RST and tested 2012 @ bangalore

I was so much excited to attend the RST program by James Bach @ Bangalore on 3rd/4th Dec that I couldn’t sleep on the night of 1st Dec. Also because I had to catch up my flight at 6.00 am in the morning. Looking down so early from the flight was something amazing. I haven’t had such a beautiful and shining view of Ahmedabad before.

BIAL Airport bus services in Banglore are pretty good even for somebody like me who is new to Bangalore  So I used it and reached my PG hostel in Kormangala. I guess after so long I stayed in a hostel and it reminded me the times when I used to stay in hostels. I had lived in 3 hostels each located in a different city and though fundamental things remained same, each of them had different cultures.. So I purposely chose hostel over a hotel, as it was safe, cheaper and also because it’s been long time I’have not been to any hostels. Hostel teaches you many things from how to choose your friends, communicating, sharing and working as a group, surviving in difficult situations and tackling people with different moods and minds. The most important lesson I’have learned from hostel is how to leave worries and enjoy any situations or circumstances.

One obvious thing I noticed in Bangalore is “Traffic”.  45 minutes to an hour just to cross 6-7 kms was something I have never imagined. If I have to cross same distance in Ahmedabad, I would easily cross that within 10 minutes. So one has to plan time well in advance to reach the destination on time.

On 3rd Dec, as soon as I entered the workshop room, I saw a big bunch of enthusiastic people who have come to attend the same workshop. Majority of them were from local IT companies and some of them got surprised when they heard I have come from so far and also when I said I do freelancing in Software testing.
In the class James discussed and demonstrated many ways to make us understand e.g

  • How to generate ideas and test models by focusing/defocusing, alteration
  • The wrong concepts of finding bugs in minimum time and/or with minimum no of tests 
  • Difference between no of bug counts and the important bugs with valuable information
  • How to get information without making guesses and assumptions on our own, 
  • What to do when testing under pressure and finding if we have needed information in order to test the product, 
  • Begin with Sympathetic testing before trying aggressive testing on the product,
  • Use of available resources and negotiating
  • Understanding what is obvious, what matters and what doesn’t, 
  • Importance of curiosity and observations, 
  • A place where all the testing happens is our mind and we mostly see our own view of the world so it’s important to study our thought process and knowledge, 
  • A flag to be careful and use safety language when reporting things such that we don’t pass any wrong information to avoid misunderstandings or creating wrong assumptions about the product
  • Heuristics and oracles
  • Value of good documentations
  • Learning,changing and adjusting constantly

Getting testing lessons from James in the class was exciting and challenging as well. It’s hard to predict what’s in his mind when he challenges you with any questions or gives answers to your questions. I myself got caught into it while doing an exercise given by him. He asked questions which initially made me a bit nervous, but soon he released my pressure by disclosing his secrets and explained the tests I run were good and there was nothing to be ashamed of.

It was a proud moment for me when I won one of the exercises given by him. More than winning it was the proud of finding the solution to the problem. However there were still many other things yet to be discovered. But time was up.

This two days workshop with him was like brainstorming, he also suggested me some books and also to be active on testing networks as its very important to build reputation and exchange ideas with like minded people.

On 5th Dec at “tested 2012” conference James talked on “Rise of thinking Indian tester”. I really got surprised when he mentioned Bhagavad Gita, Ramayana and Mahabharata and explained and related testing with them and Indian cultures.

Rahul Verma talked about “Death of a passed test case”. He made a very good points where he said that one marks tests as pass based on the knowledge he/she has. There can be many ways which might we have not tried out because of the lack of awareness or lack of knowledge. To my questions he suggested me first to learn Python and then ask him for the further guidance. By listening to him I find him very strong and humble personality who follows his own learning with experiences.

Pradeep Soundararajan’s talk on his journey and becoming kungfu panda and Test coverage fist was very encouraging. Meeting him was also an opportunity as I learned testing lessons first by reading him on testrepublic and then following his blog I also got to know about Michael Bolton and James Bach and Gerald M. Weinberg. I would mail you soon about the question I have regarding Test report

Justin Hunter explained “what apple should have tested” with Hexawise – pairwise testing. Finally Ramit Manohar explained some testing lessons from Mahabharata and ended his talk with a very thoughtful message that “anybody can be anybody”. I also met Parimala Hariprasad and she suggested me to start blogging about testing and be active on Test Networks.

So it was like a dream come true by meeting and talking to real testing gems and be with them under one roof. Some of the pics are here