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Software Testing

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.

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MD Specification by Example: Mastering Agile Testing
Nate Oster, CodeSquads, LLC
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 8:30am

On agile teams, testers can struggle to keep up with the pace of development if they continue employing a waterfall verification process―finding bugs after development. Nate Oster challenges you to question waterfall assumptions and replace a “test last” mentality with “specification by example.” Practice “test first” by writing executable specifications for a new feature before development begins. Learn to switch from tests as verification to tests as specification and guide development with concrete examples written in the language of your business. Start by joining a team for a humorous simulation of real-world issues and experience. Learn how specification by example helps build quality in instead of trying to test defects out. Progress to increasingly more realistic scenarios and practice the art of specifying intent with table-based and given-when-then formats. These paper-based simulations give you meaningful practice specifying concrete examples and will change the way you think about writing tests and collaborating as a team. This is not a tools session—no laptops required.

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MG Measurement and Metrics for Test Managers
Rick Craig, Software Quality Engineering
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 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 are complicated because many developers and testers are concerned that the metrics will be used against them. Join Rick Craig as he addresses common metrics—measures of product quality, defect removal efficiency, defect density, defect arrival rate, and testing status. Learn the guidelines for developing a test measurement program, rules of thumb for collecting data, and ways to avoid “metrics dysfunction.” Rick identifies several metrics paradigms and discusses the pros and cons of each.

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MJ Continuous Testing to Drive Continuous Integration and Deployment NEW
Cory Foy, Cory Foy, LLC
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 1:00pm

Continuous integration and continuous testing are two vital agile feedback loops that lead to a continuous deployment environment. Continuous integration processes monitor source code―recompiling after every change, running smaller tests, and notifying the developer if anything goes wrong. Continuous testing (and potentially continuous deployment) monitors integration builds, installs the product in a staging environment, and runs integration tests, again looking for problems. Jared Richardson explains the ideas and then the tools needed to implement both continuous integration and continuous deployment. Jared demonstrates the open source continuous integration tool Jenkins as the center of the process. These powerful concepts ensure issues are detected within minutes of most code changes, and the developer is notified so he can fix the problem and learn from the experience. Even a partial adoption changes the cadence of a development organization and eliminates a great deal of ongoing code maintenance. Learn how to sell the idea and set up the process in your own organization.

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One of the latest facets of the mobile paradigm is mobile wearables―a new generation of personalized technology that knows us better than our closest friends do. How many of your friends know how far you walked or what you ate today? Although you may think mobile wearables are just for geeks, they will become commonplace very quickly. Our challenge is to develop applications that can synthesize context from the gigantic amount of data these devices and their sensors generate. Ensuring the privacy and security of device usage and its data will be of highest concern. Philip Lew systematically analyzes context―the most important element in future design and development of mobile applications while incorporating big data, privacy, and security. Using examples, Philip shows the contextual elements you need to consider now and discusses how to identify key factors for a future generation of wearable products based on discovering anticipatory services.

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MM Test Attacks to Break Mobile and Embedded Software NEW
Jon Hagar, Grand Software Testing
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 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 and embedded software systems. First, Jon defines the environments of mobile 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 attacks against mobile and embedded software based on common modes of failure that teams can direct against their software. Like different kinds of 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—and why the attack works to find bugs. In addition to learning these testing concepts, you can practice the attack patterns on devices containing mobile and/or embedded software―so bring your smart phones.

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TC Rapid Software Testing for Programmers NEW
James Bach, Satisfice, Inc.
Tue, 06/09/2015 - 8:30am

Perhaps you’re a programmer, trying to identify important problems in your code before they affect customers. Or a tester with skills in reading or writing code on a mission to find coding defects. James Bach presents Rapid Software Testing, a universal methodology for testing that consists of both a mindset and a skillset that can be applied whether or not you have a technical background. However, for people with coding skills, it has additional dimensions. Long before you can apply tools or write code to help solve problems, you must identify technical risk and consider the costs and benefits of various testing tactics. This is not a session about canned test tools and how to use them. It does not cover the mechanics of any specific tool or simple technique. Instead, we use practical exercises and Socratic questioning to explore the deeper skills of investigating, framing, and solving real testing problems using the skills and perspective of a programmer.

LAPTOP REQUIRED. Delegates must bring Windows-based laptops to this tutorial.

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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.

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Concurrent Sessions

BW9 Innovation for Existing Software Product: An R&D Approach
Aaron Barrett, Infusionsoft
Wed, 06/10/2015 - 2:45pm

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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BT4 Improv(e) Your Testing: Tips and Tricks from Jester to Tester
Damian Synadinos, Independent Consultant
Thu, 06/11/2015 - 10:00am

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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BT8 The Value of A/B Testing
Alan Page, Microsoft
Thu, 06/11/2015 - 11:30am

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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BT9 Enough about Process, Let’s Use Patterns
Paul E. McMahon, PEM Systems
Thu, 06/11/2015 - 1:30pm

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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BT12 Prevent Test Automation Shelfware: A Selenium-WebDriver Case Study
Alan Ark, Eid Passport
Thu, 06/11/2015 - 1:30pm

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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Keynotes

K3 Lean UX: Turn User Experience Design Inside Out
Jeff Patton, Jeff Patton & Associates
Thu, 06/11/2015 - 8:30am

It’s usually the finer points of the user experience (UX) design that separate good-enough software from really-great software. For companies launching new products or adding new capabilities, how well they understand their users and their needs differentiates the wild successes from the dismal failures. This is user experience design, and doing it well in the past took experienced specialists and lots of time. But the world has changed. Jeff Patton describes how Lean UX turns product design into a team sport in which everyone participates. Learn how Lean UX thinking breaks what we thought were good design rules. In Lean UX design, it’s OK to guess. It's OK for developers to talk to users. It’s OK for bad artists to design user interfaces. And, it’s OK to demonstrate half-baked ideas. You’d think that if we break all these rules, good user experience couldn’t possibly result—but it does. Jeff shares examples of how all this rule breaking is supported by a culture of experimentation and learning—and that makes all the difference.

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