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Better Software Concurrent Sessions

Sessions are offered on Wednesday and Thursday at the conference and do not require a pre-selection. Build your own custom learning schedule by choosing track sessions from DevOps Conference West, Better Software Conference West & Agile Development Conference West.

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Concurrent Sessions
BW1 Seven Deadly Habits of Ineffective Software Leaders
Ken Whitaker, Leading Software Maniacs
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

As if releasing a quality software project on time were not difficult enough, poor management of planning, people, and process issues can be deadly to a project. Presenting a series of anti-pattern case studies, Ken Whitaker describes the most common deadly habits—along with ways to avoid them. These seven killer habits include mishandling employee incentives; making key decisions by consensus; ignoring proven processes; delegating absolute control to a project manager; taking too long to negotiate a project’s scope; releasing an “almost tested” product to market; and hiring someone who is not quite qualified—but liked by everyone. Whether you are an experienced manager struggling with some of these issues or a new software manager, take away invaluable tips and techniques for correcting these habits—or better yet, for avoiding them altogether. As a bonus, every delegate receives a copy of Ken’s full-color Seven Deadly Habits comic.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Ken Whitaker.
BW2 Business Analysis: From Interviews through Implementation
Barry Harvey, Florida Virtual Campus
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

The keys to delivering better software lie in understanding what customers want―even when they are unable to articulate what they want―and being able to create a system that will improve the end users’ work. This is why your starting point should be understanding the differing, and sometime conflicting, needs of the customer and the end-users. Analyzing user needs, developing clearly defined requirements, and managing stakeholder expectations are three areas of business analysis that lead to greatly improved customer and end user satisfaction. Barry Harvey details his experience analyzing the system needs of a culturally and geographically diverse statewide academic support organization; explains how to translate those needs into detailed requirements; and most importantly, shares proven strategies for managing stakeholder expectations throughout the development and implementation process. Transparency and traceability allow both customers and users to understand how specific features and functionality came to be included in the final system, and how their particular needs are being addressed.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Barry Harvey.
BW3 This Is Not Your Father’s Career: Advice for the Modern Information Worker
James Whittaker, Microsoft
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

In an era where college drop-outs run successful companies and creative entrepreneurs out-earn corporate vice presidents, working smart is clearly the new working hard. James Whittaker turns on their head the career rules that guided past generations and provides a new career manual for working smarter that speaks to the need for creativity, innovation, and insight. James teaches a set of skills designed for the modern era of working for companies—big or small. Learn how to avoid a one-sided relationship with your employer and ensure your passion is working for—and not against—you. Discover how to manage your technical skills and professional relationships for maximum effect. James introduces common career hazards and how to identify and avoid them. Think more creatively and examine how to adopt specific career management strategies designed to supercharge your success. The modern age requires more modern ways to succeed. James has them for you.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about James Whittaker.
BW4 Mobile App Testing: Design Automation Patterns You Should Use
Jon Hagar, Grand Software Testing
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

In mobile app development, better test design is important to project velocity and user satisfaction. Jon Hagar explores underused or poorly practiced test design automation approaches that you should employ in development and testing. Jon begins by defining the domain of mobile app software and examines common industry patterns of product failures. He then shares three approaches you can use to speed development and improve quality for native, web-based, and hybrid apps. The methods examined—each supported with detailed checklists—are combinatorial testing, model-based testing, and user experience testing. Jon explains when, where, and how each testing approach can be used to support improved testing and to benefit the whole team. In addition to mobile apps, you and your team can use these same three approaches in other software environments to reduce technical debt during development.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Jon Hagar.
BW5 Integrating Agile and Traditional Projects in the Enterprise
Steve Caseley, Sensei Project Solutions
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

Is your organization using agile on some projects and classic waterfall on others? Are you concerned with integrating your agile projects into your current PMO, tool, and reporting structure? Are you afraid you might require two totally separate approaches? Steve Caseley believes you can support agile without having to introduce a new suite of tools. Project vision, release and sprint planning, product backlog management, and automated production of Scrum artifacts are all possible with your existing project management tools. Steve demonstrates how Microsoft Project and Project Online can provide full support for Scrum/agile projects. Having a framework based on existing tools is key, as it fully integrates your agile projects into established PMOs, ensuring consistency across your organization’s project portfolio independent of the delivery approach selected. Learn how to provide full support and manage all projects—both traditional and agile—in your portfolio in the same tool set.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Steve Caseley.
BW6 Requirements and Acceptance Tests: Yes, They Go Together
Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

The practice of software development requires a clear understanding of business needs. Misunderstanding requirements causes waste, slipped schedules, and mistrust. Developers implement their perceived interpretation of requirements; testers test against their perceptions. Disagreement can arise about implementation defects, when the cause is really a disagreement about a requirement. Ken Pugh shows how early acceptance test development decreases requirements misunderstandings by both developers and testers. A testable requirement provides a single source that serves as the analysis document, acceptance criteria, regression test suite, and progress tracker for each feature. Explore how the business, testers, and developers can create, evaluate, and use testable requirements. Join Ken to examine how to transform requirements into stories, which are small units of work that have business value, small implementation effort, and easy-to-understand acceptance tests. Learn how testers and requirement elicitors can work together to create acceptance tests prior to implementation.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Ken Pugh.
BW7 What’s In a Name? The Metaphorical Power in Our Ideas
Andy Palmer, RiverGlide
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

Why is naming things so difficult? Look in any reasonably sized code base, and you’ll see—in abundance!— crimes against naming. The Spring framework has a class AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBean—and there are many worse examples. We in the computer industry tend to name things by what they do, rather than why they do it, and thus rob ourselves of the opportunity to tell an interesting and intriguing story. Andy Palmer says it hasn’t always been this way. In the early days of computing, names were rich with metaphor. Names, that today are synonymous with the concepts, were once compelling and novel stories. Terms such as Desktop, File, and Folder all had analogues in the physical world, and this helped people come to grips with the new concepts. Andy gives some examples of metaphors from the early days of computing, discusses some more modern examples, gives reasons why we might choose to program in this way, and suggests some ways in which we can improve our ability to tell a story through our code.

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Learn more about Andy Palmer.
BW8 Building on Existing Infrastructure for Mobile Applications
Anthony Carlson, Farm Credit Services of America
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

In 2013 Farm Credit Services of America (FCSAmerica) wanted to enter the mobile application arena so their customers could manage their FCSAmerica lending accounts. Anthony Carlson explains that in the previous thirteen years, FCSAmerica had built an SOA infrastructure for internal applications, including services for customer authentication, lending accounts, and remote check depositing. However, mobility had not been considered when the services were created, and these services were internally protected by a firewall inside their DMZ. If your company has concerns of exposing services to a mobile app, yet wants to reuse what already exists in the enterprise, then the concept of designing services through an API Gateway may be your answer. API Gateways are part of an API Management solution to deal with issues of integration and security. Anthony shares the benefits, challenges, and results of designing a system with an API Management solution to expose services to a mobile application.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Anthony Carlson.
BW9 Innovation for Existing Software Product: An R&D Approach
Aaron Barrett, Infusionsoft
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 2:45pm - 3:45pm

In the world of software, innovating an existing product often makes the difference between continued success and rapid irrelevance and failure. Although innovation can come from many different sources, it can be difficult to develop breakthrough innovations while simultaneously trying to maintain an existing piece of software. Aaron Barrett says that a stand-alone R&D team, freed from the constraints of production software, is a great answer to this dilemma. Join Aaron as he shares some simple guidelines to facilitate the process of integrating R&D efforts into an existing software product while avoiding R&D that does not lead to production-ready systems. Learn how and when to get company buy-in, actively engage your developers, and develop with your go-to-market strategy in mind to reap the innovation benefits of a dedicated R&D team.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Aaron Barrett.
BW10 Requirements Are Simply Requirements—or Maybe Not
Robin Goldsmith, Go Pro Management, Inc.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 2:45pm - 3:45pm

People talk about requirements, use identical terms, and think they have a common understanding. Yet, one says user stories are requirements; another claims user stories must be combined with requirements; and another has a still different approach. These “experts” seem unaware of the critical inconsistencies of their positions. No wonder getting requirements right remains a major challenge for many projects. Robin Goldsmith analyzes often conflicting, not-so-shared-as-presumed interpretations of what requirements are, reveals likely implications, and challenges not-so-wise conventional wisdom. Robin describes a more appropriate model of REAL business requirements—whats that provide value when combined with product/system/software hows. He introduces the powerful Problem Pyramid™ systematic disciplined guide to help you more reliably get requirements right. The structure makes it easier to see where user stories do or do not fit, identifies pitfalls of the “as a <role>” format, and reconciles some of the conflicts between user stories, features, use cases, and requirements.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Robin Goldsmith.
BW11 Conflict: To Know It Is to Love It
Doc List, Doc List Enterprises
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 2:45pm - 3:45pm

We all talk about conflict. We all experience it. But do we really understand what causes it and how we deal with it? Do we have any idea what to do about it? Much research and study has been done, but that doesn't help when you're in the middle of conflict. You don't have time to pull out the reference book or go to a website. You need simple, clear understanding. Learn the categories of conflict and how to recognize them, which means having an understanding of what generates them. Learn the different strategies of dealing with conflict, recognize your own preferred strategies, and understand where you may choose to change your strategy. Discover specific tools you can use in any situation to comfortably and confidently deal with conflict. Doc List introduces some ideas to enhance your learning after you leave the session, so you can continue to expand your love affair with conflict.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Doc List.
BW12 Tips and Tricks for Building Secure Mobile Apps
Jeffery Payne, Coveros, Inc.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 2:45pm - 3:45pm

Mobile application development is now a mission-critical component of many IT organizations. Due to the security threats associated with mobile devices, it is critical that mobile applications are built—from the ground up—to be secure. However, many application developers and testers do not understand how to build and test secure mobile applications. Jeffery Payne discusses the risks associated with mobile platforms/applications and describes best practices for ensuring mobile applications are secure. Jeffery discusses the unique nuances of mobile platforms and how these differences impact the security approach that must be taken when building mobile applications. Topics such as session management, data encryption, securing legacy code, and platform security models are presented. Learn what to watch out for when building mobile applications, and leave with tips and tricks for effectively securing your apps.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Jeffery Payne.
BW13 Get the Most from Your Cross Functional Team: The Project Manager’s View
Julie Gardiner, Hitachi Consulting
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 4:15pm - 5:15pm

Jerry Weinberg once said, “No matter how it looks at first, it's always a people problem.” In the past, the challenges for any team leader, regardless of specialty, were the same when it came down to people issues. Now, with the popularity of agile and its cross-functional teams, we have another factor to consider in addition to the people―their different specialties. How can our leadership help us achieve great results and a happy agile team? Join Julie Gardiner as she presents a communication-style model that can be used to help motivate every member of the team and minimize personality/specialty clashes. Julie shows you how to apply this model to other assessments—such as Myers-Briggs, Belbin, and DISC—and shares experiences using the model. If you're a newly appointed team lead, ScrumMaster, or you just want to get the most out of your team (cross-functional or dedicated specialists), then this session is for you.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Julie Gardiner.
BW14 EARS: The Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 4:15pm - 5:15pm

One key to specifying effective functional requirements is minimizing misinterpretation and ambiguity. By employing a consistent syntax in your requirements, you can improve readability and help ensure that everyone on the team understands exactly what to develop. John Terzakis provides examples of typical requirements and explains how to improve them using the Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS). EARS provides a simple yet powerful method of capturing the nuances of functional requirements. John explains that you need to identify two distinct types of requirements. Ubiquitous requirements state a fundamental property of the software that always occurs; non-ubiquitous requirements depend on the occurrence of an event, error condition, state, or option. Learn and practice identifying the correct requirements type and restating those requirements with the corresponding syntax. Join John to find out what’s wrong with the requirements statement—The software shall warn of low battery—and how to fix it.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about John Terzakis.
BW15 You, Inc.: Building Your Personal Brand
Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Inc.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 4:15pm - 5:15pm

Building the right personal brand is one of the most critical success factors in today’s workplace. Organizations develop a brand and image, but not many individuals think about their brand on sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media outlets. Jennifer Bonine says all professionals with career aspirations should be actively shaping their brand. As we interact with people, we want to influence them to support our efforts—approving projects, budgets, and funding; supporting our next career move; or recommending us for that promotion or raise we want. As a professional, it is critical to understand how you are being perceived by your “target audience.” Jennifer shares ideas on building your brand, mastering politics, reading your colleagues’ and bosses’ perspectives—all techniques that get the results you want. She presents a toolkit for creating your personal brand, changing perceptions in the organization to ensure successful interactions with others, and improving your ability to achieve your career goals.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Jennifer Bonine.
BW16 Lean Software Development Is for Everyone
Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Wednesday, June 10, 2015 - 4:15pm - 5:15pm

Lean software engineering emphasizes continuous delivery of high quality applications. Ken Pugh explains the principles and practices that form the basis of lean software development―concentrating on developing a continuous flow by eliminating delays and loopbacks; delivering quickly by developing in small batches; emphasizing high quality which decreases delays due to defect repair; making policies, process and progress transparent; optimizing the whole rather than individual steps; and becoming more efficient by decreasing waste. Ken describes lean’s emphasis on cycle time rather than resource utilization and demonstrates the value stream map which helps you visualize the development cycle flow to identify bottlenecks. He explores the differences between push and pull flow, describes how lean thinking shows up in agile processes including Scrum and Extreme Programming, and discusses how lean can be applied to the entire workflow—not just to the development portion. Ken concludes with a discussion of how you can begin your lean transformation.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Ken Pugh.
BT1 Creating a Culture of Trust
Pollyanna Pixton, Accelinnova
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 10:00am - 11:00am

In our personal and business lives, many of us know leaders who foster environments of incredible creativity, innovation, and ideas—while other leaders fail. So, how do the top leaders get it right? Going beyond the basics, Pollyanna Pixton explores with you the ways that the best leaders create “safety nets” that allow people to discover and try new possibilities, help people fail early, and correct faster. Removing fear and engendering trust make the team and organization more creative and productive as they spend less energy protecting themselves and the status quo. Pollyanna shares the tools you, as a leader, need to develop open environments based on trust—the first step in collaboration across the enterprise. Learn to step forward and do the right thing without breaking trust. Find out what to do to foster trust through team measurements, protect team boundaries, build team confidence without taking away their ownership, create transparency, and what to do when there is broken trust in the team.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Pollyanna Pixton.
BT2 Emergent Design: History, Concepts, and Principles
Rob Myers, Agile Institute
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 10:00am - 11:00am

Software design is about change. A good design facilitates adding features—and adding new developers to the team. Yet any change to the code impacts design and can damage existing functionality. Without design idioms and practices, the code can degrade into a maintenance nightmare. Your team must know which decisions to make early in design and which to defer. Rob Myers reviews “families” of design attributes and practices, showing the common principles within each. Exploring emergent design by tracing how the concept itself has evolved and matured over time, Rob covers traditional attributes of good object-oriented code (cohesion, encapsulation, polymorphism, coupling); design patterns and the wisdom discovered within; and S.O.L.I.D. principles—all culminating in emergent design, where simple (not easy) practices meet the simplest of guidelines, such as Kent Beck’s “Four Rules of Simple Design.” And the result is code that is easy to understand and delightful to work on.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Rob Myers.
BT3 Cloud-Based, Automated Mobile App Testing for the Enterprise
Joe Schulz, Orasi Software
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 10:00am - 11:00am

Mobile applications are now a required component of enterprise operations, with both consumers and workers relying on mobile technologies for communications and productivity. To ensure a functional, secure, and worthwhile mobile experience, enterprises must stay abreast of growing complexity in mobile devices, applications, and platforms while remaining responsive to unforgiving user expectations for speed and service. To meet this challenge, many firms are turning to cloud-based automated testing, which reduces the complexity and cost of manual, on-premise testing and offers extraordinary flexibility to accommodate a variety of scenarios. Joe Schulz outlines the reasons why cloud-based application testing is beneficial, discusses the role it plays in supporting testing automation, and explores the best practices for adopting this solution. Get a practical grounding in cloud-based automated mobile testing. Learn how this approach helps companies speed time to market, optimize security and performance, increase user satisfaction, and contain costs.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Joe Schulz.
BT4 Improv(e) Your Testing: Tips and Tricks from Jester to Tester
Damian Synadinos, Independent Consultant
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 10:00am - 11:00am

Improvisational comedy—sometimes called improv—is a form of theater in which the performance is created in the moment. Successful improv involves learning and using a variety of skills and techniques which allow performers to quickly adapt to a constantly changing environment and new information. Now reread the previous sentence, but replace the word improv with testing. In many ways, improv is a great analogy for testing. As both an experienced improviser and tester, Damian Synadinos presents some of the many similarities between improv and testing. Each improv tip and trick is thoroughly explained and demonstrated with help from the audience. Damian then shows how the very same idea can be applied in a testing context. Using creative metaphors and critical analysis, old ideas about testing are reframed in novel and notable ways. Whether novice or experienced, you are sure to laugh, learn, and leave with ways to help improv(e) your testing.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Damian Synadinos.
BT5 The Art of People: Facilitation, Leadership, and Team Dynamics
Robert Woods, MATRIX Resources
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

Some of the greatest products come from great teams with exceptional leaders who know how to servant-lead, create influence (rather than exacting authority), and precisely when to get out of the way. Teams are asked to be self-empowered, change on the fly, and think for themselves. And then they’re inevitably told exactly how they have to do all of those things—or else. Poor leadership can make or break not only a great team but a great product and a great organization. As part of this highly interactive session, Robert Woods highlights leadership and facilitation skills such as focused observation, communication styles, conflict avoidance (as opposed to conflict resolution), influence over authority, and active listening. Robert explains that the impact we make on individuals is often much more about what we don't do rather than what we do. It’s called The Art of People―and it’s one we can all master.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Robert Woods.
BT6 Avoid Over Design and Under Design
Al Shalloway, Net Objectives
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

The question of how much design to do up-front on a project is an engaging conundrum. Too much design often results in excess complexity and wasted effort. Too little design results in a poor architecture or insufficient system structures which require expensive rework and hurt more in the long run. How can we know the right balance of upfront design work and emerging design approaches? Al Shalloway shows how to use design patterns—coupled with agile’s attitude of don’t build what you don’t need—to guide your design efforts. The trick is to identify potential design alternatives, analyze how each may affect the system in the future, and then find the simplest approach for isolating those potential effects. Al describes the essence of emergent design—start with a simple design and let it evolve as the requirements evolve—and demonstrates how to refactor to achieve better designs, which really is quite different from refactoring bad code.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Al Shalloway.
BT7 Privacy and Data Security: Minimizing Reputational and Legal Risks
Tatiana Melnik, Melnik Legal, PLCC
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

Privacy and data security are hot topics among United States federal and state regulators—as well as plaintiffs’ lawyers. Companies experiencing data breaches have been fined millions of dollars, paid out millions in settlements, and spent just as much on breach remediation efforts. In the past several years, data breaches have occurred in the hospitality, software, retail, and healthcare industries. Join Tatiana Melnik to see how stakeholders can minimize data breach risks, and privacy and security concerns by integrating the Privacy by Design model into the software development lifecycle. To understand how to minimize risks, stakeholders must understand the regulatory compliance scheme surrounding personally identifiable information; the Privacy by Design approach and the Federal Trade Commission’s involvement; and enforcement actions undertaken by federal agencies, State Attorneys General, and class action suits filed by plaintiffs.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Tatiana Melnik.
BT8 The Value of A/B Testing
Alan Page, Microsoft
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 11:30am - 12:30pm

Recently, a wide range of new testing ideas has emerged that makes testing online systems easier and faster. One idea goes beyond functional testing to a more basic question: Does the system convert shoppers into buyers? Since that is a key function of commercial websites, it is important for an organization to understand its website’s effectiveness. One way to do this is to create two different variations of the site—the A and B versions—and then assess the more-effective variation. The A/B tester plays a key role in the entire effort. His role is to gather A/B test requirements; prioritize, develop, and execute the tests; and partner with the analytics team to report the findings. Venkat Atigadda explains the types of tests involved, advantages, best practices, and key guidelines for performing A/B testing. This approach can be generalized to test for signing up for additional services, viewing the site longer, and visiting additional parts of the site.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Alan Page.
BT9 Enough about Process, Let’s Use Patterns
Paul E. McMahon, PEM Systems
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

When new developers and testers join the company, we want them to learn the “way we do software here.” So we give them the “stone tablets”―the volumes of process documentation― to study. However, the problem is that the details in this documentation are primarily for beginners and don’t give practitioners what they need to perform at a high level. Paul McMahon has found a better way to achieve and sustain high performance—by focusing on common patterns that repeat in organizations to help practitioners make better decisions. Join Paul as he shares common software development patterns he has observed, questions practitioners should be asking, and tips and warnings to help them make better decisions. Take away practical and easy-to-use techniques to identify and communicate repeating patterns specific to your organization, patterns that can help less experienced practitioners learn faster and consistently perform at a higher level.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Paul E. McMahon.
BT10 Making Numbers Count: Metrics That Matter
Mike Trites, PQA Testing
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

As testers and test managers, we are frequently asked to report to stakeholders on the progress and results of our testing. Questions like How is testing going? may seem simple enough, but the answer is ultimately based on our ability to extract useful metrics from our work and present them in a meaningful way. This is particularly important in agile environments where clear, concise, and up-to-date metrics may be needed multiple times each day. Mike Trites identifies a number of ways we can use metrics to measure progress during a test cycle and, ultimately, to determine when testing should be considered complete. Learn the common pitfalls of metrics misuse and how you can avoid them by giving proper context when communicating metrics to your stakeholders. Discover key metrics for measuring the effectiveness of your testing and how to use what you learn on one project to improve your testing process on future projects.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Mike Trites.
BT11 The Coming Mobile Wearables World
Philip Lew, XBOSoft
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

From floppy discs to solid state drives and batch computing to mobile apps and wearable devices, we have witnessed lightning-fast advances in hardware and systems in a less than a generation. Today, mobile has become a hub in our lives and wearable is on track to invade every part of our being. Sensors in new wearable devices produce data faster than ever before, and we can now access all this data, stored in the cloud. New systems and applications are leveraging these many data sets in deeper, broader, and more meaningful ways to not only analyze but also predict what we want and will do next. Phil Lew explains how mobile devices will become the data aggregator for wearable applications and explores context—the most important element of mobile/wearable user and customer experience. Phil discusses how to incorporate context into your mobile app design and development. Learn the contextual elements you need to incorporate right now and identify key factors for future generation products.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Philip Lew.
BT12 Prevent Test Automation Shelfware: A Selenium-WebDriver Case Study
Alan Ark, Eid Passport
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 1:30pm - 2:30pm

Eid Passport had a suite of Selenium tests with a bad reputation—difficult to maintain, broken all the time, and just plain unreliable. A tester would spend more than four days to get through one execution and validation pass of these automated tests. Eid Passport was ready to toss these tests into the trash. Alan Ark volunteered to take a look at the tests with an eye toward showing that Selenium-based tests can, in fact, be reliable and used in the regression test effort. Alan shares techniques he used to transform a sick, test automation codebase into a reliable workhorse. These techniques include AJAX-proofing, use of the Page Object model, and pop-up handling. The test process that used to take more than four days to turnaround now finishes in under two hours. And this is just the beginning.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Alan Ark.
BT13 Decision Making under Extreme Pressure: Project Management Lessons Learned from Pilots in Crisis
Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:00pm - 4:00pm

Controlled Flight into Terrain is a marvelous book containing case studies of poor decisions made by pilots under extreme pressure. A CFIT is an accident in which an otherwise serviceable aircraft, under the control of the crew, is flown—unintentionally— into terrain, obstacles, or water with no prior awareness on the part of the crew of the impending collision. Using three CFIT case studies, Lee Copeland examines what mistakes the crew made, why their decisions seemed appropriate at the time, and the forces operating on the decision-making process. Then Lee takes those discoveries and applies them to our world of software development. Some learnings include consider entering a holding pattern, have a Plan B ready, beware of the loss of situational awareness, trust your co-workers but not too much, be aware of time dilation, and other key ideas.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Lee Copeland.
BT14 Continuous Improvement through Project Data Analysis
Brandon Carlson, Lean TECHniques, Inc.
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:00pm - 4:00pm

You've probably heard that You can't improve what you can't measure, and over the years teams have used various techniques to make the invisible visible. From value stream mapping to burndown charts, making things visible is a core component of the continuous improvement process. Brandon Carlson says that even with all this visibility, much of the data surrounding how your teams work is either not captured or not visible, and thus represents a great opportunity for improvement. Imagine your management team tells you that your velocity is too low. Why is it too low, and what can you do about it? Brandon shares one team’s surprising answer to that question when they analyzed previously invisible data. How do you know what the highest risk areas of the system are for enabling the most cost effective regression test strategy? You'll get that answer, too. It's all there, tucked away where no one can see.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Brandon Carlson.
BT15 A Wearables Story: Testing the Human Experience
Gerie Owen, Eversource Energy
Peter Varhol, Technology Strategy Research
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:00pm - 4:00pm

Testing wearable devices is fundamentally more complex than any other mobile device. Wearables become extensions of us, so testing should focus on the total user experience—the emotional, physical, and sensory reactions including the biases and mindset of the wearer. It involves testing in the real world of the wearer―when, where, and how the wearer and the device will function together. Using concepts from human-computer interaction design, Gerie Owen and Peter Varhol provide a framework for testing the “human experience” of wearables. Learn to develop personas by delving into the wearers’ personalities and characteristics to understand their expectations of the wearable. Then learn to create user value stories to test the ways in which the wearers will derive value from the wearable. Finally, learn the importance of human-experience testing as Gerie shares her personal story—a tale of two wearables and her 2011 Boston Marathon run.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Gerie Owen and Peter Varhol.
BT16 Strategies for Testing Mobile Applications
Thursday, June 11, 2015 - 3:00pm - 4:00pm

Mobile testing is still a widely unexplored territory—with no standardized tools or testing processes—where testers often struggle due to lack of guidance and resources. With mobile devices, tools, operating systems, and web technologies rapidly evolving, testers must adapt their thinking in this quickly changing domain. Raj Subramanian is a tester who went through this experience, trying out different testing approaches including paired exploratory testing, blink tests, and tools to get quick feedback on the mobile applications. Raj provides a basic foundation for mobile testing by explaining the mobile ecosystem and device selection strategies. He shares his experiences in testing mobile applications used by millions of people worldwide. He discusses the lessons learned from testing both mobile web and native applications. Finally, Raj shares his vision for the future of mobile testing.

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1.00 PMI® PDU
Learn more about Raj Subramanian.