Category Archives: Teach things

Speaking, Teach things

Bonus Workshop Preparation Stage

Some thoughts:
“Are you really ready for your Agile Testing Days workshop?”
“No. Slides need to be updated. There are concept handouts. I still need to tweak.”
“So what is that bonus stage?”

Dreadful stage

The Bonus Workshop Preparation sSage starts after the dreadful stage, the stage without progress.

Progress can be measured in number of sheets or number of the exercises. I prefer the number of usable ideas for attendees. Customer centric. Sounds Agile to me.

2 weeks before my holiday I was in the dreadful stage. One of my website exercises became smaller instead of bigger. I used all tricks to get a baseline, but I failed.

I realised that I had to step back. The only solution I had was to fall back on an older version of the software. Within a few days I had a better solution.

Bonus stage

Another way to determine the bonus stage is the feedback of my reviewers.

My basic question: were they engaged?
My observation: yes.

I paid attention to words and the way they were pronounced. I looked at the body language. Most important: did they learn something?

What would I more include in my workshop?

  • an one pager
  • list of extra resources
  • a mind map
  • visual clues for exercises

“You can always change your workshop.”
My wife

Proper stage name

Last weekend I talked about my workshop with one of my kids. I told that one reviewer and I missed an obvious bug in the website. I was amused.

I told about some jokes how to illustrate my points. We had a good laugh about it.

The bonus part is also the fun part. The part which will make a workshop good or great.

Mind mapping, Speaking, Teach things

Workshop Mind Maps

Can I make a mind map for a 2  hour workshop?
Nope.

First set

Over a few months I have to give a long workshop about European privacy laws and Exploratory Testing. Sometimes it is tempting to put all the information in one extra extra extra large mind map.

Giving me a disappointing delay in processing information.
Forget it.

Wait. I use several mind maps.

Yes. That is more comfortable.

In this blog post I will show titles of mind maps to prepare myself for my workshop at Agile Testing Days.

It took me months to make these mind maps. This is my way to collect more information than I would be able to share.

This gives me enough space to tailor the workshop on the spot.
Did you ever tried to entertain people for 20 minutes?
I will have to teach people for 2 hours.
Good luck. To me.

Why do I share information about my mind maps?
It will give the delegates some hints what I will tell.
I also want to share my preparation with newbie speakers.

Another reason is to attract more diverse speakers on stage. Preparations is like taking small steps.

There are even sessions for speaking at the same conference.

So what are you waiting for?

In order to avoid boredom I just select a few mind maps for a small introduction.

T
There is no way to predict the people in my audience. So I made a lot of categories. Next to the beginners, I have exercises for experienced testers, testers using tools, and managers.

An experienced tester knows what a dataflow test is. Now I also have to explain this to a manager. But I come back later to DiSSS.

Second set

The framework of my workshop is in the  file ‘Talk Lawful Thing to test 1c’. If this sounds strange to you, I completely understand you. It started as a talk and grew to a workshop.

After a while I could not add new perspectives. So I made some other mind maps.

Resources are things you can use after my workshop. This part seems relatively simple. I only had to put in some good resources in it. I made this exercise challenging for myself by adding information written by women.

A good opening or intro of the workshop sets the atmosphere for the coming hours. If I will casually tell something to complete strangers at the beginning of the workshop, it is because I rehearsed it more than 100 times.

Up till now I could not find a shortcut.
Rinse and repeat.

Third set

Tim Ferris has a never ending serie of experiments.

Yes, I made a typo in the file name. And for me it is about speed.

A mind map with central object Lawful thing – Ferris which has branches DiSSS, Jokes, and CaFE. The branch DiSSS has sub branches Deconstruct, Selection, Sequence, and Stakes. The sub branch café has sub branches Compression, Frequency, and Encoding.

Tim developed some acronyms like DiSSS.

  • Deconstruction is the first action to understand how people perform tasks.
  • Selection is the second task to select which techniques have the most impact.
  • Sequence: what is the best order of actions?
  • Stakes: what’s in it for me?

CaFE

  • Compression: how can I compress the information on 1 page?
  • Frequency: how often should I do it to become good?
  • Encoding: what is a good way to encode the information? Like CaFE.

Is it possible to use these acronyms for GDPR testing?
I think so.
The dataflow test is a good candidate for Selection.
I wrote you I would come back to DiSSS.

The first test session needs extra attention from my side.
During my workshop there are several sessions during which delegates are going to test. Hands on is different from watching. It is like a tennis game with everyone on the tennis court.
And I am the referee.

The mind map ‘20190528 add Lawful thing’ contains information I still need to process.

A workshop is like work.

Speaking matters

In this blog post I share my latest progress on my speaking.
One of my reasons is to get more diverse speakers on stage.

The making and the scale of my mind maps might intimidate newbie speakers.

What I left out, is my adding of nodes in the mind maps over time. This could be days apart.

What I left out, is the long study.
If I add 1 branch to a mind map every day, I have a mind map of 365 branches after a year. I started in the summer of 2018.

If I go in more details, the more branches I will add on a single day.

A talk takes time.

Speaking, Teach things, Visualise It

Map Your Audience

On Twitter I saw the doubts about giving a talk about basic stuff. A person reacted that beginners need this information.

I agreed.
My reaction was that you need to pay attention to the  Zone of Proximity.

Rejected and reinvigorated

In the summer 2018 my proposal for a talk about testing and General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR was rejected by a test conference. A bit more tweaking.

This did not stop me to take this talk to the same conference. No speaker dropped out, so I turned it into a blog post serie.

Another opportunity opened for me. In the meantime I had gathered enough material for a workshop. My proposals for a workshop and a talk for the subject were turned down again. A little more patience.

It was April 2019. In Rotterdam a WordCamp was organised. This is a 1 day conference for WordPress users. There was a contest for an open slot, which I lost. Close, but honoured to lose.

In May 2019, I was notified that my workshop “A Lawful Thing To Test” was accepted by Agile Testing Days. Only 1 year to get my proposal right.

Lined and dotted

My reason for picking the beginner level was that I had studied GDPR for 1 and a half year. Another reason was that laws are uncommon ground for many testers.

A workshop or talk is great, if I do some practice rehearsals. So how did I find audience in the past?

For my rehearsals of a talk about a performance test I had 2 persons. That is not a lot.

Looking back a simple scale from unfamiliar with the project to familiar with the project might give enough feedback. This way
I got two dots at the end of the scale.
Scale from 'unfamiliar with project' to 'familiar with project' and two dots on the ends!
Another way to map these persons was looking at the experience with performance test. This results in the following graph.
Graph with a scale for 'experience performance test’, one dot at the beginning, and one dot at the middle!

For my rehearsals for my workshop about juggling and testing I had 5 people. Nowadays I would use a 2 dimensional mapping with two axes for juggling and testing.
A two dimensional graph with a horizontal axis ‘juggling’ and the vertical axis ‘testing’ with two dots in the left bottom, and three dots in the right bottom!

For my workshop about testing and GDPR a 2 dimensional map is enough.
A two dimensional graph with a horizontal axis ‘GDPR’ and the vertical axis ‘testing’ with one dot in the left bottom, one dot at the middle of the botton, and one dot in the middle!
I might add a 3rd axis with security testing.
A three dimensional graph with an axis ‘security testing’, an axis ‘GDPR’ and an axis ‘testing’!

But why should I ask experienced persons to test my workshop for beginners?

Told and sold

Suppose I would direct the movie Monsters Unlimited. Kids want to go and adults have to join. If there are only kids’ jokes, then parents would say:
“It takes 2 hours, but your kids have a great time.”

If I am smart, I would put in some jokes for grown-ups.
Advice could change to:
“This is a family movie.”

KYA or Know Your Audience is not difficult for a speaker.  My target audience for 1 talk was people unfamiliar with this subject. I asked, how many people had experience with performance testing.
I could not count the number of raised hands.

Brief panic.
Desperate joke:
“What are you doing here?”
I relaxed myself and continued.
I had intensively prepared myself for this.

This experience shaped my rehearsals.
My hands on workshop about testing and law is for beginner level and still experienced people might attend it. For all kinds of reasons.

  • Would you please accompany me to this workshop? You know about Exploratory Testing, so I can whisper some questions.
  • It is good for the group that we attend the same workshop. I know your expertise. Sorry, group first.
  • I have 3 years of experience with testing and GDPR. I might have missed something.
  • He writes good blog posts. I want to see him in real life.
  • He’s on Twitter.
  • He juggles.
  • Catan.

My challenge as a workshop leader is to provide information on 3 different levels:

  • If you see this, then you should do that.
  • If you use these patterns, you will find similar problems.
  • If you use this approach, then you can learn a lot more than now.

Finishing note

The Zone of Proximity is useful to let people grow in new jobs.