What is a Chapter?
Weekend Testing formerly known as Bangalore Weekend Testers started out as a peer testing group in Bangalore. There was an outstanding response not just from Bangalore, but others parts of India and some parts of the world. This got us thinking. Why not help like minded testers like us start peer groups in their own town/city/state/country? This led to the concept of Chapters.
A Chapter is a peer testing group that can be started in a new town/city/state/country. Weekend Testing invites facilitators to start a chapter in their place of choice. Weekend Testing core facilitators will mentor and train the facilitators before going public (for atleast 3 sessions). Once the facilitators are confident, the Chapter goes public. All the experience reports of testing sessions will be published on the Weekend Testing website under specific Chapters.
How to start a new Chapter?
Anyone who is interested in starting a chapter should send an email to chapter@weekendtesting.com. One of the core members will get in touch with further details.
Guidelines for a Chapter
- All chapters should be named as ‘Weekend Testing – XYZ Chapter where XYZ is the city/town/state / country where the chapter has started.
- Products for testing sessions for all the chapters will be provided by the WT Initiators
- Collaboration and training facilitator for 3 weeks before going public on the 4th week.
- For the first three sessions, a facilitator who has previously run a few weekend testing sessions will facilitate (Observe and Learn model).
- Collaboration for facilitation mandatory (i.e., its is advisable to have another facilitator as a backup for time pressed situations)
- Facilitators best avoid testing or participating during the sessions to ensure things run smoothly.
- 4th weekend testing session will be run by the local facilitator under the supervision of the core facilitator and then from fifth onwards, its free fall, they can run it on their own.
- Any assistance that new chapter facilitators need will be provided by core facilitators.
- Frequency of testing sessions should be once per week.
- Minimum of 5 participants are expected in any single session.
- Experience reports to be published at www.weekendtesting.com under respective chapters.
What do you need to start a Chapter?
- Burning Passion for the Testing craft
- ~6 hours time on weekends
- Strong desire to contribute to the testing community
Pradeep Soundararajan is a well known tester in the Testing World. Pradeep is a Test Consultant, Coach, Speaker and Mentor to many testers across the world. He is also the Author of 
