This Week in Quality

Judy and Clare kick off “Hot Take TWIQ Day” with wins (mobile automation in the cloud!) and community joys (finding your “match” in the MoTaverse), before diving into spicy opinions: should old bugs be deleted or archived, why manual testing is still a creative superpower, and how AI changes the thinking required of quality professionals.
As the conversation heats up, the group tackles whether developer AI agents actually accelerate delivery, why skepticism is a paid skill, and the uncomfortable truth that QA can advocate - but leadership controls the resources that make quality possible.

Diana drops out of the MoTaverse (and returns via incognito mode) just in time for a deep dive into MoTaCon: what it is, why the name matters, and how the lineup reflects the MoTaverse's shift from “testing-only” to a broader tech conference with quality at the core. Along the way, the hosts celebrate fresh SQEC-qualified members, explain how MoT profiles and year-round community participation shape who gets invited to contribute, and share ways to make the most of Pro membership - from attending MoTaCon (and related socials) to capturing learnings with Moments and meeting more people through challenges like the stamp sheet.

It’s a busy, energizing TWIQ: Natalia returns with fresh experiences from her new job, including tackling mobile testing, planning an accessibility audit, and levelling up her AI learning through the new AI chapter. Simon spotlights recent Call for Insights conversations, then announces the big milestone: the Software Quality Engineering Certificate is now fully live with all modules and the exam available. The chat and guests bring the community vibe, from job news and chapter celebrations to practical “how we work” topics like flaky tests, learning by pairing with developers, and using the glossary to align on what terms actually mean in different teams.

In this episode of This Week in Quality (Friday 27 March 2026), Simon Tomes is joined by Judy Mosley for a joy-fuelled tour through what’s been lighting up the MoTaverse. They kick off with a relatable tester classic: time zones and daylight-saving bugs, including a behind-the-scenes nod to MoT’s own chapter scheduling whack-a-mole.
Judy highlights an Observatory gem from Patrick Peirl’s on why context matters, especially when using AI, and Simon calls out Judy’s “A Day in the MoTaverse” video as a great example of showing others how to participate. They also celebrate Jessica Mosley’s arrival in the community, and Simon invites listeners to weigh in on a big SQEC conversation starter: how do you actually calculate the cost of a bug?
The pair share more community sparks, from Helene’s painfully accurate “Is it in Dev yet?” meme, to reflections on AI-generated vs human-written test cases, to the growing Ask MoTaverse Anything trend and how imposter syndrome shows up (and can be worked through) when you put yourself out there. They then pivot into the week’s biggest theme: the MoTaverse isn’t doom-scrolling, it’s joy scrolling—a place designed to leave you more hopeful, more curious, and more connected than when you arrived.
Later, Neil Younger joins to announce and champion the brand-new Engineering Leadership & Engineering Management chapter, sharing why it feels like “coming home” and why quality folks absolutely can become engineering managers. They wrap with shout-outs to Software Testing Live, playful “Thursday Night Live” banter, and a reminder that being “MoTawhelmed” by great community content is a genuinely good problem to have.

In episode 128 of This Week in Quality (Friday 20 March 2026), Ben Dowen and Simon Tomes catch up on conference learnings, community experiments, and a fresh way to share knowledge across the MoTaverse. Ben opens with reflections from Testing Peers Conference, including a practical workshop takeaway on Playwright agents, and Simon nudges him toward turning those learnings into a MoTaverse Moment.
The conversation then pivots to the new Ask MoTaverse Anything initiative, an AMA format powered by Moments. The hosts spotlight Cassandra Lung’s AMA prompt, “Quality beyond correctness,” and use it as a springboard to discuss what correctness even means, why “it depends” is often the most honest answer, and how questions themselves are a valuable form of contribution. They highlight the benefits of separating each answer into its own Moment, creating reusable “learning blocks” that build credibility, show up on profiles, and are easier to find later.
A key thread emerges around communicating impact. They call out Emily O’Connor’s question on persuading engineers and product owners to prioritize work beyond acceptance criteria, and Cassandra’s answer that focuses on real-world consequences, empathy, and user impact stories, including using impact framing both to advocate for fixes and to justify not doing low-value work.
Community voices join in too. Preeti Gupta shares a real-life example of quality beyond correctness, showing how the same bug can be “correctly” described in technical terms yet still fail to land with non-technical stakeholders, and why clearer impact-focused communication changes prioritization and understanding. Gary Hawkes follows with a burst of “MoTawhelmed” energy, describing how recent conversations and conference notes have sparked a backlog of baby-step improvements, plus his motivation for starting an AMA on leadership and what he’s learned by finding his own leadership style over time.
The episode wraps with a quick plug for Software Testing Live returning next week, and a final nudge to contribute to the Observatory, MoT’s bookmarking feature, now expanded with broader tech categories to help the MoTaverse evolve into a wider quality-led tech community.