WorkOut HowTo

Understanding WorkOuts

It is important that everyone understands what a WorkOut is. It is not a talk (and no, WorkOut leads cannot convert a WorkOut into a talk session), nor is it a tutorial. It is an actual hands-on session by people who are familiar with the project and its code.

The objective of a WorkOut is to fix problems, add features, refactorize code or just improve the overall quality of the code of a project. It is result-oriented, and WorkOut leads are expected to report on their progress at the end of the WorkOut.

Instructions to WorkOut Attendees

The algorithm to remember for joining a WorkOut is

If you can contribute, and are familiar with the code of that project, join the WorkOut. If you cannot, or are not, then head for a talk, or join any of the conversations and discussions happening all around the event.

Instructions to WorkOut Leads

To help make your workout succeed we need to have a fairly well defined set of pre-requisites. If you haven’t filled them out yet please do so at http://workouts.foss.in/2008.

We will try to make sure that people entering the workout have some skills which help them succeed. It is entirely plausible that some people might drift in who ask questions and meander which tend to be counter productive. In this case you can bring this to one of the organizers notice and we will make sure that the problem is solved.

Typically we assume you spend the first 15-30 minutes discussing problem statement, this is when the workout is open to people walking in and getting ready and asking questions. After this anyone new might need an explanation on what is happening.

To prevent this, each workout will be provided with a wiki which is going to be projected in the hall. One person from the project will make entries onto the wiki which will help people who walk in at various times (or watch from the net). Everyone will be asked to read up and not ask questions which have been previously discussed.

Each of you need to nominate one person who documents your workout. In case there is someone who is preventing progress, please inform us and we will take care of it.

The final point to remember is, the 3 hours allotted to you are not the end of the workout its the beginning. Its upto you to drive the motivated set of people to work at various places in the venue to get the task done.

Note that each day will have a 30 minute workout wrap-up where you will be expected to report your experiences with the workout, this will help us iterate and make it better.