Dragons Out

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 as a softback or an e-book 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! And many thanks to the review team Stephan Goericke, Klaudia Dussa-Zieger, Matthias Rasking, Doris Dötzer, and Maik Nogens! 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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Time flies. I've been busy with another book project, a test leadership handbook with my FiSTB colleague Marko Rytkönen. More news about it later, but I can leak some news that the cover is by my Dragons Out illustrator, the fabulous Adrienn Széll. Also, the translation efforts of the Dragons Out book and the free Creative Commons licensed Dragon Lesson in Software Testing presentation proceed. And I did some summer reading campaigning - fun and useful reads are always good, but especially in summer, right? The Portuguese version of the Dragon Lesson in Software Testing has now been published. Teresa Fernandes took the challenge and translated it. Filipe Nuno Carlos did the review. I'll let everyone here learn a bit of testing in Portuguese: Testar = Experimentar, verificar e testar com diferentes valores, ordens e formas para compreender se alguma coisa funciona ou quão bem funciona.  I'm more than happy that we have one more language in the set of 20+ translations of the ...

On my visit to the ISTQB General Assembly in Wroclaw, Poland, a chance to talk to Polish students came up. The organizing party SJSI (Polish Testing Board) was kind enough to organize a few classes from local Wroclaw schools to attend my Dragon Lesson in Software Testing. I presented my Polish slides in English while my ISTQB colleague Lucjan Stapp translated my talk into Polish. Students were very motivated and enthusiastically answered questions, even in English. The group consisted of two school classes, 7th and 8th grade, brought to PTB office by two lovely teachers. So, the students were 14-15 year-olds, which fits nicely with the ideal reader profile of the book, as has been proven many times earlier. I was glad to get a confirmation once again. Children (or rather teenagers) of this age are quite familiar and fluent with different software, of course mostly games on their mobile phones. In the testing exercise, most of them tested their favourite game, but I also saw picture edi...

First of all, dear readers, I'm happy to announce that the Dragons Out book in French (Ouste, les dragons ! Un livre sur les dragons, les chevaliers et les tests de logiciels) is now available as an e-book! And there's a campaign price of 4,99€ until April 17, 2023. Now, dear French-speaking fans of Dragons Out, there's no other alternative than to get the book! You can buy the e-book or printed book here at the publisher's website or just google for your favourite book store. There's some planned exposure to the book planned for 2023. It will be presented in a surprising way at the main French software testing conference JFTL 13-14.6.2023 . Go there and embrace the surprise! There are other French-speaking events in numerous countries, of course. Let me know if you'd like to see me or the book feature at your event - let's see what we can make happen.  I'm also thinking of recording the Dragon Lesson in Software Testing in French, too, to support French...

We've been working on the French edition of the Dragons Out book. My good friend and colleague Olivier Denoo translated the book into French some time ago. Now the time was right to publish it through BoD. My amazing illustrator Adrienn Széll adapted the Finnish layout to French. As always with layouts, there are several rounds of checks and fixes to get the flow of text and pictures right. Actually, the process resembles software testing a lot! We are happy to announce that Dragons Out book can be ordered in French from the French publisher www.bod.fr . It is priced similarly to other language editions of Dragons Out books to a low price level to be affordable to schools, parents and testers alike. It is a softback version of the book, with colour pics by Adrienn Széll in the chapters and black and white pictures in the exercises. In a few weeks, there will also be an e-book, which will be fully translated to be scalable to different e-book readers. The e-book has a limited-time ...

 I recently got some  amazing feedback  from a 9-year-old reader through his dad. The Dragons Out book was an exciting Christmas present that the boy started reading on his own. He did the exercises at the end of the chapters and was really thrilled about them ("I did all of those great exercises!"). Upon asking why the book was so thrilling, he answered, "It was a great book because it had true things and fantasy side by side, and the exercises were fun!". It feels so good to hear such feedback - keep it coming! The unique approach of fantasy coupled with testing works. Remember my school visits, earlier? It is  again time to have school visits in Finland , too. It is especially nice now that face-to-face meetings are possible, and I don't need to access the school class virtually over a Teams meeting. That works too, yes, with a teacher facilitating in the class, but it is so much nicer and more concrete to meet and teach children face-to-face. I asked for som...

Did you notice that Dragons Out! has now reached new frontiers? Not the final frontier, where no one has gone before, but an important one, where many others have gone before. : ) Audiobook! Yes, Austin Macauley has now published Dragons Out! as an audiobook. It is available at many audio services, including the most extensive audiobook service in the world, Audible - you can get the book from here . I was very happy listening to some narrator examples months ago. The audiobook project was progressing! The narrator candidates all read a 2-minute section of some toddler book, so I had to imagine what they would sound like when they read something more adventurous. The fantasy story in Dragons Out is really an adventure story -  the children look for dragons and get into difficult situations where sometimes it is them and not the adults who get them out of trouble! Anyway, I thought the tone of one of the narrators would fit my book perfectly. So I chose him! Many months later I was ...

In this post, I discuss some recent and near-future events and places where Dragons Out is featured, and also I present the 2nd edition of the Finnish book! I'm extremely happy to have cooperated with my illustrator Adrienn Széll again - this time we made a few tweaks to the Finnish Dragons Out book and published the second edition at the same time as a softback and ebook. The publisher for these books is BoD. The second edition includes the same attractive cover as the English version. There are some layout changes and a few typo-fixes, too. Publishing books is like testing; no matter how many reviews or tests you do, there's always some bug slipping through : ). Nothing major, though. The second edition, as a paperback, is affordable for schools to be used as a textbook to accompany math or coding books. Please see the introduction on how the free presentation and the book can work as course material  here , recording in Finnish and in English . The eBook has a discounted 4...

This summer, probably the greatest success in the Dragons Out! software testing book for children and adults matters is the fact that the Book Authority listed the Dragons Out! book as one of the Best Software Testing Books of All Time. And place 8 , currently. Wow, I'm humbled and honoured. This is very good news. I hope you can share the news with testers and teachers worldwide! I can also tell you that during the summer, the Dragons Out! audiobook production in English has taken enormous steps. I prooflistened through all recordings, asked for some changes, and listened through the corrections. It sounds good and works out very well as an audiobook. Now the next production steps on the way to publishing the audiobook are taking place. I'll update more once I hear more. And then we have the Polish edition of the Dragons Out! book. It was translated by SJSI (The Polish Testing Board) with Lucjan Stapp in the lead. The publisher is PWN, which has a wide offering of books for sc...

The last few months have been a barrage of conference visits, some online, some physically. I was extremely happy to discuss with the audience during and after the talks. In some, I was a speaker, in some an exhibitor and in one a volunteer! Anyway, Dragons Out fantasy theme to teach children some software testing works. People like it and recommend it to others. I'll have to buy some more books for my conference talk book sales. You can always check where to buy the books here , or just google Dragons Out. The success of the conferences is great but I'm actually even happier that the free Creative Commons presentation Dragon Lesson in Software Testing attracts many volunteers to translate it into local languages for the joy and use of local teachers. To date, the presentation https://www.dragonsout.com/p/presentation-for-teachers.html has been published in 18 languages. It exists in Finnish and English written by me, and there are Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, Georgian, Germ...

I'm most pleased about finally winning Finland's Tester of the Year Award . Thank you to all who voted! This award especially looks back to the previous year, so it took a specific look into what happened in 2021. It also observes the careers of the candidates. And I did a lot: the Dragons Out book was rolled out in Finnish (Dragons Out! - lohikäärmeistä, ritareista ja ohjelmistotestauksesta), published and rolled out in English (Dragons Out! - a book about dragons, knights and software testing), and the donation campaign to schools was brought to a conclusion and handed to the Minister of Education in Finland. Obviously, my long career in software testing paid its part. But I do think that finally, the Dragons Out book project gave enough reasons for people to vote for me! Thanks again. Dragons Out initiative to teach software testing to children with such a unique approach has definitely been proven sound. EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award last year and now the Tester of the ...

First of all, it would be great if you could support me in winning the Tester of the Year 2021 award in Finland. I think the rollout of Finnish and English Dragons Out software testing books greatly justifies the win : ). I already won the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award last year, but I'd very much like this Finnish award, too. You can help by voting - just click here , find my name (Kari Kakkonen) and select it, and then scroll down to click "lähetä" (send). Then, I'd like to give you an update about how schools use the Dragons Out book and its free support material  to teach software testing. It is primarily used in math and coding classes but also in other classes. Listen to the recordings of the webinar on how the book and free resources work in schools in Finnish  or in English . The webinars detail my advice and the best practices gathered from teachers who've already used the book as teaching material. The time to think about the Dragons Out book as a ...

The year 2021 is over, and 2022 is starting! For Dragons Out Oy, 2021 was the "English publishing year".  Dragons Out! book English Edition was launched on July 30th, 2021 and delivered to those who preordered the book over the next few months. Next in line, there are translation projects, other interesting Dragons Out initiatives, and of course, lots of marketing and school cooperation. So, after many reviews, the English edition of Dragons Out! - the book about dragons, knights and software testing, was published on July 30th, 2021. It was a soft launch due to the holiday season. The deliveries rolled out to all those who preordered in the next few months. Covid-19 pandemic played its role making the delivery times extremely unpredictable. It didn't help that the EU treatment of UK deliveries due to Brexit changed on July 1st. Some shipments would go through in a few days, and some would take a few months. To my understanding everyone, who preordered the book through me...

I got interviewed by my Alma Mater, the Aalto University, to their alumni stories article series. It was a good time for the interview now after winning the Award. The university, and student time in general, gave so much for me, some essential keys to building a life. Aalto University published the interview in both Finnish and English. Dragons out! Kari Kakkonen johdattaa lapset ohjelmistotestauksen maailmaan fantasian voimalla , Aalto University 9.12.2021 Dragons out! Kari Kakkonen employs fantasy to lead children into the world of software testing , Aalto University 9.12.2021 Looking back to my student years and what thas happened after that, I can see a continuum that started there, found a new place in working life and in volunteer associations, and finally helped children to learn software testing. Everything affects everything, me thinks! I can thoroughly recommend Aalto University. A great place to go to study, a great place to be alumni.