STAREAST 2017 - Tutorials

When we discover—often late in an automation effort—that the automated tests are cumbersome and costly to maintain, we often view this as a technical problem for the automator to solve. However, an often-overlooked cause is the role that testers who designed these tests play in making automation scalable and maintainable. In this interactive tutorial for both testers and automation engineers, Hans Buwalda explores how better test designs will result in much improved test automation and can make the difference between automation success and failure. See why successful automated...

We’ve all been there. We work incredibly hard to develop a feature and design tests based on written requirements. We build a detailed test plan that aligns the tests with the software and the documented business needs. And when we put the tests to the software, it all falls apart because the requirements were changed without informing everyone. But Mary Thorn says help is at hand. Enter behavior-driven development (BDD) and Cucumber and SpecFlow, two tools for running automated acceptance tests and facilitating BDD. Mary explores the nuances of Cucumber and SpecFlow, and shows you how to...

Let’s build a mobile app quality and testing strategy together. Whether you have a web, hybrid, or native app, building a quality and testing strategy means (1) knowing what data and tools you have available to make agile decisions, (2) understanding your customers and your competitors, and (3) testing your app under real-world conditions. Jason Arbon guides you through the latest techniques, data, and tools to ensure your mobile app quality and testing strategy is awesome. Leave this interactive session with a strategy for your very own app—or one you pretend to own. The information Jason...

Test automation has become a must, especially in agile and DevOps projects with their goals of continuous integration and fast deployment. We know that test automation is a deciding factor in achieving competitive strength, as it contributes to faster time-to-market and higher quality-to-market in software delivery. Even though powerful automation technologies like Selenium are available, they alone do not give you scalability in testing big and complex systems with their many components, workflows, and configurations. To help you learn how to achieve scalability in automated...

As test managers and test professionals, we're constantly dealing with fragile egos, highly-charged situations, and pressured people playing a high-stakes game under conditions of massive uncertainty. We're often the bearers of bad news and are sometimes perceived as critics, activating people's primal fear of being judged. The concept of emotional intelligence (EI), popularized by Harvard psychologist and science writer Daniel Goleman, has much to offer test managers and testers. Key EI skills include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. Julie...

Note: We will be working online with the wiki during this tutorial, so please bring a laptop, tablet, or similar web-enabled device.

Many organizations find that test automation does not work as well as they thought it would. In many cases, these failures are due to generic technical reasons, which can be fixed relatively easily. Solutions that have worked well for others are patterns; these test automation patterns are common to automation efforts at any level with whatever tools you are using. Dot Graham focuses on often-neglected technical issues—i.e., non-management issues—and...

With Git and GitHub, testers today have unprecedented visibility into both development and DevOps code. GitHub provides powerful online collaboration, code review, code management, and version control services. GitHub's domination of social coding makes it the new business card for professionals indicating their creativity, popularity, capability, and tenacity. Today’s testers need to learn about and use Git and GitHub. In this hands-on tutorial Wilson Mar presents material available nowhere else and a unique explanation of tools, repositories, and GUI programs used by pro developers who...

Communication is at the heart of our profession. If we can’t convey our concerns in ways that connect with key members of the project team, our contribution is likely to be ignored—no matter how advanced our testing capabilities are. Because we act in an advisory capacity rather than being in command, our power to exert influence is almost entirely based on our communication skills. Join Julie Gardiner as she draws on techniques from psychology and marketing to help you get your message across. With people suffering information overload and deluged with emails, it is more important than...

Let’s face it—agile testing is different. Challenges exist in successfully integrating within the teams themselves. Scrummerfall continues to run rampant. The dichotomy of testing v. quality and balancing both the team’s and your focus still exists. Delivering value is both an imperative and a challenge. In this dynamic workshop, join agile coaches Mary Thorn and Bob Galen to explore the tools, techniques, and mindset you need to bring to the table to successfully test in agile contexts. Mary and Bob examine risk-based testing, iterative test planning, exploratory testing, agile...

Today’s software applications are often security critical, making security testing essential in a software quality program. Unfortunately, most testers have not been taught how to effectively test the security of the software applications they validate. Join Jeffery Payne as he shares what you need to know to integrate effective security testing into your everyday software testing activities. Learn how software vulnerabilities are introduced into code and exploited by hackers. Discover how to define and validate security requirements. Explore effective test techniques for assuring that...

Today, many agile organizations are making a terrible error. They are assuming there is no place for test management and leadership in agile, self-directed team contexts. We beg to differ with this view and believe a strong need exists for testing leadership in agile organizations—just not the way we’ve typically approached it. Join Mary Thorn and Bob Galen as they explore what excellent test team leadership looks like in agile contexts. Explore the aspects of self-directed teams and the implications to your previous leadership styles. Look under the covers of Scrum and see where you...

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/...

Testers often participate in requirement reviews, review requirements for testability, and then use requirements—in the form of user stories—as the basis of test cases. In an agile environment, most testers contribute to the development of user stories and acceptance criteria. Erik van Veenendaal says that unfortunately many testers have little knowledge or skill in requirements engineering. What level of quality and detail is realistic to expect for requirements and user stories? What does testability really mean? How can testers help improve requirements? Erik illustrates...