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Building the Test Management Office It's the life challenge of a test manager-leading testing while keeping the work under control. If it's not poor code, it's configuration glitches. If it's not
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Geoff Horne, iSQA
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Test Estimation: A Pain or ... Painless? Agile methodologies may be coming soon to a project near you. Agile software development holds the promise of faster development, less cost, fewer defects, and increased customer value, all while maintaining a sustainable work pace in a high morale environment. As a tester, you may be wondering, "How will agile affect me?" We've all heard stories that agile methodologies have no place for testers. In this presentation, Jean Tabaka changes that perspective. She will highlight the fundamental tenets of agile software development, the project management frameworks that support these tenets, and the engineering disciplines that naturally fit in these frameworks. For some testers, the agile approach can be a jolt to their long-held beliefs of how testing should be done.
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Lloyd Roden, Grove Consultants
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STAREAST 2007: Positioning Your Test Automation Team as a Product Group Test automation teams are often founded with high expectations from senior management-the proverbial "silver bullet" remedy for a growing testing backlog, perceived schedule problems, or low quality applications. Unfortunately, many test automation teams fail to meet these lofty expectations and subsequently die a slow organizational death-their regression test suites are not adequately maintained and subsequently corrode, software licenses for tools are not renewed, and ultimately test engineers move on to greener pastures. In many cases, the demise of the test automation team can be traced back to unrealistic expectations originally used to justify the business case for test automation. In other words, the team is doomed for failure from the beginning.
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Steve Splaine, Nielsen Media Research
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The Risks of Risk-Based Testing Risk-based testing has become an important part of the tester’s strategy in balancing the scope of testing against the time available. Although risk-based methods have always been helpful in prioritizing testing, it is vital to remember that we can be fooled in our risk analysis. Risk, by its very nature, contains a degree of uncertainty. We estimate the probability of a risk, but what is the probability that we are accurate in our estimate? Randall Rice describes twelve ways that risk assessment and risk-based methods may fail. In addition, he draws parallels to risk-based activities in other industries and discusses the important role of contingencies as a safety net when the unexpected occurs. Gain a greater awareness of safer ways to apply risk-based approaches so that you will be less likely to be misled by risk.
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Randy Rice, Rice Consulting Services Inc
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Failure Patterns: A Powerful Tool to Optimize Your Testing As professionals, we have always known that exhaustive testing is rarely feasible or affordable. Thus, we must find more efficient and effective approaches to testing. Discovering these approaches depends on the availability of data about defects-and this is where testers run into real problems. Few testers create experiments to measure their own testing effectiveness. Even fewer examine their results for statistical significance. Thus starved of sound data, we are forced to use our intuition. However, strong evidence indicates that today's software failure patterns are very similar to past patterns that have been studied. Exploiting past work is highly beneficial to the practice and economics of today's testing, allowing us to concentrate our tests where they are likely to be most fruitful.
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Les Hatton, University of Kingston
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Challenges in Performance Testing of AJAX Applications The AJAX model for Web applications has been rapidly gaining in popularity because of its ability to bring the richness and responsiveness of desktop applications to the Web. Because one of the key drivers for the rapid adoption of AJAX is its promise of superior performance, it is surprising that there has been very little discussion of AJAX-specific performance testing. In fact, AJAX has a significant impact on aspects of the performance testing lifecycle including definition of goals, user modeling, and test scripting. Rajendra Gokhale discusses issues to consider: AJAX engine simulation and optimization, cross-client performance of AJAX applications, and design choices related to test scripting. Using Google's "Google Suggest" service as a case study, Rajendra examines the unique challenges of carrying out performance testing of AJAX-based applications and offers suggestions for overcoming them.
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Rajendra Gokhale, Aztecsoft
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A Flight Plan for Testing to Keep Us Safe Just as an airplane pilot always uses a checklist when preparing for a flight, a test engineer should use a checklist when preparing for testing. Join Sid Snook, a licensed pilot, as he provides comprehensive, high-level testing guidelines, checklists, attack methods, and documentation templates. Sid presents a menu of potential testing items for you to select from based on the unique context of your testing project. Although the complete set of tools is not intended to be applicable on any given project, Sid recommends that all items should be considered for applicability and only be rejected for sound, technically defensible reasons. Note: Project risk may increase in some proportion to the items you do not select-and you may get lost somewhere along the way on your testing trip.
- The benefits and limitations that come from the use of checklists
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Sid Snook, Software Quality Engineering
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Bugs on Bugs! Hidden Testing Lessons from the Looney Tunes Gang Robert Sabourin finds that characters from the Looney Tunes Gang-Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Foghorn Leghorn, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Michigan J. Frog, and others-provide wonderful metaphors for the challenges of testing. From Bugs we learn about personas and the risks
of taking the wrong turn in Albuquerque. Michigan J. Frog teaches valuable lessons about bug isolation and how ambiguous pronouns can
dramatically change the meaning of our requirements. The Tasmanian Devil not only teaches us about the risks of following standard
procedures but also shows us practical approaches to stress and robustness testing. And, of course, we learn about boundary conditions
and challenging physics from Yosemite Sam. Bugs teach lessons for the young at heart-novice and experienced alike. Robert shares some powerful heuristic models that you can apply right away.
- The value of modeling personas for test design
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Robert Sabourin, AmiBug.com Inc
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The Case of a Failed Project: A Mystery Solved John Scarborough recounts the aftermath of a test project failure that stunned engineers and managers alike. The project was highly strategic yet very challenging. Team members were proud to be assigned to it. Early warning signs did not go unheeded. However, after the customer rejected a release of code, confidence plummeted, and the controls that the team had put in place were no longer sufficient to keep deliveries on track. The harder they worked, the more their deficiencies became apparent. Fortunately, all was not lost. Through a defined retrospective process with open and sometimes painful self-assessment, the team was able to deliver a positive study that led to overhauling and improving the company's processes for quality management. Take back an approach that can lead you from failure and disappointment to progress and success.
- How to establish an atmosphere of openness and candor
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John Scarborough, AZTECSOFT - itest
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Performance Testing Web Applications with OpenSTA OpenSTA is a solid open-source testing tool that, when used effectively, fulfills the basic needs of performance testing of Web applications. Dan Downing introduces you to the basics of OpenSTA including downloading and installing the tool, using the Script Modeler to record and customize performance test scripts, defining load scenarios, running tests using Commander, capturing the results using Collector, interpreting the results, and exporting captured performance data into Excel for analysis and reporting. As with many open source tools, self-training is the rule. Support is provided not by a big vendor staff but by fellow practitioners via email. Learn how to find critical documentation that is often hidden in FAQs and discussion forum threads. If you are up to the support challenge, OpenSTA is an excellent alternative to other tools.
- The capabilities and limitations of OpenSTA
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Dan Downing, Mentora Inc
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