People and Teams | STAREast

Keynotes

K5 The Mismeasure of Software: The Last Talk on Measurement You’ll Ever Need to Hear

Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering

Thu, 05/02/2013 - 4:15pm

Lee Copeland maintains that most organizations have some kind of metrics program—and almost all are ineffective. After explaining the concept of measurement, Lee describes two key reasons for these almost universal metrics program failures. The first major mistake people make is forgetting that the model we are using for measurement is not necessarily reality. The second major blunder is treating ideas as if they were real things and then counting them.

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.

MH Implementing Crowdsourced Testing

Rajini Padmanaban, QA InfoTech

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

In today’s market, global outreach, quick time to release, and a feature rich design are the major factors that determine a product’s success. Organizations are constantly on the lookout for innovative testing techniques to match these driving forces. Crowdsourced testing is a paradigm increasing in popularity because it addresses these factors through its scale, flexibility, cost effectiveness, and fast turnaround.

Rob Sabourin, AmiBug.com

Dorothy Graham, Software Test Consultant

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

In our increasingly agile world, the new buzzword is collaboration—so easy to preach but difficult to do well. Testers are challenged to work directly, effectively, efficiently, and productively with customers, programmers, business analysts, writers, trainers, and pretty much everyone in the business value chain. Many points of collaboration exist: grooming stories with customers, sprint planning with team members, reviewing user interaction with customers, troubleshooting bugs with developers, whiteboarding with peers, and buddy checking.

Concurrent Sessions

T1 Building Successful Test Teams

Lloyd Roden, Lloyd Roden Consultancy

Thu, 05/02/2013 - 9:45am

“People are the most important asset of any organization.” Even though we hear that a lot, leaders and managers actually spend very little time focusing on the people side of testing. The skills and makeup of a test team are important and must be managed and cultivated properly. Individuals are very different and will react differently to various situations.