Several jokes about consultants revolve around the idea that they answer most questions by saying "It depends." The context-driven school of testing accepts the "It depends" reality but then asks, "Depends on what?" Rather than talking about best practices, this approach asks when and why a given practice would be beneficial; what risks and benefits are associated with it; what skills, documents, development processes, and other resources are required to enable the process; and so on. Rather than dismissing an unpopular testing technique or test documentation method as useless, you should ask these questions to determine possible uses. The appropriate context might be narrow, but you'll learn a lot more about the technique and its alternatives by becoming aware of the context variables rather than ignoring them.

Automated tests using self-verifying data (SVD) can help determine if your query-type tests have the right information or if they are showing you the expected views. In this presentation, Noel Nyman provides a brief overview of an SVD testing method followed by a demonstration of automation techniques that allow you to run random tests on SVDs with millions of records or entries. Using applications such as Microsoft Office, learn how to adapt the techniques taught in this presentation to many different types of applications using most of the common automation tools.

Studies have shown that over fifty percent of software defects are attributed to poorly defined requirements. From a process improvement perspective, it is imperative that project managers establish a more effective and efficient way of defining and tracking business requirements. Jeff Tatelman describes a "how to" approach for developing a practical automated regression testing process using a traceability matrix and business event scenarios. Learn how requirements-based testing-coupled with a data-driven approach to test automation-can solve problems that plague most software development projects.

The main topics of this presentation are: Understanding G11N, I18N and L10N; Planning for a Global QA Process; Overcoming Language-Specific Testing; and Selecting the Proper Tools.