This is a story about teamwork. In the summer of 2019, the London Metropolitan Police's twitter account was hacked. Control of the account was soon recovered, but the culprits proved harder to find. Police were at a loss.
However, there were about 5 million people in the UK with a very specific skill that could have helped solve the crime, if only they had been consulted. Asking for help can be incredibly difficult. Veerle Verhagen knows this, because she's been there. It is also vital to self-improvement. So how do you learn to reach out and get the support you need?

Target Audience: This talk is aimed towards Testers and professionals who struggle to ask for help and feel uncomfortable doing so.
Prerequisites: tbd
Level: Basic

Extended Abstract:
Just before Veerle heard about this Twitter Met police hacking story, she was in the position of the being the police in her testing own story. She was completely stuck on an assignment, but for various reasons didn't ask for help.
For a large part it was embarrassment that stopped her: as the only Tester on her project, she thought she had to be the expert in her field and asking for help would have been a sign of inexperience and mediocrity. So she stuck it out, inside her comfort zone and admits to never learning a thing.
Finding people who can support you and foster your talent is vital to your success as an individual. Veerle realised that she wasn't very good at reaching out, but she was learning to do so.
She learned that the most valuable allies are sometimes the most unexpected and in turn learned new ways of reaching out that make asking for help feel empowering rather than humiliating. And she wants to share with you how she got there.