Bj Rollison

Testing Mentor

Bj Rollison has more than twenty-five years of experience in the software industry. His twenty-year career at Microsoft began in 1994 on the Windows 95 international team and ended—several projects later—on the Windows Phone team. At Microsoft he held several leadership and individual contributor positions. But, the most rewarding was as a Test Architect in Microsoft’s Engineering Excellence group where he designed and delivered hands-on training to Microsoft’s 6,000 test engineers. Bj now teaches software testing and test automation practices at University of Washington and Duy Tan University in Vietnam. Bj enjoys sailing, stamp collecting, gardening, and spending time with his family.

Speaker Presentations

Monday, September 28, 2015 - 1:00pm

Half-day Tutorials

High-Volume Combinatorial Test Automation

NEW

Imagine you are assigned to test a feature with twenty independent parameters, with five possible states for each parameter. The total number of possible combinations is greater than a half trillion. At one test per millisecond, it would take more than 3,000 years to test all possible combinations. Bj Rollison explains that historical evidence shows that the vast majority of errors are caused by the interaction between two parameters. Pairwise testing is a systematic technique using powerful tools to efficiently produce a pairwise subset of all parameters. This technique quickly uncovers hard-to-find bugs while improving code coverage. Unfortunately, most discussions about pairwise tests only consider this technique on small-scale projects. However, its real power is revealed when we are faced with complex features that have multiple input parameters that interact. Bj introduces advanced modeling concepts to model input parameters. Using simple test framework, delegates will use a powerful, free tool to test a high volume of inputs.

Note: This hands-on tutorial assumes that delegates are familiar with the basic concepts of pairwise testing and a basic understanding of programming. Delegates are strongly encouraged to bring a laptop with Visual Studio or Visual Studio C# Express installed.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015 - 8:30am

Keynote

Things That Really Matter in Testing—Today and Tomorrow

After a twenty-year career at Microsoft, Bj Rollison took some time to reflect on the software testing profession. Bj has seen many positive changes in our field through the years. Unfortunately, he also has seen too many of us still mired in trends and topics that make good fodder for debate but do very little to enhance our personal careers or the testing profession. Bj reflects on the “traditional” testing role and its evolution in the past twenty years, and shares his perspective on some hot button issues—the value of testing certifications, the impact of ISO standards on the industry, and the advance of test automation—within our profession. Additionally, Bj discusses his views on how practices such as exploratory testing, agile lifecycles, and the “schools of testing” affect our roles as software testers. Bj provides thought-provoking insights into these topics and other subjects that matter when building your career—and our profession.