make sure you stand out from the crowd?

This workshop provides you with practical skills for each section of the job pipeline from ad to offer.

Course Objectives

We’ll work through and discuss practical examples of

  • Writing a job description that stands out
  • Where to find skilled testers
  • The anatomy of a top-notch CV – how to screen for them
  • Interviewing techniques
    • Phone
    • Face to face
  • Keeping the hiring pipeline warm
  • The anatomy of a top-notch CV – how to write them

Who Will Benefit

Testers, Test managers, Talent Acquisition Personnel, Recruiters

Details

Duration: 1 day
Language: English or German
Teacher/Coach: Ben Kelly, Ilari Henrik Aegerter – Both have been long time line managers and in that role they have screened a ton of CVs and conducted an outrageous number of interviews

Roll up for Ben & Ilari’s spectacular testing circus! Our gates are open for both testers and developers alike. The lion tamers and the clowns welcome a healthy mix of both for the show. Take your seats. We’ll dim the lights. The stage will soon be set for spectacles and wonders. Enjoy the show!

This one-day interactive workshop sheds light on some of the most important fundamentals in software testing. Each section has a short introduction followed by a practical exercise or a game. Participation is not compulsory, but strongly encouraged. We will work our way through:

  • testing missions,
  • checking & testing,
  • safety language,
  • modeling,
  • observation,
  • focusing/defocusing and
  • the generation of test ideas

There will be puzzles and laughter and a distinct absence of powerpoint slides, so come along. Be entertained (you may even learn something useful).

We have five senses we can use to make observations of the outside world. Touch, smell, taste, hearing and sight. These senses act as entry points into our brain. As the amount of information we perceive is far too large, there are powerful filter mechanisms in place. Sometimes the obvious remains unnoticed. Now, how do you improve your observation capabilities? What does brilliant observation mean? Can you deliberately exercise it?

Once you have made a relevant observation you might want to describe it. This usually happens either orally or in writing. Since natural languages are prone to errors and to ambiguity, great care needs to be exercised in a description. Now, how can you become more proficient in describing things? What is a good description? Can you deliberately exercise it?

Since both observation and description are integral parts of almost any testing activity, you will have the opportunity to emerge into two important aspects of the software testing craft. For software testers there is a wide variety of skills needed in order to be able to do your job well. Both the study of theoretical models and practice can help you to become better.

This half-day workshop will be a mix of theoretical and practical contemplations in various domains, such as the psychology of attention, linguistic explorations and exercises. I plan to include peer reviews into the exercises and there shall be a lively discussion among the participants.

Imagine your team is not happily sitting together in the same room or building but scattered across different countries. How do you keep communications up and running? How do you handle such a situation as a manager? How do you cope with potentially not everyone getting crucial information?

Ilari Henrik Aegerter used to be the manager of Quality Engineering Europe for the world’s biggest marketplace eBay and he has a team, which is distributed between Zurich, Berlin, Paris and London. This session is both an experience report on perceived difficulties as well as an experiential session in communication under constraints.

Participants will get a (very short) overview of Ilari’s experiences and then be put into a simulation, wherein they have to collaborate on a mini-project and come to a successful end. Of course, there will be disturbances, which will make the endeavor more difficult.

Body and Mind are inseparable entities and the Greek already knew that. This session starts with a brief introduction into the peripatetic school of thought. Participants will get an insight into why physical activities and thinking are mutually supportive activities.

Then we will go for a walk.

We will actually be walking in meanders toward where our walking leads us to. The whole session will take place while walking at a pleasurable pace outside in the nature. It will be both a problem solving and a deeply experiential session and little is known beforehand where the session will lead us. We might even have greek philosophy meet 21st century geekery and live record parts of the interactions.
Bring along your problems, thoughts and conundrums and all the participants will cheerfully participate in communal problem solving. You will be a happier and wiser person after this unforgettable session.

Abstract

This 3-day couse is aimed at providing the students with basic knowledge and experience with planning and performing ET (Exploratory Testing), organizing the work and fitting the test results to the surrounding context. It starts from the context and points to different tools such as heuristics, note taking and SBTM/MTBS (Session-Based Test Management / Managing Testing Based on Sessions), to create effective and valuable testing, based on skill, thought and risks.

The course is highly interactive and packed with exercises that are always debriefed and analyzed to help students internalize their newly learned skills and tools.

The course can be extended with coaching activities to help the students incorporate ET in their work.

Course Objectives

The course covers the principles of CDT (Context-Driven Testing), the discipline of ET (Exploratory Testing), SBTM (Session-based Test Management) for managing the testing as well as Test Strategizing, Planning and Reporting based on Heuristics, Opportunities and Risks. The course relates everything we do to how it works within an Agile context, points to different Tools and Methods that may be of use along the way, and includes a perspective on how testing is fused with different needs (like ‘Cover all the requirements’, ‘What to do with the bugs’ and the impossibility of testing everything and getting effective testing done in the short time that is available).

Participants will gain basic knowledge and experience with planning and performing ET (Exploratory Testing), organizing the work and fitting the test results to the surrounding context

Who will benefit?

This course is most appropriate for Testers, Test Engineers, Test Leads, Test Consultants and Test Managers.

Details

Delegates are required to bring their own Laptop PC’s (not MAC or iPad’s), since a lot of the training is based on real hands-on exercises run on PC).

Duration: 3 days
Language: Danish or English
Teacher/Coach: Carsten Feilberg

Abstract

Agile development methodologies have quickly gained ground around the world and are today one of the more prevalent models for software development. For testers, the transition from traditional development models can be difficult or even frightening. It doesn’t have to be though.

In this 2-day course, you get to do a deep-dive into the what the principles of agile development means for testers and how you can transform your work into becoming both more efficient and effective.

Most parts of the course will contain practical exercises that will allow participants to not only gain theoretical knowledge, but also put it into practice right away, and thus gain a deeper understanding of the different topics.

Course Objectives

We’ll be discussing the tester’s role in agile teams and how to best create an agile test strategy. Participants will gain a better understanding of what exploratory testing can offer as well as knowledge of different sorts of heuristic tools and checklists that are absolutely essential for an agile tester.

Furthermore, we will go through the test management frameworks Session-based Test Management and Thread-based Test Management and discuss how they can be applied to gain traceability and help build a strong foundation for test reporting in an agile setting.

The course also contains sections dedicated to the role of test reporting, test automation, and different test tools that can help simplify your work as an agile tester.

Who will benefit?

Anybody working with testing in an agile setting, as well as Scrum Master and managers who need a deeper understanding for the role testing plays in an agile team or organization.

Details

Duration: 2 Days
Language: Swedish or English

Abstract

Software projects today are often large and complex. This requires a test organization which is able to work with requirements and risks in a structured way. Structured testing includes clear goals, strategies and coverage. One important tool in structured testing is to use test design techniques. Test design techniques make it possible to create test cases with better precision, a more specific coverage and better prioritization.

Many testers know about test design theories, but for some reason, an aware usage of test design techniques is not very common in many test organizations.

During two days, the most common black box test design techniques will be explained in theory and with examples. Several exercises will help the students to understand how and when to apply the different techniques, like Equivalence Partitioning, Boundary Value Analysis, State-Transition testing, Decision-tables, Use-case testing and Pairwise testing.

This workshop can be extended with coaching if needed.

After the workshops, the real challenge is to actually apply the new skills in the everyday work. A period of coaching within the “real” work could be very beneficial, especially for less experienced testers. The coaching could be done with one tester at a time, or with smaller groups of testers. The coach can help with requirement analysis, test case reviews and creation, etc. All with a focus on black box test design techniques.

Course Objectives

To get the tester acquainted with test design techniques usable in daily work.

Who will benefit?

Testers, Test developers

Details

Duration: 2 Days. Can be extended with personal coaching.
Language: Swedish, Danish or English
Teacher/Coach: Carsten Feilberg

Abstract

Exploratory Testing (ET) is an approach to software testing that is concisely described as simultaneous learning, test design and test execution. Cem Kaner, who coined the term in 1983, now defines exploratory testing as “a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the quality of his/her work by treating test-related learning, test design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project.” That definition also says something about why Exploratory Testing is such a powerful approach, once mastered. Some prominent experts in the field have even gone so far as to equate the word “testing” with Exploratory Testing, while referring to test case-driven, scripted testing as “checking”.

Course objectives

Introducing Exploratory Testing and showing its powers as a structured way of challenging a product in order to learn about it, and introducing SBTM as a systematic approach to keeping the direction and provide accountability of the testing done.

Who will benefit?

Testers, test managers, project managers, developers, architects

Details

Duration: 2-day workshop
Language: English, Danish or Swedish
Teacher/Coach: Carsten Feilberg or Henrik Andersson

Abstract

Session-Based Test Management is a way to make the intangibles of Exploratory Testing more tangible. It was specifically developed as a framework to organize testing so as to optimize and stay focused on the more important parts, while keeping up with the flexibility and powerful adaptation to change that Exploratory Testing provides. It means we have a set of expectations for what kind of work will be done and how it will be reported. As in a recording studio, this work is done in “sessions.” Sessions range typically from 45 minutes to several hours, depending on the charter – or “mission statement”, which the tester will focus on – for that time. Learning to describe, select and prioritize charters, debriefing the vital information and constantly meet the needs of the stakeholders is fun, giving and also challenging, especially in fast-moving projects with tight schedules.

Course objectives

To introduce and help the students set up SBTM as their primary tool for directing test activities. The course involves real problem solving related to introducing SBTM in an organisation and gives the students various tools and insights that helps them solving these problems.

Who will benefit?

Test managers, testers (Knowledge of exploratory testing (ET) is recommended)

Details

Duration: 2-day workshop
Language: Danish or English
Teacher/Coach: Carsten Feilberg

Abstract

This workshop mixes practical exercises and theory briefings with the participants’ own learning goals. The students will experience what participating in an actual Scrum project can be like. We will have experiental designed exercises covering all roles, artifacts and ceremonies in Scrum but more important we focus on bringing understanding to the social science aspects of Agile. This to emphasize the importance of good communication and teamwork.

The last day focuses entirely on applying the knowledge participants have gained into the context of a project. This day is about making Scrum work for you, in your circumstances. It is an advantage (but not necessary) if there is a certain amount of time (e.g. 1 week) between the first two workshop days and the third. This to allow the participants the possibility of receiving knowledge, translating it into practice and being able to bring fresh problems and examples to the last day of the workshop.

Course objectives

The goal of this workshop is that you as a participant will get a basic understanding of how and why Scrum works, and gain an insight into how to apply this in practice.

Who will benefit?

Managers, developers, testers

Details

Duration: 3 Days
Language: Swedish, Danish or English
Teacher/Coach: Henrik Andersson

The Rebels

Henrik Andersson

House of Test is my fuel, it is the platform to make ideas happen and it is our contribution to develop testing further. I co-founded this company to enable testers to live out their passion for testing in order to become the best skilled testers ever.

I believe that we grow and become better by sharing knowledge and learn from others. I do this through the context driven testing community where I am a well know and respected face and voice.

I’m co-founder of the world renowned Let´s Test conference with the purpose to provide a home and learning ground for our community.

Locally I’m founder and host of ConTest at FooCafe in Malmö where we share experiences and learn from each other to raise awareness of and to advance Context Driven Testing.

Internationally  I co-founded ISST (International Society for Software Testing). Our mission is to put common sense back into testing.

As you can see this not only my job, this is my life and I love it.

Ilari Henrik Aegerter

My formal studies have brought me from General Linguistics and Sociology to Software Engineering and Software Testing. I so much liked the profession that I continued to work on my skills intensively. Being a context-driven tester is the natural outcome, and I believe that software testing is not a clerical job but a profession, which needs a high level of proficiency.

I have 10+ years of experience in the field, coming from the medical software domain at Phonak AG and progressing to e-commerce at eBay. I am now the Managing Director of House of Test GmbH, and I believe there is still a lot of work to be done for excellent software testing.

In 2015 I was elected into the board of the Association for Software Testing (AST), where I act as Chief of Chapters.

Since I like talking, I often present at international Software Testing conferences, and I am also frequently invited to speak at company events. From time to time I do workshops on Software Testing, which I enjoy tremendously.

Being in the field of Software Testing does not feel like work and it is a pleasure to do what I like every single day.

In my private time, I like to read a lot of books and comics, spend time with my family, test the possibilities of our world with my kids and test good food in restaurants with my wife. I believe that people are generally good and that there is plenty for everybody in this world. All that results in me smiling a lot.

Georg Lysen

In co-founding House of Test, I saw an opportunity for freedom; a freedom from dictated models and conformative thinking, a freedom to broaden my horizons and grow as a tester. Most of all, it’s a freedom to do a damn good job and it’s a freedom I take very seriously.

In my more than 15 years of working with IT, I have come across the good, the bad and the ugly within software development, all of which helped me build a broad base to stand on and approach any new situation with confidence and skill. It has also given me a great testing toolbox to choose and select from based on the unique context of any new project. Quality, as much as I love it, is not a one-man show and I aim to get everyone to feel engaged in the quality of the product by spreading my enthusiasm, sharing valuable information and having my bug reports be something even the developers look forward to receiving.

Nicola Owen

I’m passionate about software testing. I believe, to be an effective tester you need to be a strong communicator – and if the person you’re talking to isn’t on the same page: Try again. Use diagrams; body language; change of wording.

As a tester I’m constantly looking for ways to grow and learn; whether that be through taking courses, reading blogs or bouncing ideas off people I look up to in the field. I also grow and learn by keeping a testing blog. It helps me document my learning journey and see how my thought processes have changed over time. 

I’m a strong advocate for Context Driven Testing as it doesn’t believe in a “one size fits all approach” to testing. There’s no such thing as best practices because the context between different projects can differ greatly.

When I’m not at work, you’ll probably find me cooking, baking or watching stand-up comedy. I also love learning foreign languages – it’s a great way to experience a new culture. 

Andreas Cederholm

Testing is not just my livelihood, it is part of my identity. In order to constantly learn and improve to become a superhero tester I read and write test related blogs and books, presentations, discuss testing at test conferences or local test meet-ups and am an active part of the test community. I love to share my knowledge and passion for testing, and it shows in my work.

I have worked with world class test automation, creating automated checks and creating test framework, heavily based on requirements but have also worked with Session Based testing where information for test ideas were taken from multiple sources.

My experiences have taught me many important lessons and that above all, Context matters.

Simon Berner

I started my career in IT as a system engineer/administrator and then later as a developer. I finally stumbled over testing and it stuck with me. I love the burnt smell of deep thinking while testing and to forget the rest of the world while I’m absorbed with awesome testing. I’m very enthusiastic about software testing – especially for those things I don’t know yet. I’m experienced in story testing, performance testing and mobile testing. Besides that, I have also deep knowledge in requirements engineering and agile project- and application management, I’m good at talking to customers and I’m a very good listener and tacit observer. The restlessness drives me, I’m always open to learn something new and like a chameleon I’m able to fit me into every new challenge and situation.

For me House of Test is like being among rock stars. It is the ultimate place to grow, learn, congress, communicate and debate. It’s full of responsibility, freedom, passion and satisfaction, to evolve as human beings and testers. I give all the power I’ve got for moving us forward and getting a bit wiser each day.

Johanna Forsberg

I am an awesome tester that is burning for what I do and not even a firefighter can put that fire out!

I started my career at The Incubator program by House of Test. In addition to working full time as a consultant I was additionally studying Test over ten hours each week for two years. I loved that challenge because I love to learn and grow increasingly better in my trade. During the two years in the Incubator program I have gone from a junior tester to a Test Lead with teams in multiple countries.

After the incredible time as an Incubator I joined the wonderful team at House of Test. Here I get inspired to become even better, to think more and to learn even more.

Martin Nilsson

I’m a kick ass tester with an incredibly wide spectrum of skills; from programming microprocessors to developing Continuous Integrations strategies for development organizations. My unusual combination of technical expertise and understanding of systems and organizations has made me a favourite to throw into highly complex situations on short notice.
Quote from my last customer for whom I in six months went from a System Tester to the Test Coordinator of a project with a hundred testers: “We didn’t believe your CV. We were wrong”. Not only do I perform my work excellently, I also spread my passion of Test to my colleagues, enabling their growth as well in their trade.

My drive comes from a curiosity of technology and people and I leverage this heavily in my passion for test. I’m able to outpace my competition by having my work as a hobby and therefore I’m constantly evolving my abilities in my craft.

Diana Flores

My motto is do it better. As testers we have the opportunity to find improvements. We have both the overview, by being involved in different phases, and also the behind the scenes look, by being involved in finding root causes.

My motivation in choosing a career in IT was to solve problems, learn about new ideas and share the better practices.

I started university in Budapest for Informatics-Mathematics, and did English-language IT-teacher training as well, which matched my desire to combine a human side to the rational subjects. I continued with a thesis and case study on socio-technical congruence, when I moved to Amsterdam for a Computer Science MSc.

My first work experience, software configuration manager, thought me how important communication is, being the connection point of developers, testers and project managers, which I kept in mind when I became a tester.

I enjoyed especially the agile projects, as it gives you the most room to change towards efficiency.

I joined HoT to be among the motivated people who feel that testing is not just a job, it is our profession, so I feel at home here.

Michal Zima

Testing is not only work for me, it is a profession and a passion. Testing for me is bringing clarity into uncertainty, bringing value for the project with the information I provide.

I jumped into testing right after my masters degree in management of computer systems. Working on various projects I started to develop passion and enthusiasm for this profession. I am constantly refining and adding to my skills through work itself, through self-study, from courses/seminars and on community events. While on projects I seek new ways to solve problems, minimize chaos, promote collaboration and build a knowledge base among people. I strive to achieve mutual trust in the form of:

“Michal tested this, there will be no surprises”

My strength lies in banking, followed by reinsurance and embedded devices.

My methods include scripts to support my testing and I am willing to use trial /error to an extent when most people give up. This helps me creating a model of the system which I then refine incrementally. At the end of the day, only the testing itself shows the best approach. You need to always be ready to change the way how you approach the problem.

When you don’t see me testing, I am probably traveling, doing sports (fitness, running, martial arts) or reading a good book.

Jan Wegner

I entered the professional IT world when studying computer science at the University of Paderborn and having a job as a systems administrator. After working quite a while as systems admin, I was hired as a professional Software Engineer. The first time it became “test-related” was after finishing university and entering into a big German web-portal. Our Team was inspired by Toyotas “Total Quality Management” (well) idea and lean-approach. Still programming I was working at the QA-department, to assure that no software hits the servers, which was not verified by our department. We saw early versions of frameworks like Selenium, Spring, CruiseControl and software from e.g. Apache Jakarta which are still in use today – at much later versions, though.

As a matter of fact we were building our own test tools because testing was not yet a discipline by itself. Some may not come to mind firsthand when talking comes to test tools. In the meantime the business has changed a lot and observing, thinking an communicating are the primary tools at hand instead being the human bug-finder. After working for a while on both sides of the ‘front line’ between software development and software testing, I found my first job as a testing (only) position. Having an innovative manager, I had the first encounter with the context driven school of testing.

Providing information about the ‘state of the product’ and contributing to identifying risks is now one of my primary goals. Besides that I enjoy working with a team not only following “The Prozess(tm)” but strive to learn, adapt and change. In that field I am really engaged about showing the agile benefits to those who work with me. Bering thoughtful and risk-aware I am also a hands-on guy, passionate with experimenting. Last but not least I keep my eyes and mind open for the new and noteworthy.

Sebastian Thuné

I tend to use the word successful, and I want to start out by clarifying my definition of this word.

For me it’s not the meaning of having achieved fame, wealth, or social status. Successful for me will always be to accomplish a desired aim or result. It’s up to you to define your target, and I will do anything I can to help you out.

Communication and problem solving is my life. We are all in the people business, and that’s the very foundation of my philosophy. With a plan and the 80/20 rule I make every minute and every challenge as an excuse to push forward, develop and change. Through a history of sales, business development, leadership, marketing, partner management and successes as well as setbacks within the areas of retail, software development, consulting and IT services I will continue my journey towards new strong relationships. I take pride in my curiosity, to exceed your expectations and challenge my environment.

With a strong entrepreneurship and an open mind, I’m ready to help every one of you out there who is curious on how we as the number one context-driven testers can help you accomplish every desired quality you might wish for.

Ida Waller

I was once asked how such a positive and outgoing person as you always expect the worst.

My answer simply was that I´m a tester and there are always problems but my mission is to make sure that we know what kind of problems exists so that we can take care of them.

Communication is my biggest strength, I often lead various dialogues with many stakeholders, customers and end-users. I always try to see the full picture to understand how the system works and who will use it, so it´s not always about the tech skills.

I try to stay sharp because software and testing is constantly evolving, getting more complex and advanced. Even after 10 years I still feel excited when finding issues in software or explaining why for example a feature might not be easy to understand for an end-user.

Besides being a tester, I also have thorough experience in big data and business intelligence tools.
I can help you identify new business opportunities by analyzing and visualizing your data.

If there is software there will always be bugs to track down and I’m like good wine getting better with years of experience.

Victor Förare

I am a tester that is always looking for new challenges, that never gets bored with a task because I always find things to improve or things to test in ways they never have been tested before.
I like being around brilliant people since I am like a sponge that quickly absorbs knowledge from those around me and have the ability to quickly fill in anyone’s shoes if need be. That was what enticed me to join the HoT family.
My goal in every company is to become one of the people with the best overview of the system as a whole.
Since I started out in health care and later re-schooled into a software test engineer I have refined social and technical skills.
They came in handy when I developed test routines, trained new employees and handled customer support for several years with one of my previous employers.
I know that the developer has a profound knowledge about their own code, but I have the ability to take a step back and view the system as a whole. I am like the glue that fuses your systems together.
I will analyze your system integrations and if anything is amiss I will find it, I got the Bug repellent spray for you.

Carin Cedergren

I think that in many ways I could be the perfect tester. I have logical mindset, I am thorough but I also have a good insight on what is good enough, I have a good eye for foreseeing risks and I also seem to have a nack for breaking things.

I am a positive person who thrives on irritation. Positive anger is my drive and one thing that angers me is doing things a certain way only because of old habit. Understanding the cost and the benefit is essential for effective and good software testing. I have been on the dark side of test case maintenance and abiding by strict rules that doesn’t really make sense, but everyone’s so preoccupied with upholding these rules that they never stop to question them.

What happens when we dare to make that leap? How can that improve us as a company, a team and as individuals? That’s what I am here to find out!

I love what I do, and I love getting better at it. I almost never wear anything other than black since lighter colours seem to hurt my soul. I also love kittens.

David Dormvik

After graduating what might be described as one of the world’s first program in context driven testing I spent my first three years of my career in software testing as a member of a cross-functional R&D team.

I have worked closely with developers in maintaining and improving a large catalogue of API’s and developer tools. Challenged with being the lone tester I managed to come out on top by simply staying communicative and humble.
I truly believe I managed to changed both mindsets and processes for the better and left a team that will continue to deliver quality software.

The combination of a mindset trained in my education, and the technical aspects learned from the responsibilities working close to developers creates a creative, curious and knowledgeable tester.

Being the ‘go to’ guy for anything quality related in my previous assignment I honed my skills in ‘talking the language’ of testers, developers, support personnel, technical writers and managers alike.

According to me the key to delivering quality software is a spot on risk analysis (the hard part), followed by a strategy to cover these risks in the simplest and most maintainable way possible (the part that should be easy).

Sebastian Kruschke

I started my career adventure yet during study, after bachelor exam, in July 2012. Results, which I achieved during research necessary for writing thesis, were so interesting, that based on them promoter published with me as co-author scientific article. As a side effect of that, I have been proposed for internship in scientific research center located in Frankfurt in Germany.

Next chapter of my professional experience has been started at the end of master study, after publishing second article and during finishing master thesis. At this time, I have been hired as Junior Software Developer in Wrocław (Breslau), in Poland. During over two – years involvement I participated in five different projects, in two as software developer and in three as software tester / test automation engineer.

After that, I decided to look for challenges outside of the company and relocated myself to small town located in Lower Saxony, Lingen, where I have been hired as Software Developer / Software Tester in company, which was providing inspection service for oil – and gas – pipelines by using custom – designed hardware platform and software solutions. After this very valuable experience, which took almost 1.5 year, I received job offer with relocation to Switzerland, which I decided to agree.

Since April 2017 I have been assigned as Test Automation Engineer to projects related to reporting and clearing duty and risk management of OTC derivatives, central counterparts and transaction registering from various jurisdictions (like for example EU, Switzerland, China, etc.). I was also involved in one project as Test Manager and organized work for the group of eight QAs from three different locations (Switzerland, Poland and India) and very different cultural backgrounds.

After worktime, I like to learn new languages. I have the luck that I already speak German, Polish, English, a little bit Russian and currently I learn Hebrew, which would be fifth one. It simplifies communication and helps me to understand cultural diversity, in my opinion there is no better way to understand cultural heritage of people than learning language, which they use.

Mathilda Wickman

I have a broad scope that includes project management, test management and security primarily in the telecom, Medtech and IT-industry. I am driven, goal oriented and love challenges. I am very analytical and structured, and consider myself being the person you think of when you have a so-called DOER in mind. If you want things, done I’m the one.

I like challenging assignments where the prerequisites are not entirely given, where there must be new ways to solve challenges. One of my biggest strengths is to see things from many perspectives and finding relatively simple solutions to my customer’s complex needs.

I have both technical knowledge and communication skills so I’m often the bridge between top management and the teams. Constantly evolving as a person in anyway possible is a huge momentum for me, hence I’m always eager to to learn new domains.

No one can take your knowledge away!

Lukas Mathiasson

All my test assignments have been unconventional. I’ve worked on a small team developing an upcoming app making up the testing as new features came along. I’ve worked on a global medical giant where the test plan and scope was so huge and established that it worked against testing quality. And I have worked in between on a company with their own methods and own self defined scope, where the goal is more important than the way there.
What I have found from these endeavors is that the rebels way is the best way. When testers bend the limits, use their own initiative and test their way, all this for better results. As demands and expectations change, so should testing, adapt and evolve constantly past limits, not around them.

So I burn for rebel testing. Finding the best way and executing it no matter the environment. The best solution is out there and I aim to find it.

When I am not bending rules on the workplace I spend my time fencing with medieval longswords, games and cooking.

Niklas Lagesson

After briefely testing the life as an air traffic controller in 1999, I realized that it’s more fun to test software. Therefore in 2000 I left the Swedish ATS Academy to start working as a software tester at a small company in Lund, called QlikTech. Little did I know that this small company, with 47 people globally at the time, was going to disrupt the whole world of analytics and business intelligence some years later, become noted at Nasdaq NY and grow to about 2700 people.

Throughout the 19 years that I stayed at QlikTech, I more or less worked with testing in one way or another the whole time. Everything from exploratory testing to test teamlead and test automation. I especially developed an interest for Test Automation and this is where I have continued my carreer in software testing up until today.

Test automation has changed and evolved radically over the years that I’ve worked with it, much thanks to CI/CD and the web. This has challenged me as a test automation developer to do the same. From record/playback based scripting to a more programming oriented approach.

Outside of work, I either spend time with my family or swim, bike and run in preparation for my next Ironman.

Andrew Orange

My degree is a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronic and Information Engineering.  During my 4 year studies, we covered all aspects of engineering including,  software, electronics, high voltage systems, digital signal processing, analogue electronics and pure mathematics. During that period was 1 year in industry working on designing, building power supplies and writing error correction firmware for spectrum analysers.

Most of my career has been involved in testing one way or another. The first company I worked for was Micro Focus in the UK, where I was automating tests and exploring a COBOL Integrated Development Environment we’d developed for Windows 95. Later, as a developer for the product, we would do our own testing for bug fixes, automate the tests and drop them straight into the build process. The start of CI/CD building blocks perhaps!

In 1999, I moved to Switzerland where I continued as a developer mainly in financial institutions.  Here I would develop my own testing practices alongside my own development work up until many companies started to separate testing from development and commodify the practice. Throughout my time in industry, I’ve seen the most skillful testing work come from testers knowing their products very well, and having the ability to talk directly to the customers and the developers. This is why it’s such a pleasure to work for a company like House of Test who shares the same belief that testing is a skill and not a commodity.

When I finish work, I go home to Winterthur where I find my apartment in the city, my girlfriend and my 2 dogs which we take to the woods for walks.  I read a lot and my hobbies include value investing and bitcoin, mainly from a technical and economic standpoint. In my spare time, I’ve tested equity pricing apps and crypto-wallets. The learning never ends.

Simon Reichenbach

When I started working as a Software Tester in a so-called Testcenter more than ten years ago, it was pretty coincidentally. There were a lot of changes over the last decade in the area of Software development and testing.

At the very beginning of my career, we used to handle a vast amount of uninspiring step-by-step test cases designed by some business guys who didn’t really have a clue of what testing is. There were those never-ending projects which consumed so much time to manage the requirements and get a first draft version of the application to realize that it wasn’t implemented as desired by the Business Stakeholders side.

We had to complete our checklists and spreadsheets to submit them to the test Manager, manually, of course. Then we moved on to the agile framework. Everything became faster. We were faced with PI-plannings, biweekly sprints, continuous integration, daily deployments and fully automated test execution during nighttime. I began to appreciate all of those new liberties where we were able to plan, develop and schedule our tasks and user stories. It was a pleasure to see how our team improved every other week.

Since I am a pretty critical person, I think this fits very well to my job as a software tester. It lets you think differently about a specific situation and can help you approach things in another way than probably most of the people would think about. I’m pleased to work with the most recent technologies and to apply my knowledge in a useful way to help our customers increase their quality and to shorten the feedback cycle.

Recently I’ve completed the post-graduate certification course CAS Software Testing at the University of Rapperswil which was conducted the very first time. That was also the moment when I first got in touch with House of Test. I immediately identified myself with their principles and the way they work. I enjoy working together with or at least be a part of this highly motivated team as well.

In my leisure time, you can find me shredding downhill trails in the mountains with my mountain bike or ski powder all around the world.

Fredrik Almén

I saw an advertisement on a tram for a software testing education and felt, why not. I have tried game programming and brewery technician, so why not try this as well, lets jump on the train! And that is a decision I haven’t regretted since. Amazing feeling.

To enable the teams, to make the team take responsibility for their work. Educate product owners, specialists, developers, testers and so on. What is quality and how do we make it a part of the process? Test is not only something that comes in the end, it’s a mindset in the team. To make them feel proud and ownership of their work. To enable this, is one passion I have.

Gari Malkoc

Jens Hauser

I started out as a front end developer, user experience designer and most things within the web sphere in the mid-’90s until I realized that I enjoy testing and making sure stuff works as expected. That is why I love working as a Senior Test Manager. I want to coach on risk analysis, plan and execute test cases, explore context-driven testing, remove obstacles, get the correct test data, find ways to do smarter API-testing, be curious if or not AI has built-in ethics, interpret metrics and ask all sorts of questions until the stakeholders have enough trust for the system under test.

When I am not working I like to travel to foreign countries and explore them with my camera. I use my camera as a tool to get me out, talk and meet people at the same time as it is a master key to people´s lives. When I make photographs of people´s lives, their work or culture they always open up and tell me more. Except for the times, they chase me away, of course. But to be honest that happens rarely.

For me, photography is a bit like testing: fail fast until you succeed.

Iván Riera Sánchez

Born to a family in Spain which has been living in Germany in the 1980s, I decided to go to the country myself in 2013 in order to learn the language. Since then I have not only learned German but also worked in different roles in IT and I+D+i. Eventually, I discovered that testing was the perfect fit for me and my personality, working as QA engineer for a leasing Bank in Baden-Württemberg for almost 3 years.

Searching for ways to improve systems was always at the core of myself. Formerly a computational mathematician with a specialisation in logistics and process optimisation, I have found in testing my true vocation in which I can work daily on the improvement of the quality of software products. I see myself as a full-stack QA engineer, being able to develop many different roles from the testing spectrum (from unit testing to defect management).

Above all, I consider myself a life-long learner, always searching for new interesting things. Besides IT, mathematics and testing, I’m also interested in economics and management and I am currently studying the last year of a business bachelor in a distance university. In my free time, I love playing my bass, chess, reading, doing sports and learning languages.

Noreen Akhtar

My background is a bit unusual in that I was in the field of molecular biology (I have a PhD in microbiology) before I made a radical turn and jumped on an education to become a software tester. Not that I didn’t love science, however the unreliable job market made me consider making a change to something else, hopefully with better job prospects. Although it was a bit random choice on my part, I came to find software testing interesting and fun- specifically thanks to great teachers. And I haven’t really looked back since. However, from time to time I do feel a bit nostalgic and I do dream of finding the perfect job- somehow combining my current field with my previous field in biology. Who knows, it might happen one day!

I have now worked a few years as a tester, both in frontend and backend development teams. I like working in close collaboration with developers so that I can give rapid feedback and get insights into how they work. Being a trained scientist, I am analytical and curious, I love learning new things and continuously improving my testing skills. I like getting the big picture before diving into details as it helps to determine what’s most important.

Erika Johannesson

I do not work as a tester

I communicate

I am curious

I analyze

I learn

I care

I map

I evolve

I discuss

I have grit

I collaborate

I do not work as a tester; I am a tester.

Ellinor Leo

I stumbled into testing almost a decade ago and realized right away that I had ‘come home’. I am born to
test! Testing quickly grew to a passion; it came so natural and easy for me. My love and dedication to
testing is as strong today as ever!

When testing, I follow my gut instinct and experience. I always strive to achieve perfection within the
means provided. I have a predilection for negative testing and have an almost magical super power to
‘stumble’ over those unexpected but critical issues. More than once I have heard “You have to stop
testing, you’re finding too many bugs!”. To me this is one of the best compliments I can get, as it’s proof I
am doing my job both right and good.

I adapt easily to work situations. My experience ranges from a large test team, in a rigid, ‘requirements
are the bible’ type of environment, to a small test team in an agile workplace. I have had sole test
responsibility, alone, in a somewhat chaotic environment, where requirements were almost unheard of.
It’s all about context – with a little bit of humility and communication skills – anything is possible, even to
challenge and change things for the better. I know what ‘battles to fight’ and when it’s good enough.
I grow and thrive as a tester when given challenges and the opportunity to learn a new technique. What I
don’t know today, I can learn and become good at!

Fortunately I have had the opportunity to work with most forms of testing over the years (including test
lead, defect manager and scrum master). My expertise however, lays especially in exploratory, manual
testing – always with the end-user in focus.

I imagine my self as the ‘spider in the web’, having a broad overview of the system. I love gaining the
trust of both business and the developers, providing for example; status updates and risk analysis so they
can make informed decisions.

My style of testing is simple in it’s complexity – I just do it – and the end result is usually pretty spectacular!

  • “Johanna Forsberg contributed greatly for us and her testing skills are widely recognized inside the company. One  example is that lately she and the test team she is in managed to catch hundreds of bugs in the web site to be launched in a matter of a week.”
    Jianhua Cao
    Director of Core Engineering, Mblox

  • “House of Test has contributed greatly to our organization’s efficiency and quality through its extensive expertise, flexibility and proactivity. Our shared projects have kept time- and cost plans, with deliveries of precise data and documentation. We intend to continue our partnership with House of Test for a long time! “

    Sammy Almedal, Managing Director, JAK Medlemsbank

Context-Driven Testers

Being a context-driven tester means that when selecting your testing objectives, approaches and tools, you must first understand the details of the specific situation in which you are set to test. Only then can we as testers, through skill and judgement, apply the appropriate solution.

The opposite of context-driven is to be driven by best practices. A best practice tester will tell you that if you only apply his or her “internationally recognized standard”, all your problems will vanish, regardless of your actual context. Being driven by best practices is the embodiment of Maslow’s Hammer concept: “When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem in the world will look like a nail.”

Or to put it another way: The best practice tester comes to your company with a hammer and asks what needs pounding. The context-driven tester comes to your company and learns what you need, and then we go to get our tool box to see what tools might be useful.

History

House of Test was founded in 2008 by Henrik Andersson, Johan Jonasson and Georg Lysén. We started the company because we had grown fed up with watching other consultant companies trying to be the one to offer the lowest prices and most exaggerated “best practice” testing solutions. We wanted to fight against the commoditization of software testing and show the superior value of skilled testing, thoughtfully executed.

We built House of Test on a foundation of skill, drive and professionalism and we’ve shown countless times over the years that we excel in those areas.

It’s lonely at the top, but we can’t imagine ourselves anywhere else. And we’re not going away anytime soon.

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