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Meetings That Matter: The 4 Meetings Every Manager Needs

February 22, 2025 by conorfi Leave a Comment

A modern, professional office setting with a diverse group of business professionals engaged in a dynamic meeting. The scene captures four distinct discussions happening simultaneously: a one-on-one coaching session, a brainstorming group, a strategic planning meeting, and a quick team check-in. The office is well-lit with large windows, a sleek conference table, and digital collaboration tools like a whiteboard and laptop screens displaying charts. The atmosphere is productive and engaging, highlighting teamwork and leadership. Text overlay: "Meetings That Matter: The 4 Meetings Every Manager Needs" in bold, professional typography. Created Using: photorealistic style, high-definition quality, natural lighting, depth of field, warm and professional color tones, modern office aesthetic, diverse representation, engaging facial expression.

Meetings often get a bad reputation—too many, too long, and often unproductive. But when done right, meetings can be the glue that holds a team together, especially when managing across multiple time zones and cultures. As a manager of a global quality engineering team, I’ve found that four core types of meetings create the right balance of … [Read more...]

Filed Under: leadership Tagged With: leadership, meetings

Thoughts on 1:1s

November 27, 2021 by conorfi Leave a Comment

2 people having a meeting in a business setting

1:1s(one-on-one), retrospectives and post-mortems are the most important meetings as this is where growth at an individual, group and department/org occurs. In the past I have written blogs on post-mortems and retrospectives.It's important to put thought into how 1:1s should be run. This is written from the perspective of a manager but can be … [Read more...]

Filed Under: leadership Tagged With: 1:1, 1to1

Old School: Schools of testing 

February 15, 2021 by conorfi 1 Comment

Testing schools

Testing schools sparked intense debate in the past. Some swore by rigorous processes, others by flexibility. But nearly 20 years later, why revisit them? For me, they weren’t just abstract concepts—they were a way to contrast and compare the different testing approaches I encountered throughout my career. This blog explores how these schools shaped … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing Tagged With: academia, Analytical school, Context-driven school, Control school, Factory school, Schools of testing, telecoms

Balanced Testers and Beyond

February 5, 2021 by conorfi Leave a Comment

For sometime whether it be social media, interviewing testers or attending conferences the debate of "Manual" vs "Automation"  testers keeps arising. Not a great fan of the terms "manual" and "Automation" tester but will use these terms as they are widely used. Two Camps There seem to be two camps, each with a classic stereotype, here is an … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing Tagged With: automation, manual

Guiding Principles

December 1, 2020 by conorfi Leave a Comment

Guiding Principles

Throughout our careers we develop guiding principles, often based on the principles of others that resonate with us, perhaps coupled with our workplace experiences. Often it is good to reflect on these principles, to review what principles have influenced our thoughts to-date and perhaps give us some direction for the future.  The purpose of this … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing Tagged With: agile, Modern Testing Principles, Principles, Systems Thinking, Waste

Postmortem Top Ten Tips

October 6, 2020 by conorfi Leave a Comment

PostMortem

A postmortem (or post-mortem) is a process intended to help you learn from past incidents. Some examples may include a service went down in production causing some form of customer impact, or perhaps a production deployment failed. Postmortems typically involve an analysis or discussion soon after an event has taken place.  Similar to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing

Ten Takeaways from a Darknet Diaries Binge

August 24, 2020 by conorfi Leave a Comment

Often we binge on our favourite shows on Netflix and or podcasts such as Serial. A recent binge was the podcast Darknet Diaries which  focuses on true stories from the dark side of the internet. It is an investigative podcast created by Jack Rhysider, chronicling true stories about hackers, malware, botnets, cryptography, cryptocurrency, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing

Running a Tech Meetup

February 12, 2020 by conorfi 2 Comments

Ministry of Testing Cork

In May 2017 Rob Meaney and I started the Ministry of Testing Cork Meetup. In this blog, I will share my experiences and hope they are of value to others who wish to start a Meetup. The Meetup Mix 1. Brand and Ethos It's important to have a brand from the beginning, we were lucky that the Ministry of Testing was willing to trust us with their Brand … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing Tagged With: Meetup, ministryOfTesting, Quality, testing

Interview on the 343 Modern Testing Podcast

January 8, 2020 by conorfi Leave a Comment

Alan Page recently interviewed me for the #ModernTesting 343 podcast. Been a fan of the podcast with some time, so was wonderful to be a guest. We covered topics such as Modern Testing, Whole Teaming Testing and how these principles apply to my role in Poppulo. Listen to the interview here  … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing

Certifications are they worth it? A Testers Perspective

May 4, 2019 by conorfi 2 Comments

Certification, is it worth it?

  Certifications: Are they a must-have, or just a checkbox? Over the years, I’ve been on both sides of the debate. I’ve collected certifications like badges in Scouts, but later, I found myself moving away from them. So, are they worth it? Certification, Certification, and more Certification  The motivation for certification for many is … [Read more...]

Filed Under: software-testing Tagged With: Certification

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