Agile Testing

Keynotes

Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.

Wed, 05/01/2013 - 8:30am

Agile software development has fundamentally changed the way software testing is performed. No longer is testing relegated to the end of the lifecycle where its budgets are cut and its conclusions ignored. Now we live in a world where testing drives development and, for better or worse, this world is here to stay. Jeff Payne discusses what impact a test-driven world has on the types of testing we perform and the impact this has on our careers.

Tutorials

MF Seven Keys to Navigating Your Agile Testing Transition

Bob Galen, RGalen Consulting

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 8:30am

So you’ve “gone agile” and have been relatively successful for a year or so. But how do you know how well you’re really doing? And how do you continuously improve your practices? And when things get rocky, how do you handle the challenges without reverting to old habits? You realize that the path to high-performance agile testing isn’t easy or quick. It also helps to have a guide. So consider this workshop your guide to ongoing, improved, and sustained high-performance.

MN Acceptance Test-driven Development: Mastering Agile Testing

Nate Oster, CodeSquads, LLC

Mon, 04/29/2013 - 1:00pm

On agile teams, testers often 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.

TJ The Mindset Change for the Agile Tester

Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.

Tue, 04/30/2013 - 8:30am

On traditional projects, testers usually join the project after coding has started, or even later when coding is almost finished. Testers have no role in advising the project team early regarding quality issues but focus only on finding defects. They become accustomed to this style of working and adjust their mental processes accordingly. In agile, testers must collaborate closely with customers and programmers throughout the development lifecycle, where their focus changes from finding defects to preventing them.

TP Distributed Agile Testing: Yes, You Can

Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.

Tue, 04/30/2013 - 1:00pm

When agile development first gained popularity, agile meant collocated teams, including testers, programmers, analysts, and customers who were expected to perform many functions. As agile methods have spread and expanded, many organizations with globally-distributed teams are facing challenges with their agile deployment. Having worked with many such teams, Janet Gregory has observed ways that testers in agile teams can be very productive while delivering a high-quality software product and working well with the rest of the team.

Concurrent Sessions

W4 Baking In Quality: The Evolving Role of the Agile Tester

Dena Laterza, Agile Velocity

Wed, 05/01/2013 - 11:30am

While more and more organizations are practicing agile development methodologies, many have not learned how to “bake in quality” throughout the process. As an agile tester, you are an integral part of the development team—working on requirements, design, implementation, writing automated tests, and testing However, are all team members working together as they should to ensure quality from day one through final delivery? Dena Laterza offers proven tips to help you and your team make the cultural shift to adopt and foster a “quality first” team standard.

W6 Yin and Yang: Metrics within Agile and Traditional Lifecycles

Shaun Bradshaw, Zenergy Technologies, Inc.

Bob Galen, RGalen Consulting

Wed, 05/01/2013 - 11:30am

Metrics are powerful tools when used to effect positive change in a project or organization. However, the value and benefits of metrics are often dependent on the context. While certain metrics provide information and insight to drive decision making for a traditional development approach, they may not be useful in an agile landscape—and vice versa. QA and agile experts Shaun Bradshaw and Bob Galen delve into the value, pitfalls, pros, and cons of various metrics in agile and waterfall development environments.

W10 Exploratory Testing on Agile Projects: Combining SBTM and TBTM

Christin Wiedemann, Professional Quality Assurance, Ltd.

Wed, 05/01/2013 - 1:45pm

Exploratory testing provides both flexibility and speed—characteristics that are vitally important with the quick pace of short agile iterations. With session-based test management (SBTM), exploratory testing is structured and documented in pre-defined sessions. A newer approach, thread-based test management (TBTM), organizes test efforts by threads of activities rather than sessions. So, how do you retain the traceability of SBTM without losing the creativity offered by TBTM? The answer is xBTM—a combination of SBTM and TBTM.

W13 Increase Your Team’s Efficiency with Kanban

Derk-Jan de Grood, Valori

Wed, 05/01/2013 - 3:00pm

Test teams must perform a wide variety of tasks from testing new functions and performing regression tests to helping with bug fixes, producing test reports, and working on test improvements. With all these activities, it is a challenge to keep priorities straight, operate most efficiently, and clearly show stakeholders all that the team is working on. Derk-Jan de Grood shares his experiences with Kanban, a proven method for managing workflow, as a visual tool to help teams allocate resources, reduce waste, and make progress visible to all stakeholders.

W16 Automation Culture: Essential to Agile Success

Geoff Meyer, Dell, Inc.

Wed, 05/01/2013 - 3:00pm

For organizations developing large-scale applications, transitioning to agile is challenging enough. If your organization has not yet adopted an automation culture, brace yourself for a big surprise because automation is essential to agile success.