PotsLightning

We are happy to announce another great community event for Agilistos (agile interested persons).

In November are the Agile Testing Days in Potsdam, Germany and it has become an ever increasing stream of participants, which is fabulous in itself.

For those interested for discussions not covered by the conference and with the opportunity not to be limited by a time-boxed session, we coined „PotsLightning“.

It is a Low-Budget, Non-Profit, Free-Entry peer event.

What does that mean?
Most conferences or workshops have entry fees, which often is out of budget for regular folks. Getting your employer to pay for it is also often difficult.

Secondly the tracks are pre-defined by the organizer and might or might not cover your interest.

We decided to organize an alternative form.

There will be no entry fees in any form. Each participant will cover their own expenses, be it accommodation, travel or meals.

We as the organizers will take care of the room, soft drinks (or the odd tray of German beer 😉 ). So far we always found a sponsor for the room; which often is the biggest cost.

We also draft a rough vision, what we think could be the topic for the workshop.
Experience shows, that this focal point helps some people to create ideas for their contribution.

And that is another major difference: Each participant is expected to contribute.
Be it in a talk, a presentation, a puzzle, test or code challenge or any other interesting work.

That way we try to ensure, that the workshop will be active and interesting.
It is “by the people for the people” (borrowed from Abe).

So here it is:

PotsLightning (Pre-ATD workshop)

18th of November, 2012

Dorint Hotel (venue of ATD)

Potsdam, Germany

Theme:

–        The role of the tester in agile;
or why do testers have their own conference and do not go to general agile conferences

–        Training and coaching

–        Transition to agile – approaches, obstacles, practical experiences?

–        Agile pitfalls, common reason for “failures”; lessons learned, etc.

Deadline for contributions: 30st June 2012

 

You will find more detailed information here over the course of the next months.

Feel free to contact us if you are unsure. We will be most glad to provide you feedback.

Comments:
The GATE workshop started in 2011 by Markus Gärtner and Maik Nogens.
The second GATE workshop will be held in Munich this September.

While I am the “main face” for the PotsLightning, the initial idea bouncing was with some passionate Agilistos:

Meike Mertsch
Zeger Van Hese (aka TestSideStory)
Huib Schoots
Jean-Paul Varwijk (aka Arborosa)
Markus Gärtner

Seeing the DEWT and GATE people work together gives me some great ideas for the future. 🙂
Who knows, next time we pair with the Danish (DWET) and Swedish (SWT) folks…

7 thoughts on “PotsLightning”

  1. I can’t help noting your deadline for contributions is June 31. :-> Not sure what that might mean.

    How do we send our contributions? I’d like to propose a workshop on visualizing quality. Specifically, what are ways we can visualize quality of a product AFTER it is delivered – the outcomes of that product? How can we visualize validated learning about our product? The purpose of the workshop would be to generate some new ideas that we can share with the community.

    This comes from two things I’m struggling with myself. More ways to make quality visible, and getting away from focusing totally on DELIVERING the software and not on the value it actually provides to our customers and our business.

  2. Hi Lisa,
    thanks for your comment here. I fixed the date. 🙂

    Your idea sounds interesting.. often we seem only to be involved till delivery and for migration (aka when the product is replaced); but not in the prozess in between these points.

    Looking forward to see you at PotsLightning and talk more about it.

  3. Great Idea!
    I would like to do a workshop that covers parts of all 4 themes (yes, I’m ambitious). What I would like to do is work on excercises for testers to get them in the agile mindset. So probably first find out what the pitfalls are for testers starting with agile, and what the reasons are they do not mingle with non-testers. Then create and/or exchange some specific excercises to learn testers to avoid those pitfalls and make them understand why the need to avoid them. Result will be some excercises that can be used in trainings and courses available for the world.

    1. Hi Cecile,
      thanks for the input here. That’s sound quite interesting, since games seem a very good connector to transfer ideas and concepts.
      Why don’t you drop me an email to maiknogens att gmail com .

      Regards,
      Maik

  4. Hi,

    If my paper gets selected and I travel to Potsdam this year, I will surely like to attend and present on transition to agile for startups – what they do and what should be done.

    I am in India and an Agile enthusiastic person…

    Hope to see you all

    vipin

    1. Hi Vipin,
      thanks, that sounds great. Wishing all the best with your submission.

      Best regards,
      Maik

Comments are closed.

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