STARCANADA 2017 - Test Transformation

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 Mike Sowers as he addresses common metrics—measures of product quality,...

In many organizations, agile development processes are driving the pursuit of faster software releases, which has spawned a set of new practices called DevOps. DevOps stresses communications and integration between development and operations, including rapid deployment, continuous integration, and continuous delivery. Because DevOps practices require confidence that changes made to the code base will function as expected, automated testing is essential. Join Jeffery Payne as he discusses the unique challenges associated with integrating automated testing into continuous integration/...

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)....

Testing is on the schedule. Your title is Tester. It is time to test. The team is waiting for you. Everybody thinks you spend your time testing. So, why does it seem that you spend so little time actually testing? Michael Bolton will show you a training and research tool to visually animate the progress of testing has been developed. Through the use of testopsies and session-based test management data, patterns have been collected on how context-driven testers use their time—from the micro to the macro level. Among the findings are that a good tester can spend a whole week in earnest work...

Do you ever sit in test strategy or test plan review sessions and get little or no participation from others? Are you looking for a better way to communicate important information around the test plan or strategy? Do you want your stakeholders to understand and engage in providing feedback and suggestions? Jennifer Bonine has a solution for you—a mind mapping tool that can help you address these questions. A mind map is a visual approach used to help organize information rather than a text outline or list. Jennifer helps you download a free mind mapping tool, trains you how to use the tool...

Communication in agile teams is supposed to be seamless and much better than the “old days”. Whether you are in an independent testing team and need to communicate more formally, or communicating face-to-face in an agile context, how can you be effective when you are sometimes telling people what they don’t want to hear? What do testers do? They are critics, often of other people’s work; they need to communicate their findings successfully with confidence. In this talk, Dorothy Graham looks at what criticism is, its different types and “DASR”, an effective script for giving criticism (...

The definition of a realist is someone who makes decisions based on past data. The definition of genius is someone who creates the future. In a world of data analytics and visualizations, the world (at least in my world of Business Intelligence) seems obsessed with measuring three things: what happened, what is happening and trying to predict what could happen next. What if instead we asked the question, "What do we want to have happen here and in doing that created our desired future?" Through the creative practices of journaling, art, movement and stillness, we can open a door to...