by Chris Trimper
Vivit Board Director
Education Chair
Western NY LUG Leader

As the Western NY Local User Group leader, last month I planned a meeting without any speakers, vendors, or heavy PowerPoint. Several of our frequent contributors and I collaborated about the question, "What problems are you facing with testing?" This question led to a brief survey which paved the way for what turned out to be a fantastic roundtable.

Our meeting started off with the typical housekeeping type of chat, but then the real fun began. The survey and a quick live poll of responses (with a low-tech show of hands) drove various conversations such as, "We don't know much about our unit test coverage — how do we gain more insight?"' or "What are the various ways you consume/obtain test data?" The conversations were unscripted and had the whole group engaged. Our LUG is heavy in the ADM and Testing space, so most of our topics shared this focus. I encourage leaders to know your members well prior to a discussion like this to best drive conversations.

I share this as hopeful inspiration to drive vendor and presentation-free discussions which will allow the entire community to share their experiences. This is a great technique to change focus as well as help drive members to share with their peers.