ATA Meetup #22 - Bangalore - Amazing experience

Reached super early
The session was supposed to start at 9 AM and I reached by 7.45 AM. I did not want to be late. Due to weekend's minimalistic traffic and super driver, I surprised myself and I thought I can just enter and wait in the hall. The security asked me the contact person name and I told him that there is a meetup by Agile Testing Alliance - did not help. I called up Aditya Garg and somehow the security got convinced that I can at least pass the main barricade and sit on the makeshift park seats.

It was nice to experience fresh air, have fruits and dive into an interesting book called "The Practicing Mind" by Thomas M. Sterner.

The Practicing Mind

I remembered the discussions with Shrini Kulkarni about consciousness, mind, awareness as I read the book. Around 8.40 AM, Thrivikram and Venkata P from HCL welcomed and escorted me to the induction hall where we had the meetup. The conversation between them and the security folks was an interesting one making me think of the process adherence vs value addition.

Learning for me:
Know the contact person in advance and keep them informed about surprises in plan.

HCL Services
The first session was by HCL management represented by Prashantha M who highlighted the various services offered by HCL, the case studies and the learning. There were few really good questions by the audience who wanted to know more details about the insights shared to them.

My tip:
Knowing something and applying directly to your context might be dangerous. Know about the context in which it worked/failed. 

We messed up the craft - Ajay - Qapitol QA
We went for breakfast and after making new friends by consciously sitting with strangers, it was time for my talk. The slides took some time to appear. Thanks to this, I could express myself at the whiteboard and have the audience involved in answering few questions - did we mess up the craft or is everything perfect?

There were just two slides and here are the images:

Five ways we have messed up the craft

Time to clear the mess

EarlGrey - Satadip Ghosh - Coviam

Many years ago, I had bet that Srinivas Kadiyala would become a tester to watch out for and it is true today. I predict now that Satadip Ghosh will be the next one to watch out for. I am impressed by his organizational skills at such a young age. If he continues to work hard on his skills, he will be a super hire for any company. His presentation on EarlGrey was a decent one and well paced!

How to be a Test Jumper - Sushma MB - Qapitol QA
I was super nervous for Sushma's talk and Sushma watching me every now and then during her presentation did not calm my nerves at all. She did a great job for her first community presentation. The attitude with which she approached the whole task when I asked her to present at ATA meetup is commendable. The feedback from Chaithra and Balakrishnan from Qapitol QA helped her deliver a good talk. She was ready to incorporate most of the feedback and defended some of her decisions - a good quality! All the best, Sushma for more talks!

ChroPath - Sanjay Kumar - Autonomiq
I knew Sanjay from The Test Tribe session where Sanjay demonstrated ChroPath and I was lazy to attend it live. I wanted to pay attention to the session and it was mind blowing. I was relating some of the points to Sahi Pro's ease of use. Sanjay is the creator of ChroPath and the story of why he created the tool was also inspiring. I have installed the addon and will conduct an exercise at my company to get everyone familiarised with the tool. Sanjay is open to conducting a session at your company too if you can prove the numbers.

Toll gate
I was mentally exhausted after all the lovely sessions and slowly losing physical energy as the Ola auto was taking its own sweet time to reach the location. I had bought double toll and it was wasted as auto went below the bridge. I kept thinking if autos are allowed over bridge and suddenly I was asleep.

More events coming up

June-July Schedule

More Details at www.testwithajay.com 

My thanks to the organizers - Agile Testing Alliance, Nagesh, Thrivikram and everyone involved in making this meetup a memorable one.