Bangalore Workshop on Software Testing - BWST - 1

I interact with the Western world as much as I interact with the Eastern part. One of the things that the Western world does well that the Eastern part does not even do (significantly), is Peer Workshops. When I funded myself to be at CAST 08 conference, Toronto Workshop on Software Testing (TWST08 ) was a huge bonus for me. Thanks to Fiona Charles and Michael Bolton for allowing me to participate in it.

My first day at Toronto, Canada started in TWST08 even before I could get over the jet lag. I found that the Workshop was a great way to overcome jet lag. What I learned from TWST is still resonating in me and is of great help to my career.

I cant afford to fund myself to attend such peer workshops every year but I can definitely afford to participate in ones that happen in India. I tried to make testers meet happen in Bangalore when Michael Bolton was around here last time and it did not gain momentum after the first meet. I am forced to think that people turned up to hear Michael Bolton and they would turn up again when he's back. Prove me wrong.

Since then I was in a constant look out to meet people who would turn up for learning and I have found a couple of them. am also aware that there could be more people and that's why I am blogging about it.

There were lots of informal meets between Ajay, Manoj, Shrini, Rahul Verma, Vipul Kocher, Dhanashekaran, myself etc... and we did keep craving for more such things to happen. I think India cant afford to wait more to get started with Peer Workshops and this is an announcement for the same.

Mohan Panguluri, COO, of Edista Testing Institute who was awarded for his Thought Leadership in Software Testing in 2008 has opened up Edista's office premises for this Workshop. He has vowed to provide space to all future BWST workshops. Thanks a lot Mohan. You are setting a great example for other CXO's to follow.

Theme of BWST - 1 : Changing the way people test and think about testing
May 2nd, 2009

I believe that the first testing assignment that anyone did was handled pretty bad by them as compared to what they might be doing after a couple of years. However, growth stops at some point for many testers and only a handful make it to be real good testers. Those who turn out to be real good testers constantly kept changing themselves as they learnt new things and those who turn out to be bad were the ones who hardly changed. In India, we know, some of us struggle to change the environment around us to learn as much as we do.Similarly there are people who without much struggle get the environment around them to feel happy without any learning.

So, you could have changed your way of testing or others way of testing and you could have been resistant to change. Send in an ( one page ) abstract of your experience report that you wish to present at the first Bangalore Workshop on Software Testing by 18 April, 2009 and you will be informed if your talk is accepted for presentation. Failure stories are more inspirational than the success ones. I hope everyone has plenty of both sides.

The max limit is of 10 (maybe 15 if pressure builds) participants for the first BWST and hence if you plan to attend, remember that we work on First come First Serve basis. So, send in your abstracts of your experience report that you wish to present and keep in mind the theme when you do that.

Handbook : Please refer to LAWST Handbook and those that can apply to our context, will. We are flexible in changing things based on our first few Workshops.

Note: This isnt open to testers only from Bangalore. Anyone's welcome.

Also, you can start your own set of peer workshops in anywhere in India ( or anywhere in the world ) and no one is going to stop you. When you start, kindly let me know about it in advance so that I can plan to be there, learning from you all.

Email id to send in your abstracts: banwost [ at symbol ] gmail.com and we will have our own website soon. By May 19th, I will post an update on this and that's how we proceed. Are you going to remain silent? Are you going to change?