At Distillery, we talk a lot about the value we bring to clients through full software lifecycle support, agile delivery, and top-tier talent. But behind the scenes, there’s a less flashy, but equally critical, ingredient to our success: ongoing education.
Because when our people grow, our clients win.
A few weeks ago, our Testing team had the opportunity to attend a series of private training sessions led by internationally recognized software testing expert Michael Bolton. These weren’t quick PowerPoints or surface-level workshops. Each session was planned for 90 minutes, and yet each one ran far longer (some nearly three hours), simply because the discussions were that rich, challenging, and rewarding.
Our Head of QA, Nicolás Silvestre, and others on the team walked away energized. As Nico put it, the experience was “extremely enriching.” And it reinforced something we’ve always believed: investing in people is one of the most strategic decisions a company can make, especially when those people safeguard your product from threats and risks.
Here are some of the key topics we explored and why they matter:
Testing at Its Core: More Than Bug-Finding
Testing isn’t just a checklist or a box to tick. At its core, testing is about discovering risks – the things that could threaten the value of a product. This shift in mindset from simply finding defects to uncovering value-threatening risks is huge. It means our Test engineers aren’t just executors; they’re user advocates. They’re trained to think critically about how a feature will function in the real world, where edge cases are the norm, not the exception.
For our clients, this means more information about the current state of the product to make informed decisions, fewer surprises post-launch, and more confidence in what gets shipped.
Why Testing Needs Strategy
Strategic testing means understanding the context of what’s being built, asking the right questions, and designing approaches tailored to each scenario. It’s not just about how much you test, it’s about what you test, what you don’t, how, and why.
For clients, the test strategy translates into a set of ideas that guide the test design, helping to define better coverage and leading to a more thoughtful and efficient approach for detecting problems.
Mental Models and Critical Thinking
One of the most valuable reminders from the training was this: our job as testers is to shine a light on risks, and to do that, we need to develop a strong understanding of how the product works and detect where it could potentially fail. Models allow us to think outside the box and make testing more legible, while critical thinking helps us challenge assumptions, recognize patterns, and spot contradictions.
At Distillery, we foster this kind of thinking because we want our Testing professionals not just to follow steps, but to use their invaluable capacity and judgment to assess the state of a software product.
Testing = Exploring, Experiencing, and Experimenting
Testing isn’t only about verification, it’s about experiencing, exploring, and experimenting with the product. Great testers engage directly with the software, the context it applies to, and the user to whom it will provide value, to understand its behavior in nuanced ways. They experience the product as multiple users might, explore even the most unexpected ways to use it, and experiment with inputs and setups to learn more.
Why does this matter? Canned, rigid, and repetitive tests fall short in uncovering undesired outcomes. But experienced, inquisitive humans can ask the unexpected questions, follow intuition, and dig deeper.
Communicating Risk = Empowering Decisions
Finding a risk is only half the battle. The other half? Communicating it clearly. One of the most overlooked skills in Testing is the ability to articulate technical insights in a way that decision-makers can act on. Whether it’s a product manager, client stakeholder, or CTO, they need to know what’s at stake and how urgent it is.
We emphasize this skill because communication is how good testing becomes business value.
The Power of Note-Taking and Modeling
Taking notes during testing may seem simple, but it’s a powerful cognitive tool. Similarly, using visual models, like mind maps, flow charts, permutation matrices, etc., helps testers make sense of complex behaviors and generate insightful test ideas.
These practices are often underrated but lead to clearer thinking, thoughtful coverage definition, and meaningful documentation. And that makes the testing role more effective and purposeful.
The Tester’s Mindset: Our Real Differentiator
Ultimately, what makes a great Testing professional isn’t just technical skill. It’s a unique testing mindset. Testers are trained and driven by a clear purpose to explore how things could go wrong. They’re wired to be curious, skeptical, and thorough. That mindset uncovers the hidden and dangerous problems before they reach end users.
This is one of our core strengths at Distillery: we hire for this mindset, train for it, and nurture it.
A Final Thought
Training like this isn’t just a nice-to-have perk. It’s a strategic investment in the people who protect your product from risk and help it succeed in the market.
That’s why we make these investments. Because our clients deserve more than just deliverables, they deserve a partner who brings sharp thinking, modern tools, and a relentless commitment to quality. Our testing team deserves an environment that challenges them to grow, think critically, and lead confidently so they can make a real impact on every project they touch.
Curious how this approach translates into better outcomes for your product? Explore Distillery’s QA & Testing services to see how we combine technical rigor with human insight to deliver real value.