Last Tuesday night, Ideyatech hosted the monthly meetup event of Software Testing Philippines. This facebook group consists of IT professionals that specialize in software testing and test management. The group aims to gather software testers in the local community to share their expertise and learn new things from each other.
The knowledge sharing may be done in several ways. One is the traditional presentation, whereas a subject matter expert will share his knowledge to the audience on a specific technique, tool, process or basically any stuff that can be used in software testing.
For this recent meet-up, Ian Pestelos did a talk about Mind Mapping.
A mind map is a diagram for representing tasks, words, concepts, or items linked to and arranged around a central concept or subject. Here is an example of a mind map template:
For testers, one specific plot where we can use mind map is when providing test scenarios for a new software feature. In our mind map, we’ll put the new feature in the middle. Then, we’ll create branches around it that can possibly contain the different approaches of testing that should be used, the existing parts of the system that might get affected or the new pieces of functions under this new feature that needs to be tested.
Tip: After generating your mind map, do not forget to sort and/or group the branches that seem to be related. This is to avoid redundancy.
Another way of STP’s knowledge sharing is through Open Space. The concept of this is to form a large circle or multiple but smaller circles and discuss different topics amongst the members. The topics will come from the members themselves. This is to give a chance to everyone to raise their questions about testing and also give their solutions to other member’s questions that are usually backed up by their solid individual experiences. A true give-and-take process.
We’ve also done this open space session on the same night as well:
On that night we’ve talked mainly about automation testing. Some of the topics brought are:
- Automation testing vs Manual testing
- Shifting a manual tester to an automation tester
- Suggested tools to start and learn automation testing
- Cross-browser automation testing tools
- Open source tools for mobile testing
Indeed this is a night full of learning, fun, and pizzas! So I encourage everyone from the testing community to help us grow as a group and of course as a professional by joining in our monthly sessions that are regularly posted in our facebook group.
Again, I would like to thank Ian Pestelos for sharing his knowledge on mind mapping. Cheers to everyone who attended the event and actively participated in the open space discussion. And last but not the least, special thanks to our company’s CEO, Mr. Allan Tan, for making this event happen under the roof of Ideyatech.
Happy testing, Pilipinas!
Sources:
http://www.mindmapping.com/mind-map.php
Credits to these guys for photo and banner used:
Mark de Leon Ponce, Rabby Panlilio Calicdan
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