My foray into Weekend Testing

I should have forayed with Weekend Testing a while ago but somehow could not. Its not wise to go into the excuse mode as to why i was not able to yet, so i wont take the discussion there. But what i want to be focusing here is my experience into Weekend testing.
The challenge posed to participants was to figure out which is best platform/tool to conduct the Weekend testing session. The setup for Weekend Testing Session# 48 was by itself challenging in the sense that it asked for finding out the best solution by testing the new contender tool (Old, tried and tested one being “Skype”). The new contender was a Real Time Collaboration tool called Pligus . I wont go into the details of the features of this tool but would certainly like to share my quick learnings out of the session-

• I had realized earlier but now experienced first-hand that Weekend Testing is quite an unique platform in which Testers irrespective of their Geographies and cultures get together in a session which is devoid of any Office Politics, without any interruptions to focus only one thing, which is Pure Testing.

• I had been involved quite much in Competitive Software Analysis in the past and this session refreshed my experience. The prime relearning that i had was to compare the two or more Software Product in question per feature. One way to quickly do these session to decompose the features of the product that you already know and try and find the same/similar features in the other product under question. As a next step, try and find any other enhanced features in the product under test.

• I revived the art of questioning. Was glad to see so many questions being ask from all quarters as soon as the challenge was given to the virtual teams. Questioning helped refine everyone's approach towards the task at hand and also at times added to confusion as the questions kept coming from all the participants. But i guess this confusion is useful in the end result and is not totally avoidable.

• My current Job profile of late did not allow me to test as much so this session was very much redeeming for me.

I could not attend the entire session because of some prior commitment but still could gather many positives as listed above. Looking forward for more such sessions.