For those of you not aware, there is a group called Weekend
Testing. It’s exactly what it sounds
like, doing some testing on a weekend.
The group originated in Bangalore, India. The original name was Bangalore Weekend
Testers but eventually evolved to Weekend Testing and now has groups in Europe
and the Americas. The mission is: A
platform for software testers to collaborate, test various kinds of software,
foster hope, gain peer recognition, and be of value to the community. Sounds like Testers to me!
My reasoning for doing this is to get more involved in the
Testing community at large, keep skills up, learn new things, challenge myself,
and get to meet some great and dedicated Testers from all over the world.
The first Weekend Testing event I participated in was with
the Americas group on Saturday, May 5th at 11:00 AM Mountain
Time. I mention the time of day because
the second event I participated in (which was Weekend Testing from India) was this
past weekend on May 12th, but since it was originating from India…..it
was at 4:30 AM Mountain Time. Now, I’m a
morning person, but needless to say, there was a nap in my future for Saturday
afternoon!
I honestly
had no idea what to expect since I had never done anything like this before. I wasn’t sure how one joined and how it all
worked. To join and get involved, you do the
following:
1. Email either group and them letting them know
you would like to participate:
2. You will get an email from them, but basically
at that point, you’ll want to add either group to Skype and request to have them
add you as well:
weekendtestersamericas
weekendtesting
It’s really that simple to
join. They both meet once a month (but
not on the same Saturday). They will
contact you to let you know when the next one is coming up and hopefully some
information beforehand on what is going to be tested. It’s helpful if you know what is going to be
tested beforehand and to even think things through, because the more you can
get things setup before the session, the better it will be for you.
The morning of the event, you should bring up Skype. People start saying hello a few minutes
before the start time to each other and things get going pretty quickly. If nothing else, it’s a great experience to
do a group Skype. It’s fascinating
watching everyone asking questions, giving instructions, etc.
For the most part, it seems that what both groups do is take
a function of a website and everyone tests that. You test for about an hour either alone or in
pairs or groups (seems that most do it alone because it is easier since
everyone is on Skype).
In the Americas group session, we tested more than just a
function. We were to test different
versions of Wiki sites (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikibooks,
Wikiquote, Wikiversity, etc.), and do regression and exploratory testing.
Again, this was different than what they usually do, which is generally testing
a particular function. But this last
Saturday in the Weekend Testing (India) group, we did do just a function. We were to test a new function on eBay. As someone that hasn’t been on eBay for over
ten years, I must say I probably spent too much time in the beginning just getting around the site, but I did find some bugs.
You should write-up any bugs you find along the way and at
the end you can either email them to the facilitator or sometimes they have
Bugzilla setup. During the testing hour
people can also ask questions, tell others what they found, and just have some
general discussions. At the end of the testing hour, everyone can ask questions,
share their bugs they found, what their experience was like, if they had any
challenges, etc. The facilitator of the
group takes a few days and prepares a report which they publish for all of
us. They will also send the report to the
open source developers or project owners as well.
I would highly recommend for any Tester (rookie or
experienced) to do this. It’s always
good to practice our craft. Actually, it’s
essential. I must be honest and say that
as a first-timer with Weekend Testing, both sessions really challenged me. As I said previously, I’ve never done this
before, which is why I really wanted to do this.
I realized that I’ve been used to having the time (even if it’s a half
day) to think through what/how I was going to test something, and that was on
the product I’ve been testing on for quite awhile. This was great to go in cold and “just test”. I don’t mind at all that I was challenged by
this. It was an eye-opening experience
that I am looking forward to experiencing again next month!
