Virtual Conference

8:30 AM PT  •  KEYNOTE–Things That Really Matter in Testing—Today and Tomorrow

     BJ Rollison, Testing Mentor

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.

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.

10:00 AM PT  •  KEYNOTE–Testing the Internet of Everything

       Paul Gerrard, Gerrard Consulting Ltd.

Beyond the publicity and hype about the Internet of Things (IoT), a new term is emerging—the Internet of Everything (IoE). What are people talking about? Should you be interested? What does it mean to testers and development? Paul Gerrard shares his perspective on the scale, variety, ubiquity, complexity, and challenge of this technological wave that many believe will dominate our industry into the next decade. Right now, the IoT/IoE is very confusing. Although standards are emerging, many commercial applications are bleeding edge, speculative, or exploratory. While security and privacy concerns dominate the discussion today, significant functional, user experience, integration, and complexity challenges await us. The IoE brings broader societal risks that must be addressed by organizations, individuals, and their governments. Paul presents a seven-layer architectural model to help you make sense of it all. Take back a set of key questions you need to ask and recommendations for formulating your test strategy for the Internet of Everything.

Paul Gerrard is a consultant, teacher, author, webmaster, programmer, tester, conference speaker, rowing coach, and publisher. He has conducted consulting assignments in all aspects of software testing and quality assurance, specializing in test assurance. Paul has presented keynotes and tutorials— occasionally award winning—at testing conferences on four continents. He is a principal of Gerrard Consulting Limited, the host of the UK Test Management Forum, and the Programme Chair for the 2014 EuroSTAR testing conference. In 2010, Paul won the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award. He's been programming since the mid-1970s and loves using the Python programming language.

11:30 AM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • HP

      A QA Journey to DevOps– From the Dark Ages to The Renaissance Of Testing

      Todd DeCapua, Director, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, HP
      Clint Sprauve, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, HP

DevOps is the word of the day in technology. DevOps conferences pack convention centers and developers have anointed themselves the new “kingmakers” but what does this mean to testing? Join the HP Lifecycle and Quality team as we take you on our own journey of DevOps exploration, adoption and success based on an approach that keeps quality at the center and drives both better developer, tester and operations alignment and efficiencies through relentless automation. Through a shift left testing approach, empowered with big data analytics and an automated pipeline, testers are a core part of application delivery success in a DevOps environment and vital to the business goal of delivering amazing applications fast with confidence.  In this presentation we will discuss both the cultural and process best practices that ensure quality at the center of DevOps and demonstrate the specific skills and tools that will augment and accelerate that journey.

Todd DeCapua is a senior product marketing manager at HP, focused on network virtualization and service virtualization. In addition, He is an innovation coach with the HP Software Innovation Team and chief technology evangelist with the HP Software Thought Leadership and Evangelism Team. A seasoned software professional, Todd has more than twenty years of experience in IT applications development, IT operations, product marketing, product management, channels operations, and business development.

Clint Sprauve is the senior product marketing manager for HP Software Functional Testing. Previously, Clint was the director of product strategy for the Borland Solutions division of Micro Focus, where he created Borland’s mobile strategy for functional test automation. With more than twenty years of experience in the software development and quality assurance industry, Clint has served as the senior product marketing manager for the Silk Testing Solutions at Borland Software and Segue Software, and as a senior technical sales engineer for both companies. He has been an independent consultant, specializing in test management and test automation.

12:30 PM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • Microsoft

     Effective Testing and Automation with Microsoft Tools

     Randy Pagels, Sr. Developer Technology Specialist, Microsoft

Modern ALM requires integrated toolsets to manage software projects, from planning and development through testing and deployment with end-to-end traceability. Microsoft’s tools provide this toolset, a web-based interface, and features like test planning, creation, execution, and results. Many test options are supported including unit, manual, automated/UI, exploratory, and performance testing. Agile development demands frequent changes not only to applications but also to testing environments, so these integrated tools combine ALM, testing, and DevOps practices for traceability and consistency. See how you can use these tools to increase your efficiency and agility for on-premises, cloud, or cross-platform scenarios.

• Drive quality and collaboration throughout the development process.
• Streamline quality with integrated test case management, manual and exploratory testing tools.
• Use Continuous delivery to ship regularly and predictably on any platform.

As a Sr. Developer Technology Specialist, Randy Pagels serves as a field expert for Microsoft’s flag-ship development and application lifecycle management tools, specifically Visual Studio, Visual Studio Online, Team Foundation Server, Test Professional, Lab management, Release Management, and Azure dev/test scenarios. He helps inspire customers to build modern software across desktops, tablets, and phones and illuminate Microsoft's integrated tools and platform story across connected devices and continuous services. Randy’s responsibilities include presenting a variety of technical topics (from version control, work item tracking, testing practices, requirement practices, and ALM solutions) for individual customers or at larger events, developing content for events, and helping customer understand the breadth and depth of Microsoft’s development technologies.

1:45 PM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • SOASTA

     Continuous Testing is Indistinguishable From Magic

     Dave Karow, SOASTA Product Manager, Cloudtest

Throw away debates about test automation, cloud computing or flavors of Agile.  The new question is, “Are you testing continuously?” This session covers how leading organizations are trending towards cyclical metrics-driven approaches that embrace test modeling with real user data, mobile test automation, continuous integration, and production load testing that just might get an affirming nod from Sir Arthur C. Clark. In this session learn how leading organization have learned to embrace “fast” with proven approaches, "Agile" or not; use real user information for data-driven test modeling; how automation and Continuous Integration make Sci-Fi a reality.

Dave Karow is passionate about helping teams deliver lightning fast customer experiences at the very moment when demand sets new records, and knows that it is possible just by paying attention and doing the next obvious thing until bottlenecks are eliminated. A rebel in the performance testing world, Dave believes that load testing should start with production (discovering problems customers actually encounter in the real world) and then work it’s way back the lab (where the highest priority problems are fixed and tested), at least as often as the other way around. Dave learned to program on punch cards, writing code in pencil and running it in his head first. That was long, long ago in a reality far, far away.

3:00 PM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • ThinkSys Inc. 

     Why Do QA Test Automation Projects Fail?

     Rajiv Jain, ThinkSys Inc.

• Learn why QA automation strategy often fails
• You will see real examples where this has been implemented and failed
• Can you as a QA lead or manager do anything? Should you do anything?

Rajiv Jain was most recently Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Perion (Nasdaq PERI), where he led revamping of their infrastructure and creating new innovative products. Prior to that, he was Executive Vice President for Corbis.com and Chief Technology/Innovation Officer for Corbis, where he was responsible for the company's technology operations as well as its online consumer business and worked with Mr. Bill Gates, Chairman of Corbis, in rebuilding search and other key technology items. Prior to Corbis, Jain was Chief Technology Officer for American Greetings Interactive (AGI) for almost four years and played an instrumental role in the company's growth.

4:15 PM PT  •  KEYNOTE–Lightning Strikes the Keynotes

     Facilitated By Lee Copeland, TechWell Corp.

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. Some of the best-known experts in testing will step up to the podium and give you their best shot of lightning. Get multiple keynote presentations for the price of one—and have some fun at the same time.

With more than thirty years of experience as an information systems professional at commercial and nonprofit organizations, Lee Copeland has held technical and managerial positions in applications development, software testing, and software process improvement. At TechWell Corp., Lee has developed and taught numerous training courses on software development and testing issues, and is a sought-after speaker at software conferences in the United States and abroad. He is the author of the popular reference book, A Practitioner’s Guide to Software Test Design.

8:30 AM PT  •  KEYNOTE–I Don't Want to Talk About Bugs: Let's Change the Conversation

      Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.

It’s time to change the conversation about testing and quality―from bugs and poor requirements to products and solutions. Instead, Janet Gregory says testers and managers working in agile organizations need to learn more about the business, the market, and the customers. With that knowledge, we have the information necessary to identify key problems and formulate solutions that reduce uncertainty and increase product value. Janet challenges testers and test managers to lead the way to change how organizations talk about quality. She explores ways to measure value and focus on the positive rather than a more negative cost-of-quality perspective. In an agile organization testing is not a job or a phase or a department; testing is a crosscutting concern and a skill which is vital to every contributor on a project and to a product. Join Janet to learn ways to rethink your priorities and ways to optimize your test practices.

Agile testing coach and practitioner Janet Gregory (@janetgregoryca) is the coauthor of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams and a contributor to 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know. Janet specializes in showing agile teams how testers can add value in areas beyond critiquing the product. For the past ten years, she has been working with teams to transition to agile development. Janet teaches agile testing courses and tutorials worldwide, contributes articles to leading publications, and enjoys sharing her experiences at conferences and user group meetings worldwide. Find more information at janetgregory.ca or visit her blog.

9:45 AM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • Tata Consultancy Services

     Accelerating Time to Market Through Next-Gen Test Automation

     Imran Shaikh, Director, Rogers Communications
     Prasad MK, Assurance Services Practice Director, Tata Consultancy Services

In this era of Digital ReimaginationTM, organizations are continuously competing to launch new products or services faster. In such a scenario Quality Assurance and Testing function can provide a competitive edge and act as a catalyst for organizations to achieve this objective.

The test automation lever can play a pivotal role in accelerating your testing timelines, which in turn can help you accelerate your speed to market. However, with the emergence of newer digital technologies, interaction with heterogeneous internal and external systems, more importantly the adoption of delivery methodologies like DevOps, traditional test automation approaches may prove ineffective.

Next-gen test automation approaches yielding higher ROI are the need of the hour. While providing a technical framework, these approaches also cover other critical factors such scope of test automation, scalability of the approach, extent of reusability and more importantly the metrics to measure the success of your test automation.

Join Quality Assurance and Testing experts from Rogers and TCS to learn more about next-gen test automation and how it can help your organization accelerate time to market.

Imran Shaikh is a Director of Quality Assurance at Rogers Communications Partnership in Canada, with over 17 years of experience. He has experience working with Media, Retail and Telecom verticals conducting several major ERP, CRM, Supply Chain, Retail and Finance Systems implementations, while optimizing the approach to testing using innovative and evolving automation frameworks and technologies.

Prasad MK is responsible for Assurance Services solutions and consultancy for Telecom, Media and HiTech industry verticals. He has worked with several global organizations to setup Testing Center of Excellences, Test Automation CoE, Agile Testing practices and championed continuous improvements through Shift Left and Early Defect Detection approaches. He is passionate about transforming QA & Testing organization to a holistic Quality Guardian across SDLC and thereby assuring right Customer Experience.

11:15 AM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • Infosys Limited

       Innovations in Testing

       Beth Johnson, Senior Vice President, Head of Release and Test Services, SunTrust                Banks Inc
       Stephen Sanjay, Senior Practice Engagement Manager, Infosys Limited

• Predictive analytics paved the pathway for success for this partnership
• Platform agnostic automation solutions, robotics and artificial intelligence is a game changer for this partnership
• Service delivery platform helped improve productivity and process efficiency

Beth Johnson heads Release and Test Services at SunTrust Banks Inc. She has been a catalyst for developing innovation and creative leadership in her organization. Beth is passionate about her vision and has successfully managed large transformation and change management at the bank. She has over 20 years of experience in nearly all aspects of technology solutions at the bank.

Stephen Sanjay DE has 20+ years of experience in IT Services. Has been a Test practitioner for more than 14 years. Has led IT engagements in multiple geographies like US, Asia and India. Was the Head of Tools, IP and Solutions for Testing at Infosys. Has a extensive experience in the Financial services domain. Currently oversees all Testing engagements for Financial services clients across America.

1:30 PM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • Synopsys

     Agile. DevOps. Test Faster. Test Smarter. Test Earlier.

     Jon Jarboe, Senior Technical Marketing Manager, Synopsys

There are plenty of good ideas for improving the testing process, but many teams struggle to put these ideas into practice.  How can a QA team make the most of testing practices that span multiple teams and development phases, utilize different technologies, address different objectives and include automated and manual workflows?

Listen in to learn how Synopsys can help your team take practical steps to improve testing by:

• Enabling developers to improve code quality and security, early
• Prioritizing testing runs based on business risk and the impact of product changes
• Addressing important testing gaps while avoiding redundant testing

Jon Jarboe has been improving software development tools for over 20 years, in contexts ranging from embedded systems to enterprise applications. He is a passionate advocate for the quality, security, and productivity benefits of disciplined software testing throughout the SDLC.  He greatly enjoys his role in the Synopsys software group, which provides the opportunity to understand the challenges faced by development teams, to influence the development of tools to address those challenges, and to help others understand how disciplined testing can improve development velocity and agility while simultaneously improving quality, security, and efficiency.

3:00 PM PT  •  Industry Technical Presentation • BlazeMeter

     Continuous Performance: Using Open Source Tools to Automate Load Testing in Modern Deployment Pipelines

     Michael Sage, Chief Evangelist, BlazeMeter

Performance testing has changed. Dramatically. Long gone are the days of thinking we could get by without it, and yesterday’s approaches haven’t kept pace with the demands of modern software delivery teams. The key to optimizing the performance of your mobile, web, and API stack is automating the right performance tests at the every stage of the delivery pipeline. Open source tools can generate load and provide the critical visibility you need to find and resolve bottlenecks and constraints so your users have the most satisfying experience possible with every release of your software. In this session you will learn:

• Open source load and performance testing tools: Which ones are best
• Strategies for running tests in Continuous Delivery: What types of tests and when
• Testing what matters: Using analytics and APM metrics to inform test design and planning

Michael Sage has over 15 years experience as a solutions architect and consultant in software delivery and performance management. Prior to joining BlazeMeter, Michael worked with industry-leading companies like Mercury Interactive, Hewlett-Packard, and New Relic, helping teams of all sizes improve their digital experiences.

4:15 PM PT  •  KEYNOTE–The Survival Guide for Testers and Test Managers

     Bart Knaack, Professional Testing

As we face new technologies, methodologies, and approaches, the roles and responsibilities of testers are evolving. To stay current, the test professional’s skill set must increase. Due to agile, the strict separation of developer and tester roles is fading. Teams, rather than just testers, are now responsible for quality. Emerging technologies—continuous integration, mobile, the Internet of Things, and cloud—are drastically changing testing. Formerly seen as the least technical IT activity, testing today is one of the most technically challenging. Bart Knaack describes the new skills testers need to develop for properly testing mobile apps and applications in the cloud. Bart examines the changing role of test management and draws conclusions on how to organize teams and departments for maximum productivity and value to the business. Because testing is changing under our feet, we all must grow and adapt to survive and thrive in this brave new world of testing.

Test advisor at Professional Testing, Bart Knaack has more than twenty years of experience in testing and test management. Bart has contributed to testing projects and processes in roles of test manager, test data management team lead, and process improvement agent. He has coached testers, built up test teams, and developed processes in test, test support, and overall quality management and improvement. Bart is a frequent speaker at conferences, universities, and colleges. In 2009 Bart and James Lyndsay co-founded the TestLab, an exciting part of today’s STAR conferences.