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Drachen Raus - German version is out

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Lernen Sie zu testen! Yes, my Dragons Out book about dragons, knights and software testing is now available in German. It is called Drachen raus! Ein Buch über Drachen, Ritter und Softwaretesten and you can buy it here https://buchshop.bod.de/drachen-raus-kari-kakkonen-9783819266201 A fantastic thank you to my super German translator Thomas Meißner and my talented illustrator Adrienn Szell! This is a major milestone for German-speaking children to learn about software testing, a critical thinking skill for any child (and adult, for that matter). So, do you want to learn to test? Would you like your child to learn about it? How about your schools, should they spend a lesson or two in terms of software testing there, using the book or the free presentation https://www.dragonsout.com/p/presentation-for-teachers.html Spread the word! And of course, get your book. Me and Thomas are also available to talk about the topic - just ask! #books #fantasy #softwaretesting #children #k12education
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Kari at Podcast Software Testing

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Happy New Year 2025! Last autumn, I had the pleasure of being a guest at Richie Seidl's Podcast Software Testing . That was a fantastic experience. He was such a professional podcast host and a fun person to chat with on top of that. Now, I'm happy to share the podcast with you. Listen to it here . We discussed software testing leadership, as I had recently published, with my co-author, Marko Rytkönen, the well-received ACT2LEAD software testing leadership handbook . I introduced a heuristic (or a framework) of leading software testing that suits even the busiest CEO or CTO. The key is to lead the software testing effort actively and have someone like a Head of Testing looking over the testing. The eight letters of the framework are described  https://www.act2lead.net/p/what-is-act-2-lead.html , but here I summarize them to you in "CEO talk". Integrate Testing: Ensure that testing is embedded in every aspect of the development process. Lead the organization to view te...
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Dragons Out is a Testing Assemby partner

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The largest software testing conference annually in Finland, FiSTB Testing Assembly , takes place this year on Nov 27, 2024, and the adjacent tutorial day on "GenAI prompt crafting for quality & testing" by Rik Marselis on Nov 28, 2024. Dragons Out Oy is proud to be a partner for the conference and invites all its customers, partners, and friends to attend the tutorial and the conference days, subject to availability. Those are also great content, and I'd especially recommend Rik's tutorial, which teaches you the new skills that every tester needs to learn this year to succeed in the race with AI. Dragons Out Oy stand at the partner area of the conference will promote the famous Dragons Out software testing featuring dragons&knights books , which I authored. You can also find there the ACT 2 LEAD software testing leadership handbooks , authored by Marko Rytkönen and me. You can buy the books there, get signatures from the authors, and, of course, exchange ide...
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Dragons Out Silver Partner of DASA Connect

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Are you wondering how you can transform your organization into DevOps culture and practices? Or are you just transforming your organization to a cloud-native, AI-enabled, fast, feedback-seeking organization promoting autonomous teams? (That is DevOps too : ). And what is the role of testing in all of that?  To the last question, you'll get some answers and you'll be able to contribute with your own experience by joining my workshop (co-facilitated by Rik Marselis).  We planned a great workshop where we explain first a little bit about how testing and quality fit in Agile, then, as an extension, how they fit in DevOps. After the introduction, we go into a facilitated workshop, where we together brainstorm and discuss different ways of quality and testing to be present in the DevOps loop as early as possible to have the best effect on great quality and better business for the companies and smoother experience for the users. And to the rest of the questions - many other great fre...
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AI creating Dragons and testing stories

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In recent times, it seems like the whole world has gone crazy trying to use Generative AI (Artificial Intelligence). These LLMs (large language models) can create content based on user prompts.  Now I tried the LLM Brave Leo (Mixtral) to create a Dragons Out -like story for me. Although it was just experimental, the results are quite impressive. I used just three prompts. Finally, I tried to get a picture of all this - a fourth prompt. It didn't work, but I got a description, which I used in a prompt of a picture generation AI, Deep AI.  Did you learn something from the below? I think an LLM can help with quality like this. But the picture was quite disappointing to me. Anyway, I think I'll write my own stuff also in the future and ask Adri for more fantastic illustrations. Me: What is RPG? Brave Leo: RPG stands for "Role-Playing Game." It is a type of game where players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting and engage in activities to develop their ch...
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Translations in the works

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The year 2023 flew past. I spent plenty of time on the software testing leadership handbook ACT 2 LEAD , which I completed and published with my fantastic FiSTB colleague Marko Rytkönen. With that, we hope to raise awareness of software testing in the non-testing parts of any organization, as their decisions greatly affect software testing. However, I haven't forgotten the Dragons Out books and the need for children's learning. The free PowerPoint presentation, Dragon Lesson in Software Testing, available under a Creative Commons (i.e. free) license, keeps getting more languages. At the time of writing this, it is available in 22 languages. The latest addition is the Arabic language. For that, numerous thanks to Mohammad Khlouf and Taha Othman/YouNovel. I also mention recent translations of Portuguese, Korean, Japanese and Czech. And then several translations are underway - thumbs up for the volunteers doing them. The translation projects include Hindi, Hebrew, Slovakian, Dani...
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Dragons Out book events and ACT 2 LEAD book coming out

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Many things happening. I keep promoting the Dragons Out book and software testing to schools and people in general, but I've also been very involved in a new book for leaders in organizations, ACT 2 LEAD. First, what's new with Dragons Out. I recently had a chance to exhibit at a teacher trade fair Päijät-Hämeen mentoripäivä 2023. (see the pic at the end). It was great to be invited there again and have my book and free teacher materials exhibited to many teachers! There, and also generally, I have offered to come to speak for free at schools. I can manage such visits a few times per year, even though I have a busy schedule. Any takers? Classes 4-9 are the most suitable audience. Sign up here . Over the past few years, I've also exhibited at the US Book Show, the Frankfurt International Book Fair, the American Association of School Librarians Book Fair, the Finnish Book Fair and ITK-fair Finland, to mention a few. There's the biggest book fair in Finland coming up on 26...
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