Thanks to all the publicity about my course by my well-wishers, I received close to 60-70 emails. I was not sure how many will actually attend as it was from 10 pm IST to 11.15 pm IST, three nights a week for five weeks. It was a happy problem. I added everyone who emailed me before the deadline to a google group. Let me highlight the overall experience in different sections:
Preparation:
I added the
blog post about the course, updated my status on twitter, GTalk, Skype and the rest of the publicity was done by the testing community. That is the best part of the testing community. It gives you much more than what you contribute to it.
By the registration emails, I was worried about missing anyone. Imagine if you registered for a course, you are excited and later get to know that you were not invited! I did not want that to happen. I created a filter for the subject in the email and all the email ids were added while creating a new google group. I did add those who had a different subject than what was asked for in the blog post. If you want to join the google group, here is the link:
https://groups.google.com/group/ajsoftwaretestingskills
I added everyone manually on Skype (ajay184f is my id). Some pinged me, some were already part of my contacts :) Some gave incorrect Skype ids, some did not have Skype ids.
It is easy to think that the teacher is not responding to the student's emails or ping. If you apply Dr. Bono's OPV(Other Point of View) method, you will understand that the teacher has to reply to n students' emails, answer questions for every student, make sure each student is comfortable. This is one of the reasons, I have high respect for everyone associated with AST's courses. If you are interested in learning about software testing and not experienced the courses offered by them, you are MISSING something BIG.
You want to know more?
http://www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org/training/courses/
The TEAM
Diversity ruled. Someone who had never tested to someone who had tested for ten years, a programmer to a tester, different domains to different tools, different time zones to different languages and interests! Awesome diversity but everyone seemed to have one thread in common.
Open mind, patience, enthusiasm and dedication. I am sure that the team learnt something relative to the effort they put in for the course. I did not hear any complaints till date (tomorrow is the last class of 1st batch). I am
assuming that there are no hidden complaints :) I believe in one thing for sure - Everyone is talented. Yes, everyone. It just depends on
a. Do they practice enough to keep the talent shining?
b. Do they recognize the talent and/or are they interested?
My only worry was that if there would be any fights or misunderstanding between the groups. There was none. Happy family :)
What did we discuss:
A lot.
What did we learn?
I leave it to the students to comment :)
Next batch? Interested?
Date: June 04th to July 06th 2012
Time: 10.30 pm IST to 11.15pm IST
(4.30 pm GMT to 5.45 pm GMT)
Days: Monday, Wednesday, Friday
How do I register:
Please email me with subject "
AjJun2012" and mention your
Skype id in the body of the email.
Fees: Its free. Except for your time & effort of course :)
Thanks to
a. All the testers, programmers I have interacted till date and everyone who helped me spread the word
b. Dr.Cem Kaner for the comment on my blog post about my course.
c. Jon Bach for the encouragement that I can conduct this course and James Bach & Michael Bolton for the continuous support & encouragement.
d. Sirisha, Teri, Sudhamshu, Monirul, Narasimha, Satnam, Bala, Praveen and everyone else who participated in my course.
e. Tata Photon - for a reliable data card!
