I've been absolutely delighted to read all your wonderful introductions!  This is going to be a fabulous meeting!

And, speaking of our meeting, it's time to firm up the agenda.  I'd like your feedback on the agenda that your organizers (Jennitta, Ron, and I) have been kicking around.  

As you read through the agenda, please consider the question: if we did these activities - if we structured the meeting in this way - would it be the best use of our time?  And if not, what would you like to see instead?

Agenda:

- Introductions (brief since everyone has done such a fabulous job of introducing themselves here)

- Tool-a-Palooza and Lightning Talks (see "Tool-a-Palooza" and "Lightning Talks" in Activities and Artifacts, below)

- Large group brain writing & affinity exercise: characterizing/distilling the state of the art.  Results added to The Tool Roadmap (see "The Tool Roadmap", below).

- Brainstorm a list of Actors in Functional Testing to begin defining the "ideal" workflow for functional testing on an Agile project (see "The Workflow Storyboard", below).

- Proposals/requests for small group work (see "Self-Organized Groups" below)

- Time for Self-Organized Groups

- Continue defining the ideal workflow on an ideal Agile project by adding panels to the Story Board

- Large group brain writing & affinity exercise: characterizing/distilling a wish list of capabilities and characteristics using the ideal workflow as captured in The Workflow Storyboard as a starting point.  Results added to The Tool Roadmap.

- Time for Self-Organized Groups

- Revisiting the Tool Roadmap, and collectively add to the visioning side

- Small workgroups working on areas of interest to figure out how to get from what we have (either in released form or prototype) to what we want (the visioning side)

- "This just in..." - self-organized groups report, and also tool-a-palooza/lightning talks for any breaking news coming out of this workshop

- Closing and next steps

Many of you have already created something to serve the automated functional testing needs of Agile teams.  We want to give you a chance to demonstrate what you've created.  Each person who would like to show off their work will have 10 minutes to demo it.  We encourage you to focus your demo on what's new or unique about your tool/framework/solution.

A lightning talk is a lightning-fast talk on anything related to our topic.  Perhaps you've thought deeply about Next Generation tools and have positions you'd like to convey.  Perhaps you have an explanation for the lack of stickiness for FIT.  Or perhaps you have a challenge to lay down to the group.  Whatever it is you want to say, this is your chance.  You'll have 5 uninterrupted minutes to say your piece, or your peace.

Agile projects are different than traditional projects in that they rely on integrated, collaborative teams.  This is, after all, why Ward named FIT the "Framework for Integrated Test."  However, I'm not convinced that we have a shared vision of what that collaboration should look like on an ideal Agile project.  (If I'm wrong, and we do have a shared vision, this exercise will be fast and easy.)  The result of this exercise should be interesting all by itself, and it will also help us frame the rest of our discussions around next generation tools that support the workflow.

To create the ideal workflow, we'll:

- List the actors for functional testing tools (I imagine the list will include programmers, testers, the Continuous Integration system, etc.)

- Consider key events, interactions, collaborations, conversations, etc. involving the actors and the tool

- Consider the characteristics/capabilities the users need/expect/want in a functional testing tool

- Create panels incorporating the actors, interactions, and usage of functional testing tools for the Workflow Story Board.  For example we might have panels related to collaboratively defining acceptance criteria, expressing the acceptance criteria in tests, programming the tests, maintaining the tests, etc.

The story board will provide a mechanism by which we can not only list the actors/users but also "see" them (or stick figure versions of them) using the tools and capture their needs/wants as we go.

We'll create a wall area where we map out tools along a rough timeline, including those currently in use on real projects, those in prototyping stages, and those that exist only in our imaginations.  As you look along the wall from left to right, the tools become more prototype-y and visionary.  So, for example, FIT would go on the far left, and Jennitta's ideas would go on the far right, with Brian's Graffle library somewhere in the middle.  

Along with the tools, we can add notations on defining characteristics like "Fosters collaboration" or capabilities like "Automatically updates based on changes in the keywords."

The point of the wall would be to gather both information about tools and also map out the important characteristics and capabilities - those that exist now that we want to preserve, and those that we imagine we need.

Note that any tool presented in the Tool-a-Palooza should get a spot on the Roadmap.

We want to allow time for small groups to form spontaneously around common interests or goals.  Some of that will happen spontaneously in the bar.  

(Did I mention that our venue is a Really Excellent Microbrewery?  The American reputation for watery flavorless beer is because we seem to have a surplus of watery flavorless national brands.  By contrast, our microbrews tend to be pretty good - and at this point I can say that with confidence having had beer in a *lot* of countries.  And McMenamins is a particularly fine microbrewery.  Really excellent stuff.  Or, if you don't do beer, they also have really excellent milkshakes.  But I digress.)

Back to the point.  Self-organized groups.  We imagine that you are likely to find people at this workshop with whom you would like to spend more time.  We think good collaborations are likely to come out of throwing a bunch of the smartest people we know into a room together for two days.  And we also imagine that 10 minutes of demo in the Tool-a-Palooza might feel a bit too much like an appetizer when what you really wanted was a full meal.

So, with that in mind, we plan to fit time into the schedule for small groups to gather.  And that means we need to have a way for people to indicate what they're interested in to help facilitate the formation of small groups.  Thus, we'll do a variation on open space, giving you all an opportunity to indicate your interests and create a "market place" of topics.  And we'll make time in the schedule for small group work.

-----------------------------

Thanks for any and all comments!

Elisabeth