Is it Nerdy to Test on the weekend?

I’m talking about the European Weekend Tester Sessions that have just started up.
This was an entirely different kind of testing. The kids were screaming and running in and out of the house as I sat down on my computer on a beautiful and warm Saturday afternoon to join in with a group of people loosely called the european weekend testers. I shrugged off that feeling that perhaps testing on the weekend was a slightly nerdy concept and opened up Skype in preparation for a couple of hours testing.

Of course, there was completely nothing nerdy about the whole thing. Only a great bunch of people wanting to share and explore. Some testers such as Phil Kirkham, Anna Baik and Thomas Ponnet I already knew from the softwaretestingclub, but I didn’t know everyone.  Ajay Balamurugadas our facilitator, was one of the original organisers of the Bangalore Weekend Testers. We were set a mission, warned about some ‘traps’ and then basically were left to work our way through a problem.

After the testing, there was time for discussion on how the testing went and what each tester learned from the experience. Some great insights in particular on test management and how testing could have been planned more appropriately.

I liked getting to know everyone better. Perhaps it was the fact it was a weekend, but it seemed that everyone was very relaxed and easy going. Plenty of jokes were cracked and the whole experience was fun.  I felt I got to know other testers a bit more. I liked this a lot, as normally I work alone, so I guess this is the closest I get to working in a team environment.

Anna describes the event perfectly in her quote “But I will say it’s the perfect antidote to 6+ months of project deathmarch. Testing is fun again!”

Many thanks to Anna Baik and Markus Gartner for starting up this chapter.