Agile Testing

Tutorials

MH Take a Test Drive: Acceptance Test-Driven Development NEW

Jared Richardson, Agile Artisans

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 8:30am

The practice of agile software development requires a clear understanding of business needs. Misunderstanding requirements causes waste, slipped schedules, and mistrust within the organization. Jared Richardson shows how good acceptance tests can reduce misunderstanding of requirements. A testable requirement provides a single source that serves as the analysis document, acceptance criteria, regression test suite, and progress-tracker for any given feature. Jared explores the creation, evaluation, and use of testable requirements by the business and developers.

MI A Dozen Keys to Agile Testing Maturity

Bob Galen, Velocity Partners

Mary Thorn, ChannelAdvisor

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 8:30am

You’ve “gone agile” and have been relatively successful. So, how do you know how well your team is really doing? And how do you continuously improve your practices? 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. Join Bob Galen and Mary Thorn as they share lessons from their most successful agile testing transitions.

MK Being Creative: A Visual Testing Workshop SOLD OUT NEW

Andy Glover, Exco InTouch

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 1:00pm

The reality is that technology is complicated. As testers, we are challenged with complicated problems that need solving. Andy Glover presents a hands-on workshop that describes a new way of looking at testing problems and ideas. Andy demonstrates how thinking with pictures can help testers discover and develop new ideas, solve problems in unexpected ways, and dramatically improve their ability to share their insights with others.

TE Integrating Automated Testing into DevOps SOLD OUT NEW

Jeff Payne, Coveros, Inc.

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 8:30am

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 continuous integration, continuous delivery, and rapid deployments. Because DevOps practices require confidence that changes made to the code base will function as expected.

TJ Exploring Usability Testing for Mobile and Web Technologies SOLD OUT

Rob Sabourin, AmiBug.com

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 8:30am

It’s not enough to verify that software conforms to requirements by passing established acceptance tests. Successful software products engage, entertain, and support the users' experience. Goals vary from project to project, but no matter how robust and reliable your software is, if your users do not embrace it, business can slip from your hands. Rob Sabourin shares how to elicit effective usability requirements with techniques such as storyboarding and task analysis.

TR Test Automation Strategies for the Agile World SOLD OUT NEW

Bob Galen, Velocity Partners

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 1:00pm

With the adoption of agile practices in many organizations, the test automation landscape has changed. Bob Galen explores current disruptors to traditional automation strategies, and discusses relevant and current adjustments you need to make when developing your automation business case. Open source tools are becoming incredibly viable and beat their commercial equivalents in many ways―not only in cost, but also in functionality, creativity, evolutionary speed, and developer acceptance. Agile methods have fundamentally challenged our traditional automation strategies.

Keynotes

K2 Balancing the Crusty and Old with the Shiny and New

Bob Galen, Velocity Partners

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 10:00am

In his journeys, Bob Galen has discovered that testing takes on many forms. Some organizations have no automated tests and struggle to run massive manual regression tests within very short iterative releases. Other organizations are going “all in”―writing thousands of acceptance tests in Gherkin. The resulting imbalance in their testing approaches undermines an organization’s efficiency, effectiveness, and delivery nimbleness. Bob shares ideas to bring balance to testing. He explores the choices: manual vs. automated testing, designed and scripted test cases vs.

K3 Lightning Strikes the Keynotes

Lee Copeland, Software Quality Engineering

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 4:30pm

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.

K5 Softwarts: Security Testing for Muggles

Paco Hope, Cigital

Thu, 10/16/2014 - 4:15pm

Security testing is often shrouded in jargon and mystique. Security conjurers perform arcane rites using supposed “black hat” techniques and would have us believe that we cannot do the same. The fact is that security testing “magic” is little more than specialized application of exploratory test techniques we already understand. In this Defense against the Black Hats, Paco Hope dispels the myth that security testing is a magical art. By deconstructing security activities into techniques we already know well, we expand our testing.

Concurrent Sessions

W1 Building Quality In: Adopting the Tester’s Mindset

Stephen Vance, Stellar Advances

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 11:30am

When trying to improve the development process, agile and lean transformations often start by focusing on engineering. Product management and development get a lot of attention; however, tester is not one of the defined Scrum roles. Despite the attention given to automated tests in agile, many transformations seem lost in knowing how to engage testers—and testers struggle to find their place.

W4 A Tester’s Guide to Collaborating with Product Owners

Bob Galen, Velocity Partners

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 11:30am

The role of the Product Owner in Scrum is only vaguely defined—owning the Product Backlog and representing the “customer.” In many organizations, Product Owners go it alone, trying their best to represent business needs to their teams.

W10 Agile Development and Testing in a Regulated Environment

John Pasko, Karl Storz Imaging

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 1:45pm

One of the Agile Principles states that working software is the primary measurement of success―generally measured by the level of customer satisfaction. So, how do you measure “customer satisfaction” when it is based on successful surgical outcomes? Join John Pasko as he takes you through a case study of the design, development, testing, and release of a complex system—integrating embedded software with hardware—for a surgical product which met stringent FDA standards and regulations.

W12 Test Improvement in Our Rapidly Changing World

Martin Pol, Polteq Testing Services BV

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 1:45pm

In organizations adopting the newest development approaches, classical test process improvement models no longer fit. A more flexible approach is required today. Solutions like SOA, virtualization, web technology, cloud computing, mobile, and the application of social media have changed the IT landscape. In addition, we are innovating the way we develop, test, and manage. Many organizations are moving toward a combination of agile/Scrum, context-driven testing, continuous integration and delivery, DevOps, and TestOps. Effective test automation has become a prerequisite for success.

W13 The Test Manager’s Role in Agile: Balancing the Old and the New

Mary Thorn, ChannelAdvisor

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 3:00pm

What do test managers do? In traditional organizations, they assign people to projects, oversee the testers’ progress, provide feedback, and perhaps offer coaching to people who want it. Test managers are the go-to people when you don't know how to do something—not because they know, but because they know who does know. How does that change with a transition to agile? Do we still need test managers? As one who has successfully made the transition from traditional to agile test manager, Mary Thorn shares keys to the transition.

W16 Your Team’s Not Agile If You’re Not Doing Agile Testing

Jeanne Schmidt, Rural Sourcing, Inc.

Wed, 10/15/2014 - 3:00pm

Many organizations adopt agile software development processes, yet they do not adopt agile testing processes. Then they fall into the trap of having development sprints that are just a set of mini-waterfall cycles. Some software developers still feel they can work more quickly if they let QA test after code is completed. Jeanne Schmidt identifies simple ways to get your team to adopt agile testing methods. Embracing agile testing requires you to change processes, responsibilities, and team organization.