This Week in Quality

Ministry of Testing
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Stay up to date with the world of software testing, quality assurance, and quality engineering. This Week in Quality is your weekly podcast from the Ministry of Testing community, hosted by Simon Tomes and joined by testing professionals from across the MoTaverse. 🎙️ Tune in for thoughtful conversations, testing news, and community insights covering everything from QA trends to quality engineering practices. Whether you're a software tester, QA specialist, quality engineer or quality advocate, this welcoming space will help you stay informed and connected to the wider community. Join the live session every Friday or catch up on past episodes wherever you get your podcasts.

  1. Quality narratives and the circles of consequence - Ep 121

    2D AGO

    Quality narratives and the circles of consequence - Ep 121

    In episode 121 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Simon Holmes and Judy Mosley settle in (coffee vs. missing tea!) and zoom in on how the community is shaping the year ahead through goals, risk thinking, and career growth moments worth celebrating. They highlight the #MyGoals memory-post challenge on ministryoftesting.com (and the Goal Setter badge), reflecting on how different people approach goal-setting and why “showing up” each day can matter more than the end result. Simon shares updates from the MoTaverse, including the latest releases in the Software Quality Engineering Certificate (SQUEC), especially a set of short, practical audio perspectives on quality culture. A standout theme is framing quality in terms of risks people actually care about, and making consequences visible beyond test cases and requirements. Judy connects this to a real-world “bug surfaced at the worst possible moment” story, fuel for MoT’s Bugs in the Wild learning collection, and the group explores Cassandra Lung’s powerful idea of mapping “circles of consequences” to help teams (and leaders) feel the real impact of “low priority” issues. The conversation then opens up to the community on stage. Helene shares the pain of repeatedly flagging an issue that only becomes urgent when a deadline hits, and the challenge of being trusted while also being overloaded. Cassandra expands on building buy-in through human impact, “nightmare scenarios,” and deliberate risk decisions, plus a very relatable dose of consumer-side quality frustration while moving apartments. Daria Zion celebrates her first MoT article going live, Five practical ways to use AI as a partner in quality engineering, and shares how she’s improving interview feedback and hiring workflows. Ujjwal Kumar Singh talks performance reviews, experimenting with Playwright tooling, and proposing a move from test reports to a quality narrative, while Simon flags new My Reports features in MyMoT for tracking course progress and community activity. Finally, Demi Van Malcott closes the episode with a brilliant win: an official promotion to Quality Manager, and a reminder that growth often starts by taking on the work before you feel ready. #ThisWeekInQuality #MyGoals #QualityCulture #Risk #QualityNarrative #CareerGrowth #MoTaverse

    50 min

  2. JAN 23

    Small posts, big learnings: Why sharing matters more than ever - Ep 120

    In episode 120 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Eamon Droko and Simon Tomes focus on the power of sharing as a learning strategy, in Eamon’s first time co-hosting the show. They kick off with a look at Eamon’s new Into the MoTaverse episode, touching on themes of showing up, bias and inclusivity in hiring, and the value of talking openly about your day-to-day work. Simon reflects on how speaking and writing in public helps you notice your own progress, and they both champion memory posts on ministryoftesting.com as small, frequent reflections that build a visible learning journey and strengthen your profile. The conversation then turns to what’s new inside the MoTaverse, especially the launch of chapters as the next evolution of local meetups. Eamon shares his new role as a co-organiser of MoT London, while Simon explains how chapters connect to the MoT star system, making activity a proxy for learning and career growth. Community member Neil Taylor joins the stage to compare old-school one-and-done training courses with MoT’s ongoing community-supported learning, and to explore how long-term testers can move towards quality engineering by identifying and closing gaps over time. Later, Ayesha Saeed shares her excitement about becoming Accessibility Guild lead at her consultancy, where an accessibility lab and an expanding team are raising awareness across roles, experimenting with AI tools to support audit work, and helping people experience assistive technologies first-hand. Gary Hawkes celebrates completing the A tester’s role in continuous quality course and talks about using memory posts as micro-blogs, pushing for a legacy automation refactor, and the frustrations of accessibility losing priority once contracts change. Throughout, the group returns to a simple idea: start small, find one ally, share one thing you’ve learned, and let the community carry that learning further than you could alone. #ThisWeekInQuality #Sharing #Accessibility #QualityCommunity #MoTaverse

    51 min

  3. JAN 16

    Goals that inspire a quality community - Ep 119

    In episode 119 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Demi Van Malcot and Simon Tomes explore the theme of goals and how sharing them in public can spark motivation, support and community. The episode begins with a busy week in quality updates and a look at the Ministry of Testing goals challenge, where people post goals on ministryoftesting.com, tag them with my-goals and earn badges for goal setter, goal netter and goal getter. The chat joins in as Demi and Simon introduce the idea of goal thievery, encouraging listeners to steal useful goals from others and make them their own. A highlight of the session is a game of Whose goal is that, where real goals from the collection are read aloud and the live audience guesses the author. This brings up goals about getting back on conference stages, contributing more to This Week in Quality and Lean Coffee, writing for MoT and making better use of profiles and memberships. The group also normalise small goals, weekly goals and what Simon calls goal riffing, removing the pressure to set a perfect year-long plan. Later, community member Ady Stokes joins to share his ambition to make thinking in testing more visible, intentional and teachable, a long-term effort that may grow into a book supported by articles and workshops. Rosie Sherry, CEO of Ministry of Testing, talks about establishing the MoTaverse as a member driven organisation and offering community as a service, including a new Into the MoTaverse podcast. Demi reflects on her own journey from joining a session to co-hosting and speaking at MoT events, reinforcing the message that you do not need to do goals alone. Sharing helps others support you and lets the community lift you up. #ThisWeekInQuality #Goals #GoalThief #QualityCommunity #MoTaverse

    52 min

  4. JAN 9

    What is the AI–quality–human loop? - Ep 118

    In episode 118 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Ben Dowen and Simon Tomes are joined by community members Gary Hawkes, Maithilee Chunduri and Richard Adams for the first live session of 2026. Recorded on Friday 9 January, the episode opens with New Year energy, MoT goals, badges and “fill up your MoT profile” prompts, plus a reminder about the MoT Ambassadors programme and all the ways people can get involved in events this year. From there, the conversation quickly anchors on a powerful article about AI, testing and getting “back to basics.” The group explore over reliance on AI, shallow understanding and blind spots when tools drive the work instead of human analysis, collaboration and shared understanding. Simon and Ben keep returning to essentials like critical thinking, systems thinking, communication and risk focus, picking up key lines from the article such as “AI is most valuable once humans have already done the thinking” and “AI helps us move faster, but humans still decide where to run and why.” Across the episode, the panel share real examples of using AI in practice. Ben talks through his Playwright work, using AI powered tooling to add data-test-ids, only to catch a subtle but important mistake later during testing. Richard describes using AI agents with Jira, root cause analysis and Confluence to surface risky areas and guide exploratory testing, highlighting how useful context makes AI genuinely helpful. Gary walks through how his team tried AI coding tools, what happened when the initial push was “faster and cheaper,” and how developers themselves became more cautious and selective over time. Maithilee shares how AI is now a core part of how she learns, stressing the need for clear goals, good prompts and not taking outputs at face value. Threaded through it all are themes of accountability, risk appetite and the AI quality human loop. The group discuss exploratory testing supported by AI, where tools help with ideas, heuristics and note taking, but humans still own the charters, decisions and debriefs. They return several times to the idea that AI is a tool, not a solution for quality work, and that testers add value when they question, validate and refuse to outsource judgement. By the end of the hour, one message is clear. AI might run fast, but meaningful quality still depends on people who ask good questions, understand context and are willing to stay accountable for the outcomes. #ThisWeekInQuality #AIandTesting #ExploratoryTesting #HumanInTheLoop #QualityEngineering

    51 min

  5. 12/19/2025

    What is TYiQ? Wrong answers only – Ep 117 (End-of-year special)

    In this special end-of-year recording, This Year in Quality, co-hosts Rosie Sherry and Simon Tomes do something a bit different. This end-of-year special is live. It’s community-powered. It’s a quiz. The rules are simple. Wrong answers only. Instead of a polished wrap-up or a neat reflection on the year, Rosie and Simon invite the community to join in and have a bit of fun. Together, they look back on the year through questions, numbers, stats, mascots, stars, badges, meetups, glossary terms, rebrands, and all the small moments that made 2025 what it was. There are name changes, silly answers, serious pride in what the community has built, and the occasional bug with the platform along the way. Because of course there is. The episode celebrates what This Year in Quality has become. A space for shared learning, curiosity, experimentation, and showing up as a community. It’s light-hearted, messy, and very on-brand. A reminder that quality is not just about certainty and correctness, but about people thinking together. A fitting way to wrap up the year and look ahead to what comes next. #ThisYearInQuality #SoftwareTesting #QualityEngineering #TestingCommunity #MinistryOfTesting #TestingPodcast #QualityCulture

    1h 1m

  6. 12/12/2025

    Zen and the art of quality maintenance - Ep 116

    In episode 116 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Ben Dowen and Demi Van Malcot are joined by Ady Stokes and Judy Mosley for a story-driven conversation about trust, systems, and what happens when reality and “what the computer says” don’t line up. Billed as the penultimate episode of the year, the discussion opens with end-of-year reflections before quickly diving into everyday quality problems. The episode centres on real-world examples where systems get it wrong. Parcels delivered to the wrong house because the scanner says so, cars confidently reporting incorrect speed limits, and checklists that are followed perfectly while the actual problem sits right in front of you. Ady shares a classic server-room story about power cables and blind checklist following, while Demi reflects on teaching computers through explicit instructions and how easily assumptions creep in when context is missing. As the conversation develops, the group explore trust in data, AI, and automation. Judy raises questions about people relying on confident but incorrect answers, relationships with chatbots, and how easily we accept what tools tell us without validation. Ben repeatedly brings the discussion back to first principles, sense-making, and the risks of outsourcing thinking to systems that cannot see the wider situation. Across the episode, the theme is clear. Quality breaks down when we stop questioning, stop validating, and defer to tools simply because they sound certain. Quality shows up when people notice mismatches, challenge assumptions, and ask, “does this actually make sense?” even when the system insists it does. #ThisWeekInQuality #TrustAndQuality #DataQuality #FirstPrinciples #QualityThinking

    52 min

  7. 12/05/2025

    Quality Coaching: Fizzy minds and quality problems - Ep 115

    In episode 115 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Nataliia Burmei and Simon Tomes are joined by Clare Norman and Gary Hawkes for a conversation full of “fizzy minds” and quality problems. The group start by reflecting on end-of-year pressures, learning goals for 2026 and the launch of the new Thanks button in the MoTverse before turning toward the main topic: quality coaching and how people understand it in their day-to-day work. The discussion centres on situational quality coaching and the idea that there is no cookie-cutter coaching template. Clare talks about working with teams based on their ability and motivation, and how bridge building across roles helps people care about quality when competing priorities make it hard. Gary shares stories from his organisation, where shrinking teams have made shared ownership essential. He describes whole-team exploratory sessions, giving product managers prompts to think about quality and helping developers “zoom out” instead of getting stuck in the weeds of Jira tickets. Across the episode, the group return to a simple message: you don’t need “quality coach” in your job title to coach. As soon as you step out of your bubble, ask better questions, help teams see the bigger picture or create space for quality conversations, you are already doing the work. It’s about encouraging learning, care and collaboration so teams can tackle their quality problems together. #QualityCoaching #QualityEngineering #TeamCollaboration #ContinuousImprovement #QualityAsCare

    53 min

  8. 11/28/2025

    The mobile testing paradox - Ep 114

    In episode 114 of This Week in Quality, co-hosts Ben Dowen and Simon Tomes are joined by Dan Caseley and Maithilee Chunduri for a focused and practical conversation about the realities of mobile testing. The group begin by reflecting on recent discussions in the community before shifting into the core theme of the episode: how mobile testing has become both simpler and more complex at the same time. Dan brings experience from years of mobile work and talks through the shift from physical device cupboards to cloud device farms, the limitations of both, and why testing on “all the things” is neither practical nor necessary. Maithilee adds insight from distributed teams, where reproducing issues across locations, devices and settings becomes a real challenge. Their stories highlight how mobile testing often stretches further than teams expect. The conversation explores why teams increasingly build and run apps locally, how analytics guide device choices, and why API-level checks remain essential. The group also dig into the constraints of mobile releases, the difficulty of rollbacks, and the need to balance depth, breadth and pragmatism when planning mobile test coverage. Across the episode, the discussion stays grounded in day-to-day practice. It encourages listeners to rethink their approach to mobile testing, make risk-based decisions, and accept that chasing every device permutation isn’t the path to quality. Instead, thoughtful choices and clear collaboration help teams move faster with confidence. #MobileTesting #QualityEngineering #RiskBasedTesting #ModernTesting #DistributedTeams

    52 min
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About

Stay up to date with the world of software testing, quality assurance, and quality engineering. This Week in Quality is your weekly podcast from the Ministry of Testing community, hosted by Simon Tomes and joined by testing professionals from across the MoTaverse. 🎙️ Tune in for thoughtful conversations, testing news, and community insights covering everything from QA trends to quality engineering practices. Whether you're a software tester, QA specialist, quality engineer or quality advocate, this welcoming space will help you stay informed and connected to the wider community. Join the live session every Friday or catch up on past episodes wherever you get your podcasts.

Information

  • Creator
    Ministry of Testing
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    63
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © All rights reserved
  • Show Website
    This Week in Quality