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TB SOLD OUT! Critical Thinking for Software Testers
Michael Bolton, DevelopSense
Tue, 04/09/2013 - 8:30am

Critical thinking is the kind of thinking that specifically looks for problems and mistakes. Regular people don't do a lot of it. However, if you want to be a great tester, you need to be a great critical thinker, too. Critically thinking testers save projects from dangerous assumptions and ultimately from disasters. The good news is that critical thinking is not just innate intelligence or a talent—it's a learnable and improvable skill you can master.

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TC Managing Successful Test Automation
Dorothy Graham, Software Test Consultant
Tue, 04/09/2013 - 8:30am

Many organizations never achieve the significant benefits that are promised from automated test execution. What are the secrets to test automation success? There are no secrets, but the paths to success are not commonly understood. Dorothy Graham describes the most important automation issues that you must address, both management and technical, and helps you understand and choose the best approaches for your organization—no matter which automation tools you use.

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TD Planning Your Agile Testing: A Practical Guide
Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.
Tue, 04/09/2013 - 8:30am

Traditional test plans are incompatible with agile software development because we don't know all the details about all the requirements up front. However, in an agile software release, you still must decide what types of testing activities will be required—and when you need to schedule them. Janet Gregory explains how to use the Agile Testing Quadrants, a model identifying the different purposes of testing, to help your team understand your testing needs as you plan the next release.

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TE Essential Test Management
Rick Craig, Software Quality Engineering
Tue, 04/09/2013 - 8:30am

The key to successful testing is effective and timely planning. Rick Craig introduces proven test planning methods and techniques, including the Master Test Plan and level-specific test plans for acceptance, system, integration, and unit testing. Rick explains how to customize an IEEE-829-style test plan and test summary report to fit your organization’s needs. Learn how to manage test activities, estimate test efforts, and achieve buy-in. Discover a practical risk analysis technique to prioritize your testing and become more effective with limited resources.

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TG SOLD OUT! Testing Metrics: Project, Product, Process
Rex Black, RBCS, Inc.
Tue, 04/09/2013 - 1:00pm

One of the most challenging problems that test managers face involves implementing effective, meaningful, and insightful test metrics. Data and measures are the foundation of true understanding, but the misuse of metrics causes confusion, bad decisions, and demotivation. Rex Black shares how to avoid these unfortunate situations by using metrics properly as part of your test management process. How can we measure our progress in testing a project? What can metrics tell us about the quality of the product? How can we measure the quality of the test process itself?

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TH Exploratory Testing Is Now in Session
Jon Bach, eBay, Inc.
Tue, 04/09/2013 - 1:00pm

The nature of exploration, coupled with the ability of testers to rapidly apply their skills and experience, make exploratory testing a widely used test approach—especially when time is short. Unfortunately, exploratory testing often is dismissed by project managers who assume that it is not reproducible, measurable, or accountable. If you have these concerns, you may find a solution in a technique called session-based test management (SBTM), developed by Jon Bach and his brother James to specifically address these issues.

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TI SOLD OUT! Acceptance Test-driven Development: Mastering Agile Testing
Nate Oster, CodeSquads, LLC
Tue, 04/09/2013 - 1:00pm

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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Concurrent Sessions

W5 Creating Dissonance: Overcoming Organizational Bias toward Software Testing
Keith Klain, Barclays Capital
Wed, 04/10/2013 - 12:45pm

Overcoming organizational bias toward software testing can be a key factor in the success of your testing effort. Negative bias toward testing can impact its perceived value—just as inaccurate positive bias can set your team up for failure through mismanaged expectations. A structured approach to identifying, understanding, and overcoming bias is an integral part of any successful enterprise testing strategy.

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W6 Concurrent Testing Games: Developers and Testers Working Together
Nate Oster, CodeSquads, LLC
Wed, 04/10/2013 - 12:45pm

The best software development teams find ways for programmers and testers to work closely together. These teams recognize that programmers and testers each bring their own unique strengths and perspectives to the project. However, working in agile teams requires us to unlearn many of the patterns that traditional development taught us.

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W8 Build Your Own Performance Test Lab in the Cloud
Leslie Segal, Testware Associates, Inc.
Wed, 04/10/2013 - 12:45pm

Many cloud-based performance and load testing tools claim to offer “cost-effective, flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing.” However, the reality is often neither cost-effective nor flexible. With many vendors, you will be charged whether or not you use the time (not cost effective), and you must pre-schedule test time (not always when you want and not always flexible). In addition, many roadblocks are thrown up—from locked-down environments that make it impossible to load test anything other than straight-forward applications, to firewall, security, and IP spoofing issues.

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W9 Collaboration without Chaos
Griffin Jones, Congruent Compliance
Wed, 04/10/2013 - 2:00pm

Sometimes software testers overvalue the adherence to the collective wisdom embodied in organizational processes and the mechanical execution of tasks. Overly directive procedures work—to a point—projecting an impression of firm, clear control. But do they generate test results that are valuable to our stakeholders? Is there a way to orchestrate everyone’s creative contributions without inviting disorganized confusion? Is there a model that leverages the knowledge and creativity of the people doing the work, yet exerts reliable control in a non-directive way?

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T5 Snappy Visualizations for Test Communications
Thomas Vaniotis, Liquidnet
Thu, 04/11/2013 - 12:45pm

Do you struggle to find the best way to explain your testing status and coverage to your stakeholders? Do numbers and metrics make your stakeholders’ eyes glaze over, or, even worse, do you feel dirty giving metrics that you know are going to be abused? Do you have challenges explaining your strategy to fellow testers and developers? Visualizations are a great way to turn raw data into powerful communications. Thomas Vaniotis presents eleven powerful visual tools that can be created easily with simple materials around the office—sticky notes, graph paper, markers, and whiteboards.

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T6 Using Mindmaps to Develop a Test Strategy
Fiona Charles, Quality Intelligence
Thu, 04/11/2013 - 12:45pm

Your test strategy is the design behind your plan—the set of big-picture ideas that embodies the overarching direction of your test effort. It captures the stakeholders’ values that will inspire, influence, and ultimately drive your testing. It guides your overall decisions about the ways and means of delivering on those values. The weighty test strategy template mandated in many organizations is not conducive to thinking through the important elements of a test strategy and then communicating its essentials to your stakeholders.

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T9 Risk-based Testing: Not for the Fainthearted
George Wilkinson, Grove Consultants
Thu, 04/11/2013 - 2:00pm

If you’ve tried to make testing really count, you know that “risk” plays a fundamental part in deciding where to direct your testing efforts and how much testing is enough. Unfortunately, project managers often do not understand or fully appreciate the test team’s view of risk—until it is too late. Is it their problem or is it ours?

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T10 Quantifying the Value of Static Analysis
William Oliver, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Thu, 04/11/2013 - 2:00pm

During the past ten years, static analysis tools have become a vital part of software development for many organizations. However, the question arises, “Can we quantify the benefits of static analysis?” William Oliver presents the results of a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory study that first measured the cost of finding software defects using formal testing on a system without static analysis; then, they integrated a static analysis tool into the process and, over a period of time, recalculated the cost of finding software defects.

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T12 Driving Down Requirements Defects: A Tester’s Dream Come True
Richard Bender, BenderRBT
Thu, 04/11/2013 - 2:00pm

The software industry knows that the majority of software defects have their root cause in poor requirements. So how can testers help improve requirements? Richard Bender asserts that requirements quality significantly improves when testers systematically validate the requirements as they are developed. Applying scenario-driven reviews ensures that the requirements have the proper focus and scope. Ambiguity reviews quantitatively identify unclear areas of the specification leading to early defect detection and defect avoidance.

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T13 Changing the Testing Conversation from Cost to Value
Iain McCowatt, CGI
Thu, 04/11/2013 - 3:15pm

The software testing business is in the grip of a commoditization trend in which enterprises routinely flip flop between vendors—vendors who are engaged in a race to the bottom on price. This trend introduces perverse incentives for service providers, undervalues skill, and places excessive emphasis on processes, tools, and methods. The result is a dumbing down of testing and the creation of testing services that are little more than placebos.

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T16 Integrating Canadian Accessibility Requirements into Your Projects
Dan Shire, IBM Canada
David Best, IBM Canada
Thu, 04/11/2013 - 3:15pm

In 2014, most Canadian businesses will face significant challenges as government regulations go into effect, requiring websites to be accessible to users with disabilities. Are your project teams knowledgeable about the technical accessibility standards? Is your business ready to comply with the regulations? Dan Shire and David Best review the key principles of web accessibility (WCAG 2.0) and the government regulations (including Ontario’s AODA) that your organization must meet.

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