Conference Presentations

Developing an Error-Based Testing Strategy

For more complete testing, you need to find and simulate possible error conditions in a system. Many methods throw exceptions when an error occurs. And although the application’s code catches many of these exceptions, an "unhandled" error condition could lead to unpredictable
events and big problems for customers. Rather than using only intuition to guide your error testing, join Christopher Shelley for a strategy to identify specific error conditions in your systems. Sharing sample code, he offers tips and hints for finding these often hidden defects in software. Then, he explains ways to devise specific error injection tests that expose these problems to the developers. Learn the skills you need to find unhandled exceptions within the source code and make sure that your code is exercised through all decision trees and error traps.

Chris Shelley, Dell, Inc.
Manage Your Testing with SCRUM

Used successfully in hundreds of agile and iterative development projects, SCRUM is a software project management approach that employs fixed cycle time "sprints" and daily "scrums." SCRUM emphasizes self-directing teams and the role of a "Scrum Master" to remove obstacles to the
team’s success. Because testing often succumbs to delivery pressures and becomes chaotic, especially during the endgame of projects, SCRUM can be an extremely helpful management framework for test groups. By implementing SCRUM practices, you increase the focus of test efforts on the most important actions, empower the test team, improve morale, and heighten your influence on the overall success of the project. Learn how Robert Galen instituted SCRUM in
a test department, overlaying this new framework on existing processes with a surprisingly
positive impact on both the people and the product.

Robert Galen, Thomson/Dialog
"Risk" Is a Tester's Favorite Four-Letter Word

Good project managers speak the language of risk. Their understanding of risk guides important decisions. Testers can contribute to an organization’s decision-making ability by speaking that same language. During this session you will learn how to evaluate risk in both quantitative and qualitative ways. Identifying risk is important but managing risk is vital. Julie will discuss how to deal with the misunderstandings some managers have about risk-based testing including testing is always "risk-based," risk-based testing is nothing more than prioritizing tests, risk-based testing is a one-time-only activity, risk-based testing is a waste of time, and risk-based testing will delay the project.

  • Five different but complementary approaches to risk evaluation
  • Vital areas to consider when choosing your risk-based approach
  • Misconceptions of management regarding risk-based testing
Julie Gardiner, QST Consultants Ltd.
Achieving Meaningful Metrics from Your Test Automation Tools

In addition to the efficiency improvements you expect from automated testing tools, you can-and should-expect them to provide valuable metrics to help manage your testing effort. By exploiting the programmability of automation tools, you can support the measurement and reporting aspects of your department. Learn how Jack Frank employs these tools with minimal effort to create test execution
status reports, coverage metrics, and other key management reports. Learn what measurement data your automation tool needs to log for later reporting. See examples of the operational reports his automation tools generate, including run/re-run/not run, pass/fail, percent complete, and percent of overall system tested. Take with you examples of senior management reports, including Jack's favorite, "My Bosses' Boss Test Status Report"-names will be changed to hide the guilty. Regardless of the

Jack Frank, Mosaic Inc
Inside the Explorer's Notebook

Exploratory testing is more than just thinking of clever test ideas and executing them on a whim. It's a craft, requiring practice of several classic scientific skills-one of those skills is careful documentation of observations and conjectures. But as much as testers are scientists, they are also explorers. They must document their actions and observations during testing in such a way that stakeholders can easily understand the important problems and issues that are being discovered. In this track talk, expert exploratory tester Jon Bach compares exploratory test notes from several software projects to the journals of historical adventurers, showing how a tester's
journey through unchartered software can reveal similar risks and riches. Jon will discuss three common note-taking styles, as well as good, bad, and ugly notes he has seen (and produced!) in his ten years of testing.

Jon Bach, Quardev, Inc
Strive for Quality in System Testing: A Top 10 List

Finding non-functional, system level problems before a system is delivered-and early enough to allow for low cost corrections-is a perennial testing issue. You need a systematic approach to system testing that keeps key system test objectives visible and assigns the correct priority among other test activities. Based on his team's experiences at IBM, Jerry Cobry describes how there needs to be a special mindset for system testing and describes some of the challenges they faced. Then, using the mnemonic STRIVE FOR Quality, Jerry describes key factors for successful system testing: Stress, Time, Resources, Interaction, Volume, Environment, Focus, Operational profiles, Randomness, and Quality. Go beyond simply finding system problems and become a product assessment engineer. Question your old ways of doing things, get out of your comfort zone, and strive for quality in conducting your own system tests.

Jerry Cobry, IBM Corporation
Legal Compliance in Quality Assurance

In many industries, we must comply with state or federal statutes, government regulations, and other legal standards. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) has brought a new awareness to these issues within testing. So, how do you incorporate legal compliance into your QA and test efforts, and how do you get the information you need to do the job well? Elle Ringham, who deals with these important issues every day at Fidelity National Financial, shares her knowledge and experiences. First, she helps you understand the types of legal compliance bodies that can affect applications and offers research methods for industry specific areas of legal compliance, including internal sources, websites, and search strategies. Then, she discusses the artifacts and metrics needed to be maintained

Elle Ringham, Fidelity National Financial
Test Driven Development (TDD) for Secure Applications

Test Driven Development (TDD) has emerged as a successful productivity technique for development teams. As a unit testing methodology, TDD prescribes a simple three-step process of (1) develop test, (2) write code, and (3) re-factor the code. In a question-and-answer tag-team

James Whittaker, Florida Institute of Technology
Rapid Bottleneck Identification for Successful Load Testing

Rapid bottleneck identification is a methodology that allows QA professionals to very quickly uncover Web application limitations and determine what impact those limitations have on the enduser experience. Starting with the premise that every application has a scalability limit, this approach sets out to quickly uncover where those limitations are and to suggest corrective action.
Learn details about the most common application scalability limits-spanning network, application server, database server, and Web server-and how to quickly uncover them by focusing first on throughput and then on concurrency. With a modular, iterative approach to load testing, you focus

Joe Fernandes, Empirix
FitNesse: An Open-Source Tool for Acceptance Testing

Testing is a critical aspect of agile development methods. In the acceptance testing process, testers and customers write the automated tests before the code is developed. Then, developers run the acceptance tests to verify that the code delivers the expected functionality. FitNesse is a
widely used open source tool that helps automate the development and execution of acceptance tests. After a brief introduction about where FIT and FitNesse "fit" in the Agile development methodology, Micah Martin demonstrates the FitNesse tool and how to drive development with FitNesse tests. In a sample project he presents the tool in use and shows how you develop the tests before the code has been written. Find out what techniques you can use to create FitNesse tests and how the framework operates in a "live" development environment. Take away a list of
available resources and some tips to get started.

Micah Martin, Object Mentor

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