STARWEST 2010 - Software Testing Conference

PRESENTATIONS

A Customer-driven Approach to Software Metrics

In their drive to delight customers, organizations initiate testing and quality improvement programs and define metrics to measure their success. In many cases, we see organizations declare success even though their customers do not see much improvement in either products of services. Wenje Lai and J.P. Chen share their approach of identifying quality improvement needs and defining the appropriate metrics that link improvement goals to customer experiences.
Wenje Lai, Cisco Systems
Agile Testing: Facing the Challenges Beyond the Easy Contexts

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise-doing testing well on agile teams is hard work! First, you have to get management over the misconception that you don't need specialist testers within agile teams. Next, you have to integrate testers with the developers and provide holistic, high quality results. Those are just the easy challenges you face. Then, comes the hard part!
Bob Galen, iContact
Alternative Testing: Do We Have to Test Like We Always Have?

Are the “old ways” always the “best ways” to test? Julian Harty shares his thought-provoking ideas on when traditional testing is-and is not-appropriate and poses alternatives for us to consider. For example, what might happen if we choose not to test a product at all? Perhaps the benefits of earlier delivery would outweigh the cost and delay that testing imposes.
Julian Harty, Consultant
Automating Test Design in Agile Development Environments

How does model-based automated test design (ATD) fit with agile methods and developer test-driven development (TDD)? The answer is “Superbly!”, and Antti Huima explains why and how. Because ATD and TDD both focus on responsive processes, handling evolving requirements, emergent designs, and higher product quality, their goals are strongly aligned. Whereas TDD tests focus on the unit level, ATD works at higher test levels, supporting and enhancing product quality and speeding up development.
Antti Huima, Conformiq, Inc.
Becoming a Great Tester: Inspiration, Perspiration, and Renewal

Three recent and contrasting trends in software development and IT-agile methods, increasing infrastructure complexity, and the requirement to align more closely with business stakeholders-are reshaping testing’s role. As a test manager or tester, you need to develop new knowledge and skills to remain relevant-and employed. In this eye-opening session, Isabel Evans describes the new expertise you must acquire and explores the aptitude, self-motivation, and hard work required to constantly renew your knowledge and skills.
Isabel Evans, Testing Solutions Group Ltd
Building a Successful Test Automation Strategy

You have been told repeatedly that test automation is a good thing and that you need to automate your testing. So, how do you know where to start? If you have started and your efforts don’t seem to be paying back your investment, what should you do? Although you believe automation is a good thing, how can you convince your management? Karen Rosengren takes you through a set of practical and proven steps to build a customized test automation strategy based on your organization’s needs.
Karen Rosengren, IBM Global Services
Debunking Agile Testing Myths

What do the Agile Manifesto and various agile development lifecycle implementations really mean for the testing profession? Extremists say they mean “no testers”; others believe it’s just “business as usual” for testers. As a test manager who has been around the block a few times, Geoff Horne has participated in countless test projects, both agile and traditional. Some of his traditional thinking about testing was turned on its ear and challenged by the key precepts of agile development.
Geoff Horne, iSQA
Developing a Testing Center of Excellence

In spite of well-established testing processes, many organizations still are struggling to achieve consistent, reliable testing results. Are testing deliverables completed incorrectly? Is your organization slow to react to change? A Testing Center of Excellence (TCOE) provides oversight of the testing efforts across the enterprise to help provide the best testing services possible and adapt more rapidly to innovations and challenges. Mona Lane shares the strategy Aetna followed to build a successful TCOE.
Mona Lane, Aetna
Don't Be the Quality Gatekeeper: Just Hold Up the Mirror

One of the greatest temptations of test managers and their teams is to be the quality gatekeeper-the ones who raise the gate when testing reveals little and keep it closed when they believe that defects (found and unfound) risk the project. Invariably, this role creates an expectation from stakeholders that if the release fails or a major flaw occurs in production, the test team is at fault.
Mfundo Nkosi, Micro to Mainframe
End-to-End Testing-When the Middle Is Moving

State-of-the-art development technologies and methods have increased our ability to rapidly implement new systems to support continuously changing business needs. These technologies include Web services and services that encapsulate legacy systems, as well as SOA, SaaS, cloud computing, agile practices, and new test sourcing options. Testers are being pushed to create suites of end-to-end tests in which all parts of the system are tested together.
Ruud Teunissen, POLTEQ IT Services BV

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