Weekend Testing Americas #9 This Saturday

Hoping to make sure that more people know about the sessions are are alerted enough in advance to be able to participate in them. Our next session for Weekend Testing Americas will be held this coming Saturday, April 2nd, 2011.

While we keep the sessions somewhat close to the vest, we will say that the problem we are looking to work on this weekend will be somewhat unique, and that it will require some "hackerly" thinking to get the most out of it. We feel it should be rather "newsworthy" (and that's all the hints you are going to get ;) ).


In addition, I would also like to mention that Albert Gareev, who has put a lot of effort and attention into helping develop ideas and approaches for Weekend Testing sessions, has also agreed to take on the role of assistant facilitator for these events. this is what we call "redundancy" in the hardware world, but that doesn't really seem fair to Albert; he and I are to very different people with different strengths, and Albert will be able to bring plenty to this endeavor.

Another reason for this move is that we are considering shaking up the schedule a bit. For many people Weekend testing gigs work well on the weekends, but for many others, they are not able to participate due to family commitments and other things that pull at their time (what, you mean testers have lives, too?!). Because of this Albert and I have been mulling over the idea of having occasional WeekNIGHT Testing sessions for the Americas, sessions that would be easier to attend for folks in the Western Hemisphere. The challenge, though is to be able to schedule those sessions so that people can attend them conveniently (a 6:00 PM start time for the East Coast would be a 3:00 PM start time for the West Coast, a little challenging for some of us who would still be working. A 6:00 PM start time on the West Coast would be 9:00 PM on the East Coast, not ideal for a week night by any means. The solution? Alternate between the times, and have Albert facilitate the East Coast sessions and me facilitate the West Coast sessions.

In any event, the ability of having multiple facilitators makes it possible to have additional sessions, or vary the scheduling. we're going to be keeping track and seeing how well this approach works and who participates and responds, and that will help us tailor these sessions so that the Weekend Testing attendees will be able to get the most out of these sessions.