TestCon Europe 2026
October 20-23
Vilnius & Online
Rick Tracy
About
Rick styles himself as a process optimizer, a term he made up after attempting to explain why a tester was coaching CEOs on quality. In this role, he helps individuals, teams, and organizations gain better insight into the quality aspects of their work and develop creative solutions to enhance quality in general. With a background in psychology, public and business administration, communications, and, of course, testing, Rick engages on every available level in order to find the most effective optimization methods for any process.
Questions form the core of Rick's methods, including the Big Three:
Does it work?
Does it play well with others?
Is it what people want?
But above all, the most important question remains, “How can I help?”
Rick lives in a tiny village in the Netherlands, preferring a quiet base from which to launch adventures. He enjoys games, books, walks, puzzles, and, above all, conversations.
Rick Tracy | Stop Trying To Go Live!
Out of every single role in a typical software development team, testers are the only ones who should not be invested in going live. This sets us apart from the goals of others, and it is our number one value to an organization.
Testers are here to LEARN. Testers are here to TEACH. And above all, Testers are here to EXPLORE. When we get swept up in the drive to go live, it hurts our ability to do our core tasks, and we lose that unique value to the organization.
In this talk we will explore how to navigate our worlds while swimming against/alongside the stream. Come learn how to stand strong in the current and remember why we do what we do.
Main statement: Testers are here to LEARN, to TEACH, and above all, to EXPLORE. When we get swept up in the drive to go live, it hurts our ability to do our core tasks, losing our unique value to the organization.
Key learning 1: Testers provide a different and vital perspective
Key learning 2: Our goals are learning, not producing
Key learning 3: How to stand strong while standing out, Out of every single role in a typical software development team, testers are the only ones who should not be invested in going live. This sets us apart from the goals of others, and it is our number one value to an organization.