Architecture - Design

Tutorials

MA An Introduction to SAFe: The Scaled Agile Framework

Al Shalloway, Net Objectives

Mon, 06/08/2015 - 8:30am

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is quickly being adopted by many large organizations that have had some success with agile at the team level but have not been able to scale up to large projects. Al Shalloway describes what SAFe is, discusses when and how to implement it, and provides a few extensions to SAFe. Al begins with a high-level, executive’s guide to SAFe that you can share with your organization’s leaders. He then covers the aspects of implementing SAFe: identifying the sequence of features to work, establishing release trains, the SAFe release planning event, SAFe’s variant of Scrum, and when to use the SAFe process. Al concludes with extensions to SAFe including creating effective teams—even when it doesn’t look possible—and implementing shared services and DevOps in SAFe using kanban. Get an introduction to SAFe, discover whether it would be useful to your organization, and identify the steps you should take to be SAFe.

MB Explore Big Data with Graph Databases: A Hands-On Practicum NEW

Andy Palmer, RiverGlide

Mon, 06/08/2015 - 8:30am

SQL and MapReduce databases are great—when your data is well-partitioned and the same queries are run regularly. What happens when we don't know what we will want to know in the future? Graph databases are used in everything from Facebook to business intelligence apps. With nodes, edges, and properties to represent and store data, graph databases give us the opportunity to define the landscape as we learn more about our data. Using graph databases we can start at a location and ask for a description of where we are. This allows us to discover pathways and interesting data points that we might not otherwise have been aware of. Andy Palmer explains how you can discover the data landscape and bend it to your will with exploratory reports. Starting with the fundamentals of graph databases—using Neo4J as the tool—your skills with graph databases will increase through the day until you are able to explore and discover new gems of information for yourself.

Bring your laptop and try a big data tool.

MI Software Design for Testability

Peter Zimmerer, Siemens AG

Mon, 06/08/2015 - 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 system components cannot be tested at all. Testability is not free; it must be explicitly designed into the system through adequate design for testability. Peter Zimmerer describes influencing factors (controllability, visibility, operability, stability, simplicity) and constraints (conflicting nonfunctional requirements, legacy code), and shares his experiences implementing and testing highly-testable software. Peter offers practical guidance on two key actions: (1) designing well-defined control and observation points in the architecture, and (2) specifying testability needs for test automation early. He shares creative and innovative approaches to overcome failures caused by deficiencies in testability. Peter presents a new and comprehensive strategy for testability design that you can implement to gain the benefits in a cost-efficient manner.

TL Mobile App Usability and UX for Developers and Testers NEW

Philip Lew, XBOSoft

Tue, 06/09/2015 - 1:00pm

Today, many organizations are migrating to mobile while new organizations are adopting a mobile-first or mobile-only strategy. Because of the special characteristics of the mobile platform and its user base, usability and the user experience (UX) take on an increased emphasis. With SaaS-based business models, where users can pay by the month and switch applications in a heartbeat, user experience becomes paramount. Currently, there are no formal models describing UX. Philip Lew explains the definitions of usability and user experience, describes the connections between them, and explores evaluation methods you can use as the first step toward improving user experience on the mobile platform. Philip uses examples to illustrate the good, the bad, and the ugly of mobile UX to build a deeper understanding of how to improve your own app’s UX. Discover key principles for design and evaluation of usability. Develop a methodology for continuous improvement of your users’ experience.

TM Innovation Thinking: Evolve and Expand Your Capabilities SOLD OUT

Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.

Tue, 06/09/2015 - 1:00pm

Innovation is a word frequently tossed around in organizations today. The standard cliché is “Do more with less.” People and teams want to be innovative but often struggle with how to define, prioritize, implement, and track their innovation efforts. Jennifer Bonine shares the Innovation Types model to give you new tools to evolve and expand your innovation capabilities. Find out if your innovation ideas and efforts match your team and company goals. Learn how to classify your innovation and improvement efforts as core (to the business) or context (essential but non-revenue generating). With this data, you can better decide how much of your effort should be spent on core versus context activities. Take away new tools for classifying innovation and mapping your activities and your team’s priorities to their importance and value. With Jennifer’s guidance you’ll evolve and expand your innovation capabilities on the spot.

TN Testing the Data Warehouse: Big Data, Big Problems NEW

Geoff Horne, NZTester Magazine

Tue, 06/09/2015 - 1:00pm

Data warehouses have become a popular mechanism for collecting, organizing, and making information readily available for strategic decision making. The ability to review historical trends and monitor near real-time operational data has become a key competitive advantage for many organizations. Yet the methods for assuring the quality of these valuable assets are quite different from those of transactional systems. Ensuring that the appropriate testing is performed is a major challenge for many enterprises. Geoff Horne has led a number of data warehouse testing projects in both the telecommunications and ERP sectors. Join Geoff as he shares his approaches and experiences, focusing on the key “uniques” of data warehouse testing including methods for assuring data completeness, monitoring data transformations, and measuring quality. He explores the opportunities for test automation as part of the data warehouse process, describing how you can harness automation to streamline and minimize overhead.

TQ Design Patterns Explained—from Analysis through Implementation

Ken Pugh, Net Objectives

Tue, 06/09/2015 - 1:00pm

Ken Pugh takes you beyond thinking of design patterns as “solutions to a problem in a context.” Patterns are really about handling variations in your problem domain while keeping code from becoming complex and difficult to maintain as the system evolves. Ken begins by describing the classic use of patterns. He shows how design patterns implement good coding practices and then explains key design patterns including Strategy, Bridge, Adapter, Façade, and Abstract Factory. In small group exercises, learn how to use patterns to create robust architectures that can readily adapt as new requirements arise. Lessons from these patterns are used to illustrate how to do domain analysis based on abstracting out commonalities in a problem domain and identifying particular variations that must be implemented. Leave with a working understanding of what design patterns are and a better way to build models of your application domains.

Concurrent Sessions

AW4 Holistic User Experience Design in an Agile Environment

Garren DiPasquale, Aduro

Wed, 06/10/2015 - 1:30pm

Garren DiPasquale says that holistic design strategy in an iterative agile environment is difficult. So how does design thinking deliver awesome applications and features for your customers? Why should your agile team care? How do you develop a macro understanding while developing micro solutions? Can you get designers and developers on the same page? As the market continues to move forward, our customers are expecting polished, delightful, and easy-to-use software. To deliver software that matches these expectations, we must adjust our product design practices to move as fast as our development counterparts. Garren introduces a model for getting designers and developers to work together―breaking problems down, and aligning both design and agile methodologies to form one cohesive team. Discover the objections designers have to agile, eliminate handoff problems, and deliver better software with a practical design framework that can be implemented on agile teams large and small.