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Test Engineer

Tutorials

MF SOLD OUT! Acceptance Test-Driven Development: Mastering Agile Testing
Nate Oster, CodeSquads, LLC
Mon, 06/03/2013 - 8:30am

On agile teams, testers can struggle to keep up with the pace of development if they continue employing a waterfall-based verification process—finding bugs after development. Nate Oster challenges you to question waterfall assumptions and replace this legacy verification testing with acceptance test-driven development (ATDD). With ATDD, you “test first” by writing executable specifications for a new feature before development begins.

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MH Tuning and Improving Your Agility
David Hussman, DevJam
Mon, 06/03/2013 - 8:30am

Are you using agile practices but struggling? If so, you are not alone. Experienced agile practitioners know that some practices are more difficult than others, and most need tuning over time. If you are looking for ways to get more value or improve your skills, this session will pass your acceptance tests. David Hussman shares his coaching tools for improving and tuning practices including product planning, roadmapping, story writing, planning sessions, and stand up meetings.

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TD Measurement and Metrics for Test Managers
Rick Craig, Software Quality Engineering
Tue, 06/04/2013 - 8:30am

To be most effective, test managers must develop and use metrics to help direct the testing effort and make informed recommendations about the software’s release readiness and associated risks. Because one important testing activity is to “measure” the quality of the software, test managers must measure the results of both the development and testing processes. Collecting, analyzing, and using metrics is complicated because many developers and testers are concerned that the metrics will be used against them.

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TE Design for Testability: A Tutorial for Devs and Testers
Peter Zimmerer, Siemens AG
Tue, 06/04/2013 - 8:30am

Testability is the degree to which a system can be effectively and efficiently tested. This key software attribute indicates whether testing (and subsequent maintenance) will be easy and cheap—or difficult and expensive. In the worst case, a lack of testability means that some components of the system cannot be tested at all. Testability is not free; it must be explicitly designed into the system through adequate design for testability.

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TF Agile Project Failures: Root Causes and Corrective Actions
Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.
Tue, 06/04/2013 - 8:30am

Agile initiatives always begin with the best of intentions—accelerate delivery, better meet customer needs, or improve software quality. Unfortunately, some agile projects do not deliver on these expectations. If you want help to ensure the success of your agile project or get an agile project back on track, this session is for you. Jeff Payne discusses the most common causes of agile project failure and how you can avoid these issues—or mitigate their damaging effects.

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TN SOLD OUT! Security Testing for Test Professionals
Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.
Tue, 06/04/2013 - 1:00pm

Your organization is doing well with functional, usability, and performance testing. However, you know that software security is a key part of software assurance and compliance strategy for protecting applications and critical data. Left undiscovered, security-related defects can wreak havoc in a system when malicious invaders attack. If you don’t know where to start with security testing and don’t know what you are—or should be—looking for, this tutorial is for you.

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TP Influence Strategies for Software Professionals
Linda Rising, Independent Consultant
Tue, 06/04/2013 - 1:00pm

You’ve tried and tried to convince people of your position. You’ve laid out your logical arguments on impressive PowerPoint slides—but you are still not able to sway them. Cognitive scientists understand that the approach you are taking is rarely successful. Often you must speak to others’ subconscious motivators rather than their rational, analytic side. Linda Rising shares influence strategies that you can use to more effectively convince others to see things your way.

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ML The Developer’s Guide to Test Automation
Dale Emery, DHE
George Dinwiddie, iDIA Computing, LLC
Mon, 06/03/2013 - 1:00pm

Your shrinking project deadlines are increasing the need for automated tests—but, simultaneously, reducing the time available for writing them. The system requirements are continually changing. The implementation is changing. You spend more and more time maintaining old tests, leaving less time to write new ones. The tests take longer and longer to run. And when they fail, the problem is as likely to be in the tests as in the system.

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Pre-Conference Training

Software Tester Certification—Foundation Level (3-day)
Dale Perry, Software Quality Engineering
Sun, 06/02/2013 - 8:30am

Are you looking for an internationally recognized certification in software testing? Delivered by top experts in the testing industry, Software Tester Certification—Foundation Level is an accredited training course to prepare you for the ISTQB® Certified Tester—Foundation Level exam. ISTQB® is the only internationally accepted certification for software testing, accredited through its network of national boards. The ISTQB®, a non-proprietary organization, has granted more than 200,000 certifications in more than 70 countries around the world.

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Fundamentals of Agile Certification (2-day)
Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.
Sun, 06/02/2013 - 8:30am

Fundamentals of Agile Certification will present a roadmap for how to get started with agile along with practical advice. It will introduce you to agile software development concepts and teach you how to make them work. You will learn what agile is all about, why agile works, and how to effectively plan and develop software using agile principles. A running case study allows you to apply the techniques you are learning as you go through the course.

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Concurrent Sessions

BW4 Mobile Application Testing: Challenges and Best Practices
Jimmy Xu, CGI
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 10:15am

With the rapid rise of mobile devices including smartphones and tablets, many organizations are rolling out mobile apps to extend the reach of their traditional web applications. Although the methodology for mobile application testing is fundamentally the same as that of traditional web and desktop application testing, mobile apps testing presents some unique challenges and issues including coverage of a myriad of mobile devices, usability testing, integration of mobile testing with web interface testing, mobile app performance, and security issues.

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BW7 Testing Cloud-Based Applications: What’s Different, What’s the Same
Bindu Laxminarayan, Rackspace
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 2:15pm

Cloud platforms are being rapidly adopted because of their beneficial properties including scalability, multi-tenancy, and self-managed functionality. As a result, more and more organizations are moving applications and services from traditional hosting to the cloud. This change in platform architecture introduces new challenges for testing—data integrity, authentication, and authorization. After presenting an overview of cloud architecture, Bindu Laxminarayan discusses how testing traditional applications differs from testing applications hosted on private, public, and hybrid clouds.

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BW8 Software Security Goes Mobile
Erik Costlow, HP Enterprise Security
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 2:15pm

Erik Costlow says that, as more and more business is transacted on mobile platforms, securing the applications and data that run on them is a business imperative. Developers and their managers are asked to make key decisions regarding data caching, authorized permissions, authentication requirements on the backend, and safe coding practices—all of which contribute to the protection of their organization’s intellectual property. However, hackers have taken advantage of a knowledge gap to develop creative attacks against mobile applications.

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BW12 Hybrid Security Analysis: Bridging the Gap between Inside-Out and Outside-In
Arthur Hicken, Parasoft
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 3:45pm

With the rising adoption of the cloud and the mobile revolution, software security is more important and complex than ever. The efforts of developers and testers are frequently disconnected, wasting time and reducing effectiveness. Arthur Hicken describes how hybrid security analysis bridges the gap between static analysis and penetration testing by detecting security vulnerabilities with unprecedented accuracy—and few false positives. Testers receive an instant assessment of where security attacks actually penetrated the application.

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BT5 Gamification to Solve Real-World Challenges
Ram Srinivasan, inRhythm
Thu, 06/06/2013 - 2:15pm

What can we learn from Angry Birds, which has been downloaded more than one billion times? What makes games engaging and fun? What is the secret that motivates players to mastery, even when they fail 80 percent of the time? What if we could reverse-engineer the principles behind a well-designed game and graft them to a real-life business challenge? Based on psychology, design, strategy, and technology, gamification is an emerging and exciting concept. Ram Srinivasan describes the principles behind player engagement, social connectivity, and self-motivation to mastery.

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AW4 Agile Testing: It’s a Team Sport
Jeff "Cheezy" Morgan, LeanDog
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 10:15am

Who is responsible for testing on agile teams? The answer is “Everybody”—and yet this is rarely the case. Often the testers write their test cases in isolation and execute them after development is finished. Developers write their code without talking to the testers except to understand how to reproduce the latest discovered defect. Product owners elaborate requirements in isolation and then hand them off to the team only to check back at the end of the sprint. Business analysts spend their time working on documents that have questionable usefulness.

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AW8 The Agile Tester’s Mindset
Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 2:15pm

On traditional projects, testers usually join the project after coding has started—or even later when coding is almost finished. Testers have no role in advising the project team early regarding quality issues but focus only on finding defects. They become accustomed to this style of working and adjust their mental processes accordingly. On agile projects, where testers must collaborate closely with customers and programmers throughout the development lifecycle, their focus changes from finding defects to preventing them.

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AW12 Transform Your Agile Test Process to Ship Fast with High Quality
Penny Wyatt, Atlassian
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 3:45pm

Until 2009, the Atlassian JIRA team shipped a major release of its software every nine to twelve months. Everything was tested—every story and every bug fix—and everything still contained serious bugs. Story development moved quickly, but after the feature-complete date, several month-long hardening periods were required to make the software actually shippable. Integrating the release into Atlassian’s hosted platform took another three or four months.

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BT1 The Four Dimensions of Performance Improvement
Marisa Müller, Micro to Mainframe (Pty) Ltd.
Thu, 06/06/2013 - 10:15am

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a team dealt with unrealistic deadlines, impossible stakeholders, and demotivated testers, who had  no time to do things smarter and faster, just hammering away on the project “hamster wheel.” Then one day, as if heaven sent, a magical, but systematic approach to performance improvement, solving performance problems, and enhancing testing service delivery arrived in the form of the Four Dimensional Performance Improvement model. Marisa Müller describes this model that recognizes that performance relies on more than just people.

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BT3 You Said What? Becoming Aware of the Things We Say
Steven “Doc” List, Santeon Group
Thu, 06/06/2013 - 10:15am

Most of us take language for granted. We use words without thinking about how they may affect others and then are surprised at the reaction we get. Learn the importance of language in building and maintaining high performing agile teams. Become more aware of the words you choose and the impact of those words on your listeners. Steven “Doc” List presents a series of exercises in a game show format. Participants attempt to identify loaded words in seemingly simple statements and questions. Some of the exercises are written, others are acted out in role play.

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BT11 Building Quality In
Dawn Haynes, PerfTestPlus, Inc.
Thu, 06/06/2013 - 3:45pm

Have you ever delivered software to testing only to receive unexpected feedback regarding quality issues of interoperability, reliability, usability, or testability? Or worse, delivered to customers a product that fully met its specifications but generated complaints and calls for urgent fixes? Substantial time and effort can be saved by understanding—before coding begins—the important quality factors a software system must have. Join Dawn Haynes to explore quick and effective ideas for defining quality factors for your software.

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BT8 How to Survive the Coming Test Automation Zombie Apocalypse
Dale Emery, DHE
Thu, 06/06/2013 - 2:15pm

Test automation is software development. To automate tests well, you have to have brains. Unfortunately, the very brains that make you good at your job also make you highly attractive to zombies. Like all zombies, test automation zombies are brainless, insatiable, and relentless. Unlike human zombies, test automation zombies can be difficult to recognize. They don’t look like people at all. Some look like org charts. Some look like best practices.

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BT6 Trends in Big Data Testing
Stefano Rizzo, Polarion Software
Thu, 06/06/2013 - 2:15pm

The Big Data has three unique characteristics—Volume, Velocity, and Variety. Today’s big data applications are growing dramatically. We must process data ever more quickly so we can respond to events as they happen, and that data is arriving from an ever wider array of channels, sensors, and formats. Stefano Rizzo explains that the main challenges of testing big data by little agile teams, beside the apparent contradiction, are related to testing individual components vs. testing the big product, traceability, and organizing massive amounts of test data vs.

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