Before I can talk about the “K-cards” I feel it is necessary to explain how I became a facilitator of peer conferences. If you just want to read about the K-cards then please just skip down to that section. In this post, when I refer to a peer conference I am talking about conferences that are based on LAWST (the Los Altos Workshop on Software Testing).
Three days before WOPR3 was scheduled to begin we received an email from Cem apologetically informing us that due to hurricane Ivan he was unable to leave Florida and consequently would be unable to attend/facilitate WOPR. Although I am sure that being in Florida with hurricane Ivan passing directly overhead was a significant event in Cem’s life, Ivan was to become the single event that would shape my testing career more than any other (except perhaps my first meeting with Ross Collard at a testing conference in Ottawa, Canada in 2000, which was the first step of moving my testing “in the right direction”).
Ross Collard, co-founder of WOPR and the content owner of WOPR3, contacted the three other people on the invitee list who had any LAWST-style conference experience. All three of us had attended WOPRs 1 & 2 – but that was it for our experience. I volunteered to facilitate as I felt that it was something that I would be able to do. After some discussion it was decided that we would start with me as the facilitator; then, when I started to struggle, one of the other two would take over – and we would just cycle through the three of us, as required.
I ended up facilitating the entire 3-day workshop and immediately following Ross asked me to facilitate WOPR4. Since that time I have facilitated over 35 peer conferences/workshops, including all subsequent WOPRs and all CAST conferences (technically not LAWST-style, but very much adapted from LAWST-style) in addition to many others.
One of the best compliments of my facilitation was during a meeting in 2007 with Cem Kaner and Michael Kelly just before WOC2 (Workshop on Open Certification). During the conversation Cem, seemingly out of the blue, looked at me and asked, “So, what does it feel like to be the most sought after facilitator of peer conferences?” Up until that point I had thought that I was “good” but I had no idea that I had achieved “most sought after” status.
I had never received any formal training in facilitation. I watched James Bach facilitate the first two WOPRs and, later, Scott Barber facilitate two WTSTs (Workshop on Teaching Software Testing). It appeared that I just had a knack for facilitating peer conferences.
OK. That’s enough about me and how I began facilitating.
One of the elements that have made WOPR the most “successful” peer conferences was the use of feedback in the first few years. The feedback was in the form of surveys sent after each WOPR where participants were asked to provide their comments all aspects of the workshop so we could improve the complete WOPR experience. A lot of excellent improvements have come out of those surveys and I thank Ross Collard for his huge efforts creating them, compiling the feedback, and encouraging the organizers to implement improvements.
During WOPR4 one of the “improvements” I felt I had made was the use of hand signs. For example, pointing at the centre of my left hand with my right index finger meant I wanted to talk on the “same thread”. I had signs for “new thread”, “same thread”, and “remove me from the thread list”. I felt that the signs were VERY simple and they definitely helped me keep control of the thread stack without interrupting the meeting.
Just before WOPR5 (which I was hosting in September 2005 at my office of Alcatel-Lucent in Ottawa, Canada) I was reviewing some of the feedback from WOPR4. I was shocked to read that one of the participants had found my hand signs were “too confusing”. I immediately started thinking that this “anonymous feedback” person must be a few bricks short of a full load. How could someone think my signs were too confusing? I was at a loss as to how to make the situation “less confusing” so I did the logical thing: I complained to my wife, Karen. I wasn’t really seeking her advice; I just wanted to complain to someone about the participant who made the comment. I just wanted to vent my frustrations.
In response to my rant my wife responded with a simple question. A question that has changed the face of peer conferences more than anything else I am aware of in the past 10 years. She said, “Why don’t you just have them hold up coloured cards? A different colour for each action.” I immediately recognized the simple elegance of the solution.
On September 8, 2005 K-Cards were introduced for the first time. The name was suggested by Scott Barber, a co-founder of WOPR. I had told him that my wife had said she did not want credit nor did she feel credit was necessary for the idea. Scott felt that we had to credit Karen for the idea, so he suggested the name “K-Cards” to attribute the idea to her without specifically identifying her as the creator.
The cards were an immediate success. The feedback was overwhelming positive from WOPR5. Scott Barber used the K-Cards for the second time in a conference he facilitated in January 2006. Since then the K-Cards have been used in well over 50 peer workshops and conferences. Now, only 7 years since their introduction, I find it hard to imagine a facilitated conference without them.
· Blue (or purple): I feel this discussion is becoming (or has become) a rat hole. – This one is not used at larger conferences.
There was a very brief period of time (at two CAST conferences), where the yellow and green cards were mistakenly switched but we have since managed to fix that.
In September, 2012 at WOPR19 we decided to try to implement a new K-Card. Eric Proegler, one of the WOPR organizers, made the suggestion for the new card.
We tried to have an orange card which was to be held up as a sign of agreement with what someone is saying. Eric thought of it as a “Like” or a “+1” card. Although I can’t say that the orange card was a raving success on its first use there was some good aspects to it. I, personally, found it a little distracting when the card was held up as it is the only card which is not a sign to the facilitator but rather it’s a sign of agreement to the speaker. The participants also didn’t use the cards as much as I thought they would. Despite the limited success of the card, I think we will try to use it again at WOPR20. Perhaps it would be more applicable to larger conferences like Let’s Test or CAST. Only time will tell.