Large-scale and complex testing projects can stress the testing and automation practices we have learned through the years, resulting in less than optimal outcomes. However, a number of innovative ideas and concepts are emerging to better support industrial-strength testing for big projects. Hans Buwalda shares his experiences and presents strategies for organizing and managing testing on large projects. Learn how to design tests specifically for automation, including how to incorporate keyword testing and other techniques. Learn what roles virtualization and the cloud can play—and the potential pitfalls of such options. Take away tips and tricks to make automation more stable, and to deal with the numerous versions and configurations common in large projects. Hans describes the main challenges with global teams including time zones and cultural differences, and offers seven common problem "patterns" in globalization and what you can do to address them.
Hans Buwalda
Hans Buwalda has been working with information technology since his high school years. In his career, Hans has gained experience as a developer, manager, and principal consultant for companies and organizations worldwide. He was a pioneer of the keyword approach to testing and automation, now widely used throughout the industry. His approaches to testing, like Action Based Testing and Soap Opera Testing, have helped a variety of customers achieve scalable and maintainable solutions for large and complex testing challenges. Hans is a frequent speaker at STAR conferences and is lead author of Integrated Test Design and Automation.
When you're responsible for testing, it's almost a given that you will find yourself in a situation in which you feel alone and out in the cold. Management’s commitment for testing might be lacking, your colleagues in the project might be ignoring you, your team members might lack motivation, or the automated testing you had planned is more complicated and difficult than you anticipated. You feel you can't test enough, and you will be blamed for post-release quality problems. Hans Buwalda shares a number of chilly situations and offers suggestions for overcoming them, based on his experiences worldwide in large projects. Specifically, Hans focuses on management commitment, politics, project dependencies, managing expectations, motivating team members, testing and automation difficulties, and dealing with overwhelming numbers of day-to-day problems. Take away more than forty-five tips and approaches to use when temperatures drop on you.