STARWEST 2017 - Test Strategy, Planning, Metrics

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...

You've seen this before. The project requirement states that You will be responsible for developing test automation that covers ______. And it is rarely as simple as it first seems. With upstream and downstream considerations, tool changes, and course correction at every juncture, how can you possibly improve efficiency and quality, and still plan for and stay on target during the process of developing and implementing a robust test automation harness? Dawn Code will guide you through the steps of building test automation that can suit a variety of needs. Following a Choose Your Own...

Influence diagrams provide a simple-to-create and easy-to-understand approach to address the complexities of real-life problems. As testers, we may want to find more bugs, but this may have an unintended consequence for developers. Developers now have more defects to debug, which affects their capacity to deliver new functionality. Isabel Evans has found that influence diagrams provide a means of understanding and managing the complexities of key interactions among testers, developers, and business stakeholders. In the past few years, Isabel has used influence diagrams as a tool to...

No longer just a futuristic concept, the Internet of Things (IoT) has a strong presence in our world even today. If your business is not prepared for it, you’re already behind. With the proliferation of connected “things”—devices, appliances, cars, and even clothes—Jennifer Bonine says that the stage is set. IoT apps are here to stay. Testing, product management, and development teams must address developing and testing in this paradigm. Testers, accustomed to traditional platforms, are now asked to test on more complex devices and more advanced platforms. Testers must keep up with the...

You have just been assigned a new testing project. Where do you start? How do you develop a plan and begin testing? How will you report on your progress? Paul Holland shares new test project approaches that enable you to plan, test, and report effectively. Paul demonstrates ideas, based on the Heuristic Software Test Model from Rapid Software Testing that can be directly applied or adapted to your environment. In this hands-on tutorial, you’ll be given a product to test. Start by creating three raw lists—product coverage outline, potential risks, and test ideas—that help ensure...

In test automation, we must often use several tools that have been developed or acquired over time with little consideration of an overall plan or architecture and no consideration for how to integrate the tools. As a result, productivity suffers and frustrations increase. Join Mike Sowers as he shares experiences from multiple organizations in creating an integrated test automation plan and developing a test automation architecture. Mike discusses both the good (engaging the technical architecture team) and the bad (too much isolation between test automators and test designers) on...

Substantial confusion exists about the roles and responsibilities of test managers in an agile software development process. Agile seeks to streamline project management and leadership under the role of a ScrumMaster. So, what does this mean for test managers? How do they stay involved in the process? What role do they fill? Is it possible that test managers are no longer needed? Join Jeffery Payne for a collaborative dialog on the challenges test managers face in an agile model. Learn the pros and cons of a variety of test management models he has seen used by organizations that have...

Mary Thorn has had the opportunity in the past twenty years to work at many startups, creating several QA/test departments from scratch. For the past ten years, she has done this in agile software companies. Recently Mary moved from leading small agile test organizations to leading a large agile test organization where she has learned how to lead agile testers and agile testing in large contexts. Mary takes you through what she has learned, identifies the keys to transitioning your test organization as it grows, and discusses the techniques required to lead it through the changes. Agile...

Although most software companies have adopted agile development, many still treat quality assurance as something that gets handled when coding is finished and ready for test. However, practicing this reactive approach to quality costs teams in rework, context switching, slower code release cycles, growing bug queues, and the release of defects into production. Join Oscar Gracia and Todd Albers as they share techniques you can use to help change this “ready for test” mindset. Learn how to focus on testing and quality from the start by using a pre-grooming approach to ensure stories...

For testers, creating tests is critical for a healthy testing process, so it is painful to see how boring writing test cases can be. In classical approaches, test cases are overcrowded with words—mostly project information that everyone already knows. What test cases don’t have is distilled information that allows testers to focus on the core functionality. Hipo has recently changed their approach to writing test documentation. Ömürden Cengiz believes that checklists are poised to take the throne from test cases, especially among startups and client-servicing shops where projects...

Automated acceptance testing is an essential component of a healthy agile software development process. Unfortunately, attempts to adopt this approach in mobile often result in slow, brittle, and highly complex device tests, based on UI automation. This approach harms confidence in mobile development. Automation used in this way often creates more problems than it solves, leaving development teams and businesses wondering where it all went wrong—often blaming tools rather than their approach. Revisiting fundamentals via a simple example of a mobile app, Paul Stringer helps us re-...

Competition is driving our business and IT partners to be ever more nimble. And Byron Glick and Jithesh Ramachandran say that the growing agility is eroding the old foundations of testing—test management, project governance, and centers of excellence. An organization pursuing lean startup approaches may reduce or eliminate traditional planning cycles and the related test management and governance. But all is not lost. Understanding why those foundations were effective in their time points to new foundations that will carry us forward into the new world of testing, technology, and...

The age of the Internet of Things (IoT) has come. IoT devices enable a new realm of services and applications—medical devices, fitness and fashion, appliances, industrial, etc. The market is expected to exceed $1.7 trillion by 2020 with more than 200 billion connected devices—and 90 percent of automobiles. Join Amir Rozenberg as he describes the ingredients to ensure quality IoT applications: IoT-enabled lab, test tools and methodologies, and compliance and test evidence. Test professionals need to expand their perspective to include IoT; new IoT dev testers need to adopt proven...

Traditionally, test management has focused on two areas—test planning and test execution. Test planning creates the test strategy and prepares test cases. Test execution focuses on who is responsible for and assigned to executing the respective test cases and logging defects. These views, however, are not inclusive of everything a tester does. For example, the work of team members must be coordinated, environments made ready, and test data prepared. For this reason, Jim Trentadue says the testing effort should be managed by dependencies—not activities. Jim shares logical models for...

In the past few years, deployment of applications in the cloud has become an industry standard. Meher Nori believes that it is very important for QA/testing organizations to understand the impact the cloud may have on them and prepare accordingly. The impact primarily involves a change in the testing strategy, and two items become very important. (1) Security testing and elasticity/scalability testing—new types of tests which previously were not so important—need to be created and executed once an application is hosted in the cloud. (2) Some traditional tests—availability testing...

The key to creating high-performing teams is psychological safety—the ability to be vulnerable in front of others even when they hold diverse viewpoints, and the opportunity to take risks and trust that everything will be OK. However, creating this safety is easier said than done. Maaret Pyhäjärvi shares her story of working with software development and test teams to enable them to be awesome. She explains how to reinforce the positive while enabling great software product development by empowering others in your team. Maaret explores how to be brave when others are not, and how to care...

When Picture This Clothing launched in August of 2016 and instantly went viral, the media made it sound like Jaimee was a "simple mom" who stumbled upon a great idea and struck gold. What they didn't share is the teamwork, the trials-and-error, and the years of work that happened before this viral success. While her current day-to-day is quite literally surrounded with imagination, unicorns, and rainbows, Jaimee delves into the struggle of self-worth, re-designing her life, and how her compass of intention positioned everything that has unfolded as she shares the story of how Picture This...

Let's face it. As leaders, we often struggle to create and nurture the sort of communication and conversation that our organizations and teams need. For many of us it's not a comfort zone or a strength. And frankly, these conversations are often uncomfortable and take a great deal of energy. That being said, today's leaders need to face this shortcoming and become much more skilled and comfortable initiating and executing the sorts of conversations that will engage their teams and deliver value for their customers. In this session Bob Galen will explore the central aspects of having...

Bring your biggest challenges to this session and tap the wisdom of others. In this immersive session, you will tackle some of the most widely mentioned challenges brought to light from the group. Whether it’s a software testing conundrum, a project setback, a management blocker, a group or team dysfunction or an interpersonal hurdle, all of these can slow our progress and reduce our effectiveness.  And when we hunt for options, we all have blind spots and biases that prevent us from thinking out of the box and finding new and different solutions. Typically the best ideas come from...

Let’s discuss and define the most important career superpowers for women. Hear what industry professionals, leaders, and idea disruptors think the important career superpowers are for women in 2016 and going forward.