Testing & Quality Leadership Summit

Test Leadership on the Edge

Thursday, May 8 (evening) and Friday, May 9 (all day)

Testing & Quality Leadership Summit

Jeff Payne
Coveros, Inc.
Summit Chair

The role of a software tester continues to change as new software processes and new technologies drive the need for better, more effective testing approaches. Join in the conversation with your peers as experienced testing and quality leaders share ways to lead an organization living on the technical edge. Discover how seasoned leaders deal with changes in platform technology, development/testing tools, and agile development methods.

At the 2014 Testing & Quality Leadership Summit, summit chair Jeffery Payne brings together senior industry leaders—Alan Page, Rob Sabourin, Johanna Rothman, and others—for an interactive exchange of ideas and experiences. You also won’t want to miss the Test Leader Rumble—a high energy panel discussion and debate between these cutting-edge test leaders.

Also, bring your biggest issues and challenges to the Testing & Quality Leadership Summit, where you can draw on theknowledge and experiences of these leaders and your fellow managers who may have already faced and solved some of your issues. You’ll hear what’s working—and not working—and have the opportunity to share your experiences and successes. The Testing & Quality Leadership Summit is a perfect opportunity for you to:

Participate in insightful and informative sessions focusing on leadership issues
Meet and network with your peers in the industry
Join in the “think tank” discussion with industry veterans
Develop new ideas and action plans for innovation within your organization

5:30 PM • Reception—Think Tank Issues Identification: As a Leader, What Is Keeping You Up at Night?

Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.

8:00 AM • Registration and Breakfast

8:30 AM • Leading Cutting-edge Test Organizations
Alan Page, Microsoft

If you want to make great software, you need a great team first. Cutting-edge organizations need great leaders – leaders that learn, experiment, inspire, and challenge their own teams and everyone they work with. Too many leaders (or those who call themselves leaders) rely on only a few leadership tools – often thinking that if they merely tell people what to do, that they will do it. Leadership is influence, and influence requires credibility, compassion, humility, strategy and many other factors. You can’t lead with only a handful of leadership ideas – you need dozens or more. It’s just as important for a great leader to have a toolbox full of leadership ideas as it is for a software tester to have a toolbox full of test design ideas.

Alan Page shares some of his own ideas, tips, and tricks in leadership from his 20+ year software career and stories from his successes and failures as a leader on several successful (and some not-so-successful) software testing projects.

Alan Page is a principal SDET—a fancy name for tester—on the Xbox console team at Microsoft. Edging up on twenty years in software testing, Alan has previously worked on a variety of Microsoft products including Windows, Windows CE, Internet Explorer, and Office Lync. He spent some time as Microsoft’s director of test excellence where he developed and ran technical training programs for testers throughout the company. Alan was the lead author of How We Test Software at Microsoft and contributed chapters on large-scale test automation to Beautiful Testing and Experiences of Test Automation: Case Studies of Software Test Automation. You can follow Alan on his blog or on Twitter @alanpage.

9:30 AM • Networking Break

9:45 AM • Tester Leader Rumble—A Panel Discussion/Debate
Alan Page, Rob Sabourin, and Johanna Rothman

Every leader attacks a problem in a different way. Join three distinguished test leaders as they discuss and debate how to tackle today’s stickiest test leadership issues: How to motivate testers How to get what you need from upper level management Dealing effectively with the software development organization Addressing morale and performance issues And more! Learn how these problems can be attacked in different ways. Take home pragmatic, proven techniques for addressing test leadership challenges.
Alan Page is a principal SDET—a fancy name for tester—on the Xbox console team at Microsoft. Edging up on twenty years in software testing, Alan has previously worked on a variety of Microsoft products including Windows, Windows CE, Internet Explorer, and Office Lync. He spent some time as Microsoft’s director of test excellence where he developed and ran technical training programs for testers throughout the company. Alan was the lead author of How We Test Software at Microsoft and contributed chapters on large-scale test automation to Beautiful Testing and Experiences of Test Automation: Case Studies of Software Test Automation. You can follow Alan on his blog or on Twitter @alanpage.
Rob Sabourin, P. Eng., has more than thirty years of management experience leading teams of software development professionals. A well-respected member of the software engineering community, Rob has managed, trained, mentored, and coached hundreds of top professionals in the field. He frequently speaks at conferences and writes on software engineering, SQA, testing, management, and internationalization. Rob wrote I am a Bug!, the popular software testing children's book; works as an adjunct professor of software engineering at McGill University; and serves as the principle consultant (and president/janitor) of AmiBug.Com, Inc. Contact Rob at [email protected].
Known as the “Pragmatic Manager,”Johanna Rothman helps organizational leaders identify problems and risks in their product development and recognize potential “gotchas,” seize opportunities, and remove impediments. Johanna is the technical editor for agileconnection.com and is author of Manage Your Job Search, Hiring Geeks That Fit, Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects, the 2008 Jolt Productivity award-winning Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management, and Behind Closed Doors: Secrets of Great Management. She is currently writing a book about agile program management. In addition, Johanna writes columns for Stickyminds.com and projectmanagement.com, and blogs on jrothman.com, and createadaptablelife.com.

10:45 AM • Networking Break

11:00 AM • Think Tank Discussion: Leadership Solution Brainstorm (Part 1)
Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.

Join with your peers in an engaging and highly interactive session to discuss the issues that affect you most. Using answers to the question “As a Leader, What is Keeping You Up at Night?” posed at thursday’s evening reception, participants will form small groups to work on finding solutions to pressing test management issues. Discussions will review identified issues, barriers to change, and focus on innovative strategies and practical next steps. at the end of the think tank, all feedback will be collected and posted online to encourage further collaboration.

Jeff Payne is CEO and founder of Coveros, Inc., a software company that builds secure software applications using agile methods. Since its inception in 2008, Coveros has become a market leader in secure agile principles while being recognized by Inc. magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the country. Prior to founding Coveros, Jeff was chairman of the board, CEO, and cofounder of Cigital, Inc., a market leader in software security consulting. Jeff has published more than thirty papers on software development and testing, and testified before Congress on issues of national importance, including intellectual property rights, cyber terrorism, and software quality.

12:30 PM • Networking Lunch Buffet

1:30 PM • Think Tank Discussion: Presentation of Results (Part 2)
Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.

In the morning think tank discussion you discovered solutions to some of your most challenging issues. Now each group will present their findings, share their solutions, and learn from each other. At the end of the think tank, all feedback will be collected and posted online to encourage further collaboration.