Retrospect: Test seminar 2021

juni 10, 2021

ALTEN Test seminar 2021 ‘Testing the new Normal’ (in retrospect)

Finding a topic for this seminar with a wide appeal tends to require quite a bit of brainstorming each year, but all the changes the pandemic has forced for more than a year now, made the choice quite simple as Wouter de Groot (ALTEN IT Division Director) explained during his opening. Edo van der Post (Technical Manager) hosted the seminar again this year. When he took the virtual floor, he told the audience that we had decided to not narrow the topics too much, but to present four completely different aspects:

Onno Wierbos (IT lead) and Remco Blewanus (IT Security Expert), both from NS, talked about the digital transformation that their company has been going through. IT is an incredibly broad topic at NS, touching everything from smart watches for conductors to OV-bikes. They presented how Threat Modeling had overtaken the traditional way of doing security through pen-testing only. Our stream, which can be watched here , on Youtube was not raided by Fortnite players, so we must have done something right with security for the seminar as well.

Prof. Willem Haak from the HZ University of Applied Sciences showed us how you can travel from home. The course he teaches yearly in Shanghai had to take place completely online. While traditional project management skills still worked, even with the time difference, he had to put in more effort into the social aspects. You can watch his lecture (again) here .

After the break, the group split into two for presentations by our own ALTEN colleagues. Having watched both presentations, I would recommend anyone to view the one you did not attend live in the link Richard Bernards and Arend Oost (ALTEN) talked about the challenges of starting an outsourcing process at Canon which had been planned before the lockdown. Working from home is great, unless you need a printer the size of a shipping container.

Having your software into the Cloud seems great if everyone is working remotely from home, but Sebastiaan Koot (ALTEN) showed use the dangers of considering the Cloud as a solution instead of a platform with its own pitfalls, especially performance wise. He then presented four key aspects which should be kept in mind. Which ones? Watch his presentation here .

The pandemic seems to have sped up and strengthened changes which were already on-going. All four speakers showed that their measures are not just for the pandemic, but fundamental improvements which should be kept even if we were all going back to the office in a few months.

We hope that you have been inspired by these talks or are going to be when you (re)watch them. We also hope to see all of you live next year for the ALTEN Test Seminar 2022!

Gwen Calluy,