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The New Mindset for Testing Cloud-based Applications The "cloud" is the new kid on the block. So, how exactly does testing cloud-based applications differ from testing traditional applications? Do you have the right mindset and processes in place today to build and test high quality cloud-based applications? Charles Sterling answers these questions as he takes you on a journey to demystify the application lifecycle for cloud-based applications. He explains that you need a different mindset and a new set of processes and tools at each stage of the project cycle-planning, execution, release, and monitoring-to deliver high quality cloud-based applications. Based on his team's experience of building cloud services, Charles shares two specific examples-continuous integration and performance testing. Using these examples, he highlights the salient points of testing cloud-based applications and contrasts them with testing in the traditional world.
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Charles Sterling, Microsoft Corporation
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Agile Testing Practices On agile teams, testing is an ongoing activity-not a phase or a role. Even today many agile development teams struggle with this concept. Janet Gregory explains how testing activities are included throughout the agile process and the highest value activities a tester can add to the team. Sharing her extensive work experience, Janet describes the importance of collaboration and simplicity in activities such as automation, acceptance test-driven development, and exploratory testing. Janet uses the agile testing quadrants model to provide a framework for identifying testing needs at all levels-user story, product feature, and project. As Janet presents this overview of agile testing practices, you’ll have an opportunity through discussions and exercises to understand how agile practices fit together.
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Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.
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Launch and Grow Your Test Automation Situation: Your company needs test automation yesterday-but has little or no automation experience and a small budget. How do you quickly launch the automation project, create productive tests that make a difference, and pave the way for success in the ongoing development of test automation? Five years ago, Neovest began an automation journey that started with a single macro-based playback test and has evolved into a Java framework checking 21,000 test cases each night. Paul Parsons identifies the essentials of a test automation launch plan and describes how to assess your team’s skills to provide a crucial takeoff point. Paul guides you through the automation evolution spectrum-from record and playback to mature test frameworks-where you'll learn the strengths and challenges of each stop along the way.
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Paul Parsons, Neovest, Inc.
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Creating a Risk-based Testing Strategy An efficient test finds the most important defects as early as possible and at the lowest possible cost. The challenge for many of us is determining which tests are most important to execute and when to perform them. Mary LeMieux-Ruibal and Mirkeya Capellán introduce a simple approach for implementing a risk-based test strategy to ensure that test plans are well-organized and help find those “big” defects first. After an overview for determining test scope, objectives, and goals, Mary and Mirkeya explore the characteristics of effective tests and discuss how to use risk factors to prioritize and categorize test types. Based on TMap® Next testing methodology, Mary and Mirkeya outline easy-to-follow steps for determining the probability of a component failing and how to weigh the costs of a potential failure against the costs of executing tests to check the component.
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Mary LeMieux-Ruibal, Sogeti USA
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One QA Team's Journey from No Process to Continuous Feedback and Improvement You'll learn a lot at STAREAST but do you know how you are going to systematically incorporate your new ideas into actions that will work back at the shop? Can you identify and evaluate the current state of your test process today? Do you really know if testing will be finished on time and within budget or is it just a best guess? Jan Fish shares the four year trek she and her team took through a maze of process improvement efforts that eventually elevated their testing organization to a controlled model with continuous improvement and feedback loops built-in to the process. Now, they can implement a change in test practices and easily measure its effects-good, bad, or indifferent. Although their focus was not on process improvement for its own sake, their efforts led to robust testing practices that are appraised to satisfy CMMI® Level 5.
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Jan Fish, Quality Metric
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Testing Trends: Cloud, Virtualization, and Mobility Almost daily, we see reports of software failures that harm enterprises and impact the brand, putting testing organizations and their efforts in the spotlight. Fortunately, testers are now in one of the most exciting times in the software industry’s history! Theresa Lanowitz describes how you can begin to use new technologies-cloud, virtualization, and mobility-to deliver more value to your company, enhance your career, and act as a change agent for higher quality. As organizations adopt cloud and mobile strategies, testers must be ready to deliver immediate value on these new platforms while test organizations must complement and extend their existing tools to ensure these new platforms meet the demands of the business-especially in the areas of performance and security.
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Theresa Lanowitz, voke, Inc.
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What Managers Think They Know about Test Automation-But Don't Managers play a critical role in the success or failure of test automation. Although most testers and some test managers have a realistic view of what automation can and cannot do, many senior managers have firm ideas about automation that are misguided-or downright wrong. Dorothy Graham outlines five common management misconceptions and explores ways you can ensure that your executives and managers develop realistic goals and plans for automation. Join Dot to learn why measurements against realistic objectives are critical for success, and how to measure and explain automation return on investment (ROI) calculations. She offers advice on where test automation fits into agile and non-agile development and the critical aspect of staffing and infrastructure. Identifying early indications of problems in test automation efforts, Dot offers advice for how to quickly get your efforts back on track for good.
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Dorothy Graham, Consultant
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Evaluating Testing: The Qualitative Way For years, testers and managers alike 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 only partially successful because software products aren't physical products. Rather, software is part of a complex web of relationships among programs, computing equipment, networks, and, most importantly, people. Michael Bolton explains how he uses interdisciplinary and exploratory methods to make sense of both the products we test and testing itself. He explains how anthropology, which describes cultures and artifacts, can guide our testing; how investigative journalism can show us how to build a compelling testing story; and how sociology can help us understand how people interact with their tools.
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Michael Bolton, DevelopSense
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Bridging the Gap: Leading Change in a Community of Testers 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. Although the team was extremely proficient in test management, their misaligned priorities had the effect of continually hitting the bullseye on the wrong target. Keith immediately implemented changes to put a system in place to foster testing talent and drive out fear-abandoning worthless metrics and maturity programs, overhauling the training regime, and investing in a culture that rewards teamwork and innovation. The challenges of these monumental changes required a new kind of leadership-something quite different from traditional management. Find out how Keith is leading the Barclays Capital Global Test Center and hear his practical experiences defining objectives and relating them to people’s personal goals.
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Keith Klain, Barclays Capital Global Test Center
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No Silver Bullet? Silver Buckshot May Work During Greg Pope’s forty years in the industry, many great processes and new tools have been promoted by incredibly gifted people. It seems that someone is always promising a cure all-the proverbial “silver bullet”-for software woes. Still, the most common request Greg gets from software developers and managers is to “look at our development process and tell us how to make it better.” Greg’s goals for this presentation are for us to understand what “better” really means, to discuss common problems and potential solutions, and to become empowered to make our personal and our group’s practices better. He examines valuable ideas that seem to reincarnate themselves periodically and explores the challenges of today’s modern software.
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Gregory Pope, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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