Fieldstones ... an experiment

I came across the concept of "fieldstones" when attending the BBST Online Instructors course after CAST last year.

This snippet is from the BBST instructors website:

'''What is the Fieldstone Method?''' In ''Weinberg on Writing'', author Gerry Weinberg describes how he collects ideas for small chunks of writing for later use. If you're interested, we invite you to read more about Gerry's ''Fieldstone Method'' at:

• Gerry's writing blog
• Gerry's website
• One of many reviews of his work

Last year, I was doing quite a lot of mentoring of testers and found that in evolving my approach to this, I wanted to develop something that I could refer back to so that I wouldn't forget to talk about the important stuff. I decided to start collecting my thoughts during sessions and then putting these into Mindmaps. Each time I had another session, I could use the map as a guideline for talking about the topic and during the session refine it. I guess you could also call these mindmaps heuristics. The initial thoughts that I collected came from research into and experience of a specific testing task. Although the ideas are not all my own, they are all things that I know I have applied and have worked for me and I'm confident I can explain and teach. I am looking to share these over a period of time and would like to ask for feedback and questions in terms of how useful you think they may be as well as any questions on the content.

CAST 2009

I am very excited to once again be attending CAST this year. Even though times are tough and I am going to be totally self sponsored this year, I decided that I just couldn't miss it.

What makes it even more exciting is that two of my friends (Tim Coulter and Henrik Andersson) that I met at previous CAST conferences are giving presentations. I can't wait to hear them speak.

I had a seriously difficult task picking the tutorial I was going to attend and in the end have selected Jerry Weinberg's entitled "Ensuring Testing's Proper Place in the Organisation", however I am hoping that some of the other tutorials may just get repeated after the conference so that I can also attend something else. (James Bach, Scott Barber and Michael Bolton are ALL giving tutorials!!)

Once again, for those that haven't heard about or read about CAST it truly is one of the most inspiring things you can attend as a tester. The things I have learned and the people I have met over the last 2 conferences I attended have really helped to shape my views and also my career in testing. The value extends beyond just the material. I have without fail come back with new inspiration and ideas that I can try out and reinvent for myself. Not to mention the network of people all over the world that I now call my friends and am able to rely on for advice and discussion.

If you are thinking of attending a conference this year (or ever) make it CAST!