Tune in to the Virtual Conference and be a part of the action!
Join us on May 1-2, 2013, at the STAREAST Virtual Conference for live presentations and interviews straight to your desktop—including the latest testing solutions and networking opportunities. Watch keynote sessions and industry technical presentations streaming live from STAREAST in Orlando, Florida.
STAREAST Virtual is excited to announce that we are also bringing back live interviews with conference speakers! Don't forget to visit the virtual Expo and learn about the most recent solutions from top industry providers.
Attendance is complimentary—so reserve your seat now. Or, view the full program details below.
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. Contrary to many pundits who have been predicting the demise of software testers, Jeff paints a picture in which software testers with the right skill set—business acumen, understanding of security and privacy, and test scripting ability—are becoming the most influential individuals within the software development organization. Learn what is driving this trend and what you need to do to be successful in the test-driven world.
As testers and test managers we often find ourselves struggling just to survive within our organization—sometimes with the possibility of job loss due to outsourcing looming. Often, we are told to become more “effective,” “efficient,” and do “more with less.” However, most testers and test managers are unsure of what those mandates actually mean. Today, it is not sufficient to just survive; we must take initiatives to thrive. Lloyd Roden shares ten valuable lessons on how you can become better at testing and thrive in your career. Lloyd's lessons include the importance of using modern technology in testing, using test design techniques when reviewing documentation, testing the testers with techniques such as bug seeding, reporting project waste, providing management with feedback on decisions that they made, becoming a pioneer or explorer rather than a settler or outlaw in your organization, and more. Lloyd’s advice is practical—and challenging—for all testers, test leads, and test managers.
11:30 AM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–Microsoft
Seven Things a Tester Should Know
Theresa Lanowitz & Charles Sterling, Microsoft
Microsoft Visual Studio Test Professional is a comprehensive software testing solution targeted at software testing practitioners. In this session you will be introduced to the powerful tools and capabilities of the solution in addressing the demands of full lifecycle software testing workloads. Come discover the possibilities and walk away with a broad understanding of Microsoft’s commitment, priorities, and solutions in addressing the requirements and demands of software testing and software test professionals.
12:30 PM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–LogiGear
Augmenting Visual Studio Coded UI with Test Automation
John M. Kane, LogiGear
Microsoft Visual Studio provides an intuitive and easy-to-use Coded UI development environment to create UI tests for your largest enterprise-level applications. This session will show you how TestArchitect for Visual Studio can augment your Coded UI test development environment with keyword-driven Action-Based Testing to:
Eliminate fragile test cases that break when your application changes
Focus your test automation effort on test flows, instead of programming details
Increase team communication and collaboration through a common understanding of business-level test objectives
The take-away from the session will be a deep understanding of how Action-based Test Automation in Microsoft’s Continuous Integration environment can help you achieve test case maintainability, reusability and scalability for your most challenging test projects.
1:45 PM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–IBM
Achieving Quality in the Future of Software Delivery
Peter Klenk, IBM
Companies are under tremendous pressure to quickly deliver new innovative applications that exploit the unique capabilities of new channels, while building upon decades of IT investment. The meaning of quality and the expectations placed on testing are also evolving. This session will discuss:
Why this is the time to consider new approaches to test automation,
How service virtualization can reduce risk while increasing flexibility; and
How to transition to continuous delivery
3:00 PM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–Compuware
Finding the Real Value in Load Testing
Duane Dorch, Compuware
Organizations spend countless hours in load testing exercises with the intent of finding and fixing system bottlenecks to improve overall performance. But how much time is spent in the process of preparing and executing the test versus finding and fixing real issues.
Effective load testing requires both the process and tools to 1) impose a representative user load on the system and 2) track that load down to the root cause of the performance problems. This process works best when testers can efficiently communicate their findings to developers in a way that makes sense to the developers and eliminates the war rooms and finger pointing that often accompany the process.
Throughout the years, Lightning Talks have been a popular part of the STAR conferences. If you’re not familiar with the concept, Lightning Talks consists of a series of five-minute talks by different speakers within one presentation period. Lightning Talks are the opportunity for speakers to deliver their single biggest bang-for-the-buck idea in a rapid-fire presentation. And now, lightning has struck the STAR keynotes. Some of the best-known experts in testing—James Bach, Jon Bach, Michael Bolton, Jennifer Bonine, Hans Buwalda, Bob Galen, John Fodeh, Dawn Haynes, Geoff Horne, and Griffin Jones—will step up to the podium and give you their best shot of lightning. Get ten keynote presentations for the price of one—and have some fun at the same time.
Thomas McCoy, Australian Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs
As the testing discipline continues to evolve—and the demands on testers increase—we need to look for new paradigms to guide our work. Thomas McCoy believes the profession of journalism has much to offer in helping us ask the right kinds of questions, be heard, and deliver bad news effectively. In many ways, our profession has ideals similar to those of journalism: our first obligation should be to the truth, we must maintain independence (even when embedded in agile teams), and our mission includes the protection of society. While not all techniques (such as hacking into the voicemail accounts of developers) would be appropriate, established values like impact, proximity, and timeliness can help guide our communication and make it more succinct and effective. Join Thomas to learn about employing investigative techniques, developing sources, capturing an audience, and writing compelling stories, using proven methods from the world’s second-oldest profession.
9:45 AM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–HP
It’s Agile, Not Fragile—HP Best Practices for Application Development and Testing In the Mashup of Mobile, Cloud and Composite Applications
Kelly Emo, HP and Michael Cooper, HP
The time is now to rethink the way you and your teams build, test and deliver applications. In this session, we will share the insights, best practices and software innovation to address the challenge of rapid delivery of today’s user-centric applications. And, we will cover HP’s approach to Quality Assurance and testing -- leveraging automation, virtualization, collaboration and traceability--designed to speed application delivery timeframes for today’s mobile, social, constantly changing user base while maintaining dependable and remarkable quality.
11:15 AM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–Polarion
Five Pains of a Test Manager and How to Overcome Them Regg Struyk, Polarion
Nowadays testing software and hardware is indispensable for companies. Companies often use software tools to support their QA activities. These tools should support test managers and not constrain them, allowing them to organize their work in the best way for their organization. This presentation will give an overview on typical pains test managers experience during their daily work, and it will give possible solutions to minimize these pains to get a higher software and system quality.
1:30 PM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–Tata Consultancy Services
Emerging Wave of Digital Strategy and the Assurance Surfboard
Prasad Mk, Tata Consultancy Services
Social media, big data, cloud, analytics and mobility have driven an aggressive digital disruption across many industries. Tuned to these imperatives, organizations are planning to implement holistic digital strategies to stay competitive. To successfully embark on this transformation, it is imperative to have a pristine assurance (QA & testing) strategy.
Traditional assurance strategy doesn’t really suffice the need here. This session will unveil TCS’ Digital Assurance Framework covering the key tenets and best practices to successfully assure the digital strategy implementation across any enterprise.
3:00 PM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–Oracle
6 Essential Cloud Testing Features Mughees Minhas, Oracle
Quality assurance engineers spend more time preparing for testing than doing actual testing and test hardware and software infrastructure is typically underutilized. Research shows that a combination of SaaS and IaaS technology is best suited to decrease those peripheral activities. Join us to learn the 6 essential features of Cloud-based Self-Service Testing and how this can improve operational efficiencies for QA organizations.
These features are a great part of the presentation:
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. Lee describes the “Three Don'ts of Metrics”—Don’t measure it unless you know what it means; Don’t measure it if you’re not going to do something with the measurement; and no matter what else you do, Don’t turn your measurement into a goal. Through the years, Lee has discovered his favorite project indicator is not a measurement at all—and you’ll be surprised to learn what it is. Join Lee as he shares his Zeroth Law of Metrics to guide your program to success.
As testers and test managers we often find ourselves struggling just to survive within our organization—sometimes with the possibility of job loss due to outsourcing looming. Often, we are told to become more “effective,” “efficient,” and do “more with less.” However, most testers and test managers are unsure of what those mandates actually mean. Today, it is not sufficient to just survive; we must take initiatives to thrive. Lloyd Roden shares ten valuable lessons on how you can become better at testing and thrive in your career. Lloyd's lessons include the importance of using modern technology in testing, using test design techniques when reviewing documentation, testing the testers with techniques such as bug seeding, reporting project waste, providing management with feedback on decisions that they made, becoming a pioneer or explorer rather than a settler or outlaw in your organization, and more. Lloyd’s advice is practical—and challenging—for all testers, test leads, and test managers.
Augmenting Visual Studio Coded UI with Test Automation
Achieving Quality in the Future of Software Delivery
Finding the Real Value in Load Testing
Throughout the years, Lightning Talks have been a popular part of the STAR conferences. If you’re not familiar with the concept, Lightning Talks consists of a series of five-minute talks by different speakers within one presentation period. Lightning Talks are the opportunity for speakers to deliver their single biggest bang-for-the-buck idea in a rapid-fire presentation. And now, lightning has struck the STAR keynotes. Some of the best-known experts in testing—James Bach, Jon Bach, Michael Bolton, Jennifer Bonine, Hans Buwalda, Bob Galen, John Fodeh, Dawn Haynes, Geoff Horne, and Griffin Jones—will step up to the podium and give you their best shot of lightning. Get ten keynote presentations for the price of one—and have some fun at the same time.
As the testing discipline continues to evolve—and the demands on testers increase—we need to look for new paradigms to guide our work. Thomas McCoy believes the profession of journalism has much to offer in helping us ask the right kinds of questions, be heard, and deliver bad news effectively. In many ways, our profession has ideals similar to those of journalism: our first obligation should be to the truth, we must maintain independence (even when embedded in agile teams), and our mission includes the protection of society. While not all techniques (such as hacking into the voicemail accounts of developers) would be appropriate, established values like impact, proximity, and timeliness can help guide our communication and make it more succinct and effective. Join Thomas to learn about employing investigative techniques, developing sources, capturing an audience, and writing compelling stories, using proven methods from the world’s second-oldest profession.
It’s Agile, Not Fragile—HP Best Practices for Application Development and Testing In the Mashup of Mobile, Cloud and Composite Applications
3:00 PM ET • Industry Technical Presentation–Oracle
