Project Manager

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.

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.

As organizations continue to adopt agile methodologies, testers are getting involved earlier in product testing. They need tools that empower them to manage varied test automation needs for web services, web APIs, and web and mobile applications. Open source solutions are available in abundance. However, most of these solutions are independent and not integrated, significantly increasing the tester’s work around test automation development. Ongoing test automation suite evolution and building a robust regression test suite have become cumbersome.

Outsourcing test services are all the rage today. But are they really faster, better, and cheaper? Shelley Rueger shares how you can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your test process using a third-party test service. She provides guidance on how to determine if your product is a good candidate for testing services, how to select the right vendor, and how to avoid common pitfalls. Shelley discusses her team's experience as they made the transition from in-house testing to using external testing services. She addresses questions including: When should you outsource testing?

To aid development in the mobile and smartphone app world, testers must do more than simply test against requirements; they should include attack-based testing to find common errors. In the tradition of James Whittaker’s How to Break Software books, Jon Hagar applies the testing “attack” concept to mobile app software, defines the domain of mobile app software, and examines common industry patterns of product failures. Jon then shares a set of ten software test attacks, based on the most common modes of failure in native, web-based, and hybrid apps.

Are you employing your offshore test team to its best advantage—gaining the cost savings and test coverage you expected? Unless correct management methodologies are in place, you will lose rather than gain both time and money with internationally-distributed testers. If you are thinking you can go offshore with minimal effort, think again. Distributed test leadership and management issues apply when working with third-party firms, a subsidiary, or even your own employees. Don’t let unrealistic expectations impact your career or your company’s goals.

Today, an alarming 65 percent of mobile apps—more than 1.3 million—have a 1-star rating or less. Why? The majority of development organizations have neither the right processes nor access to the devices required to properly test mobile applications. If not addressed, these deficiencies will have a major impact on the quality of the apps the organization develops. In addition, users are intolerant of problems and quick to switch to competing apps. Costa Avradopoulos explores how to address the unique challenges of mobile testing, starting with adopting the right test strategy.

Imagine you’re a test manager starting a new assignment. On the first day of work, you’re presented with a list of metrics you are to report. Soon, you realize that most of the metrics are not really connected to what should be measured. Or, consider the situation where you’re told that there is no value collecting metrics because “we’re agile.” In either situation, what would be your next step be? Join Pablo Garcia as he shares his experience with the dangers of poor metrics.

The software development lifecycle is a pretty complex process in many organizations. However, by using monitoring tools and methodologies, you can accelerate testing and release higher quality code―the cornerstone of rapid software delivery. These tools provide immediate feedback with actionable information so you can address problems as they are detected instead of waiting until the end of a testing cycle. Earlier detection, combined with tests that are a better representation of production workloads, are key to releasing better code, faster.

Performance testing requires knowledge of systems architecture, techniques to simulate the load equivalent of sometimes millions of transactions per day, and tools to monitor/report runtime statistics. With the evolution from desktop to web and now the cloud, performance testing involves an unparalleled combination of different workloads and technologies. There is no one tool available—either commercial or open source—that meets all performance testing needs.

Few technology shifts have impacted the way we do business as much as mobile. The new and exciting functionality delivered by mobile apps, the pace at which they are being developed, and their emergence as the “face of the business” requires that organizations deliver unprecedented quality in these software systems. Join Dennis Schultz to learn how leading enterprises are approaching their mobile application testing challenges and how they have integrated mobile into their existing processes.