This Week in Quality

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.

In this episode of This Week in Quality (Friday 13 March 2026), Simon Tomes is joined by co-host Demi Van Malcot, and the pair kick off with an unexpected theme: demos that actually go right. Demi shares the rare joy of a full, 20-minute end-to-end demo where nothing broke, and Heleen later echoes the streak with her own successful demo, helped by a hard-won team rule: no last-minute database cleanups or changes before showcasing work.
Simon and Demi also spotlight what’s new in the MoTaverse, starting with Moments, the feature that merges the old memories and memes into a richer, blog-like format with improved formatting options. They call out community Moments from International Women’s Day, including Rosie’s reflection on “brag books” and Cassandra Lung’s ideas on making achievements visible. Demi shares a standout takeaway from Into the MoTaverse with Natalia: build confidence by doing hard things, then keep doing them until your “hard thing” becomes normal. The theme ties neatly into Chris Pratt’s reminder that getting started is often the hardest part, especially when sharing publicly.
When the community joins the stage, the conversation turns practical. Judy shares how, as the only QA on her team, she pushed for faster feedback loops by asking developers to run a lightweight risk-storming style check before handing work to QA. The result: fewer surprise bugs, smoother demos, and a cultural win worth celebrating publicly. Heleen and Demi add reflections on how hard it can be to be the voice of quality when you’re outnumbered, and how progress often starts with asking clearly for what you need, then reinforcing improvements with visible appreciation.
The episode closes with a fresh idea from Simon: a new AMA format on the MoTaverse, reframed as Ask Multiverse Anything. The concept invites members to post an AMA as a Moment, gather questions in comments, and then publish one Moment per answer, creating a searchable trail of community knowledge and reusable learning content. As the chat debates whether quality folks are “assumption journalists” or “assumption detectives,” the group lands on a shared truth: a big part of quality work is spotting assumptions, naming them, and turning them into better conversations.

In episode 126 of This Week in Quality (Friday 6 March 2026), Ben Dowen is joined by Rosie Sherry to unpack recent professional membership changes in the MoTaverse, why they’re happening now, and what they’re meant to protect and enable. Rosie walks through what remains available on the free tier, including core MoT profiles, the Club, and chapter events, plus the ability to mark yourself as Open To (work, speak, teach, write). That “Open To” directory then becomes a useful Pro-only discovery tool for employers, event organisers, and teams looking for contributors.
The discussion then digs into the bigger reasons behind the shift. Rosie shares how the MoTaverse has evolved from “not just a forum” into a platform with responsibilities, including rising spam and bad-actor behaviour, increased moderation and safety requirements, and the realities of sustaining quality with a tiny team. In a timely example, they saw a spike of “moment” spam right as the changes were about to go live. Rosie explains how these pressures shaped product decisions, including why richer formatting features were delayed, and how moving publishing capabilities behind Pro creates a protection layer and reduces “community debt” that burns out small teams.
Ben adds context from the conference-review side, pointing out how much effort goes into filtering low-value promotional submissions, and why a Pro-first approach can reduce noise while enabling the team to better support contributors. Rosie also addresses concerns about exclusion, pointing to practical options like discounts by request and the scholarship fund for unemployed members. The chat contributes plenty of support too, comparing the membership ROI to courses, conferences, and even gym memberships, and highlighting how MoT helps people become better testers, leaders, and community members.
The episode closes with Rosie’s long-term vision: the MoTaverse as a quality and care-led tech community, broadening beyond testing into a place that can influence how the wider industry builds better products and services. They wrap up with shout-outs to community contributors, upcoming events and chapters, and a call for companies willing to host local meetups with space and food support.