Conference Presentations

Continuous Integration: Sign of a Great Shop

Relentless automation is the sign that your software team has discovered how valuable their time is and how much of their day can be wasted performing trivial tasks. Using Jenkins, an open source tool as an example, Jared Richardson demonstrates how to get started with continuous integration, a powerful automation technique that binds your team together and help ensures that your project runs smoothly and efficiently. The concept is simple-after every code check in, code is compiled and comprehensive automated tests are run. However, like so many great techniques, it’s easy to describe but difficult to master. Jared explains how continuous integration, implemented with the appropriate tools, forces frequent developer integrations, thus eliminating a large amount of uncertainty and project jitter.

Jared Richardson, Logos Technologies
INVEST: Agile Requirements that Tell a Story

Unlike traditional requirements-formal specification documents produced mostly up front-agile requirements are elicited and recorded in smaller units-called stories or user stories that are generated quickly with a just-in-time approach. Through the INVEST approach-Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable-Ken Pugh shows agile teams how to produce stories that offer the most value with the least effort. He explains the relationship between stories and traditional requirements models, such as use cases and state-event-response tables, and describes how to develop more details for stories only on an as-needed basis. Ken demonstrates ways to break large stories down into smaller, easier-to-estimate ones that address the needs of business analysts and developers.

Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Zero to Agile in Three+ Years: It's a Marathon

Agile transformations for large organizations can have mixed results-and often fail miserably if the goal is to become an "agile organization." Sean Buck shares the story of The Capital Group Companies, a 7,000 person organization, which took a value-based approach to adoption. Rather than attempting a big bang implementation, Sean’s company and its agile transformation team planned for the long "run"-a marathon. Sean explains why organizations which proceed too quickly or take a tools-focused approach usually see their teams slip back to the old ways after initially impressive results. George Schlitz, who participated throughout their transformation, shares specific approaches and tools you should consider for your organization's adoption plans. He describes the staged model they employed for organizational transformation and how their strategies changed during each stage.

Sean Buck, The Capital Group Companies Inc
Agile Development Conference East 2011: A Software Quality Engineering Maturity Model

You are probably familiar with maturity models for software development such as CMMI. In this thought-provoking session, Default.aspx Pope and Ellen Hill describe a corresponding five-stage maturity model for software quality engineering-not just testing-which addresses the challenges organizations face when attempting to improve the their software’s quality. Default.aspx and Ellen introduce their model for software quality maturity and discuss how you can use this model to baseline your organizations' current level and map out a path for improvement. You'll learn how to assess where you are now on the ladder: (1) do nothing, (2) write documents and create forms, (3) measure the process, (4) improve based on metrics, or (5) automate tools and process.

Gregory Pope, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Agile Requirements: Not an Oxymoron

Agile processes were originally designed to break down the barriers among users, programmers, and testers. Now, DevOps-an emerging set of principles and practices for communication, collaboration, and integration between development and IT operations-seeks to break down the development/operations barriers. By applying agile principles to operations and re-architecting the interfaces between these groups, DevOps empowers organizations to deliver high-value software faster and with fewer errors. Jez Humble describes how to implement DevOps practices in large enterprises-and small organizations. Starting with an investigation of the crisis facing large IT departments, Jez discusses the root causes of operations challenges and how DevOps addresses them.

Ellen Gottesdiener, EBG Consulting, Inc.
The Agile Mindset: Principles for Collaborating and Innovating with Agility

Whether it is controlling interplanetary spacecraft, managing medical records, or "merely" staying in business, it seems that more of us are facing the pressure of building and managing mission-critical systems and teams. Although it's tempting to think that reliability is all that matters, we're also forced to adapt to constantly advancing technologies, shifting priorities, and relentless competitive pressures. What can we learn about agility from great inventors like Alexander Graham Bell and the pioneers at NASA who risked everything to change the world? Is it wise to embrace innovation and take risks when so much is at stake? Can you afford to be agile when failure is not an option, or can you afford not to? Jeff Norris explores key principles of agility from a fresh and entertaining perspective by drawing on inspiring stories of people who demonstrated agile work practices long before anyone had heard of a ScrumMaster.

Adrian Cho, IBM
STAREAST 2012 Keynote: Bridging the Gap: Leading Change in a Community of Testers
Video

When Keith Klain took over Barclays Capital Global Test Center, he found an organization focused entirely on managing projects, managing processes, and managing stakeholders—the last most unsuccessfully.

Keith Klain, Barclays Capital Global Test Center
STAREAST 2012 Keynote: Evaluating Testing: The Qualitative Way
Video

Testers and managers have wrestled with the problem of evaluating software products and testing efforts, often using approaches derived from manufacturing, construction, and physical sciences. These approaches have been partially successful because software products aren't physical products.

Michael Bolton, DevelopSense Inc.
STARWEST 2011: Session-based Exploratory Testing on Agile Projects

One of the challenges associated with testing in agile projects is selecting test techniques that “fit” the dynamic nature of agile practices. How much functional and non-functional testing should you do? What is the appropriate mix of unit, integration, regression, and system testing? And how do you balance these decisions in an environment that fosters continuous change and shifting priorities? Bob Galen has discovered that session-based exploratory testing (SBET) thrives in agile projects and supports risk-based testing throughout the development project. SBET excels at handling dynamic change while also finding the more significant technical- and business value-impacting defects. Join in and learn how to leverage SBET for test design and as a general purpose agile testing technique.

Bob Galen, iContact Corp
STARWEST 2011: Concurrent Testing Games: Developers and Testers Working Together

The best software development teams find ways for programmers and testers to work closely together to build quality into their software. These teams recognize that programmers and testers each bring their own unique strengths and perspectives to the project. However, working in agile teams we need to unlearn many of the patterns that traditional development taught us. In this interactive session with Nate Oster, you learn how to use the agile practice of "concurrent testing" to overcome common "testing dysfunctions" by having programmers and testers work together-rather than against each other-to deliver quality results throughout an iteration. Join Nate and practice concurrent testing with games that demonstrate just how powerfully dysfunctional approaches can act against your best efforts and how agile techniques can help you escape the cycle of poor quality and late delivery.

Nate Oster, CodeSquads LLC

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