Test Design

Tutorials

ML Test Attacks to Break Mobile, IoT, and Embedded Software NEW

Jon Hagar, Independent Consultant

Mon, 11/09/2015 - 1:00pm

In the tradition of James Whittaker’s book series How to Break Software, Jon Hagar applies the testing “attack” concept to the domain of mobile, IoT, and embedded software systems. First, Jon defines the environments of mobile, IoT and embedded software. He then examines the issues of software product failures caused by defects found in these types of software. Next, Jon shares a set of ten attacks against mobile, IoT, and embedded software based on common modes of failure that teams can direct against their software today. Like software design patterns, attacks are test design patterns that must be customized for particular contexts. For specific attacks, Jon explains when and how to conduct the attack, who should conduct the attack, and why the attack works to find bugs. In addition to learning these testing concepts, attendees will get to practice the attack pattern on devices containing mobile, IoT and/or embedded software—so bring your smart phones.

MN Planning, Architecting, and Implementing Test Automation within the Lifecycle

Michael Sowers, TechWell Corp.

Mon, 11/09/2015 - 1:00pm

In test automation, we must often use several tools that have been developed or acquired over time with little to no consideration of an overall plan, architecture, or the need for integration. As a result, productivity suffers and frustrations increase. Join Mike Sowers as he shares experiences from multiple organizations in creating an integrated test automation plan and developing a test automation architecture. Mike discusses both the good (engaging the technical architecture team) and bad (too much isolation between test automators and test designers) on his test automation journey in large and small enterprises. Discover approaches to ensure that the test tools you currently have and the new test tools you acquire or develop will work well with other testing and application lifecycle software. Explore approaches to drive test automation adoption across multiple project teams and departments, and communicate the real challenges and potential benefits to your stakeholders.

TL Acceptance Test-Driven Development: Principles and Practices NEW

Ken Pugh, Net Objectives

Tue, 11/10/2015 - 1:00pm

Defining, understanding, and agreeing on the scope of work to be done is often an area of discomfort for product managers, developers, and quality assurance experts alike. The origin of many items living in our defect tracking systems can be traced to the difficulty of performing these initial activities. Ken Pugh introduces acceptance test-driven development (ATDD), explains why it works, and outlines the different roles team members play in the process. ATDD improves communication among customers, developers, and testers. ATDD has proven to dramatically increase productivity and reduce delays in development by decreasing re-work. Through interactive exercises, Ken shows how acceptance tests created during requirement analysis decrease ambiguity, increase scenario coverage, help with effort estimation, and act as a measurement of quality. Join Ken to examine issues with automating acceptance tests including how to create test doubles and when to insert them into the process. Explore the quality of tests and how they relate to the underlying code.

Concurrent Sessions

BW12 Exploratory Testing: Make It Part of Your Test Strategy

Kevin Dunne, QA Symphony

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 4:15pm

Developers often have the unfortunate distinction of not thoroughly testing their code. It’s not that developers do not understand how to test well; it’s just that often they have not had an opportunity to understand how the product works. Kevin Dunne maintains that implementing a team-wide exploratory testing initiative can help build the collaboration and knowledge sharing needed to elevate all team members to the level of product master. Exploratory testing can be performed by anyone, but the real challenge is making sure that the process is properly managed, documented, and optimized. Kevin describes the tools necessary to drive a deeper understanding of software quality and to implement an effective and impactful exploratory testing practice. Creating better software is not just about writing code more accurately and efficiently; it is about delivering value to the end user. Well-executed exploratory testing helps unlock this capability across the entire development team.

BT3 Test Data Management: A Healthcare Industry Case Study

Jatinder Singh, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Shaheer Mohammed, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 10:00am

As IT systems increase in both scale and complexity, delivering quality applications becomes more challenging. In addition to creating and executing test scenarios, testers need to create and maintain the test data that enables test execution. Test data management (TDM) creates and processes data in test environments using business knowledge and technology. Test data is created based on requirements provided from consumers. With TDM in your software delivery process, teams dependent on data can focus on creating and executing test scenarios instead of having to provision the data to run these tests. Shaheer Mohammed and Jatinder Singh present a case study that recaps the successful creation of a TDM team. They review what worked well, share lessons learned along the way, touch on the challenges of managing protected data in the health-care industry, and discuss innovative tools and processes that enabled their success.

BT6 Detection Theory Applied to Finding and Fixing Defects

Ru Cindrea, Altom Consulting

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 11:30am

Detection theory says: When trying to detect a certain event, a person can correctly report that it happened, miss it, report a false alarm, or correctly report that nothing happened. Under conditions of uncertainty, the decision to report an event is strongly influenced by how likely it is that the event could happen or what the consequences of the event might be. Using real life examples, Ru Cindrea shows how this theory can be applied not only to finding defects but also to fixing them. The decision to fix a defect is also made under conditions of uncertainty and, although testers are not the ones making such decisions, testers may influence how decisions are made. Ru discusses how we testers, in addition to finding the right balance between misses and false alarms when hunting for defects, must use our credibility to provide the right information to stakeholders making decisions about fixing defects.

BT9 Fostering Long-Term Test Automation Success

Carl Nagle, SAS Institute, Inc.

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 1:30pm

In today’s environment of plummeting software delivery cycle times, test automation becomes a more critical and strategic necessity. How can we possibly keep up with software delivery’s explosive pace while retaining satisfactory test coverage, keeping the reins on costs, and reducing risk? Carl Nagle maintains that the long-term solution is a greater level of “sustainable” test automation. The SAFS method separates test design from test execution with a data-driven/action-based approach that encapsulates volatile application-specific data into readily localizable “maps” for simple maintenance. Test designs (scripts) are completely independent of the ready-to-run SAFS engines that will execute them. And since the test design methodology does not change over long periods of time, testers can focus more on getting robust automation in place quickly, with little attention paid to each new technology, testing tool, or test IDE. Join Carl to learn how test automation thrives when testers and tools are not tied up in application-specific silos.