STARWEST 2018 - Test Transformation
Monday, October 1
Critical Thinking for Software Testers
Critical thinking is the kind of thinking that specifically looks for problems and mistakes. Regular people don't do a lot of it. However, if you want to be a great tester, you need to be a great critical thinker. Critically-thinking testers save projects from dangerous assumptions and ultimately from disasters. The good news is that critical thinking is not just innate intelligence or a talent—it's a learnable and improvable skill you can master. Michael Bolton shares the specific techniques and heuristics of critical thinking and presents realistic testing puzzles that help you practice...
What Testers Must Know about Git and GitHub
Skill with Git is a prerequisite for most software jobs today. This is because the vast majority of software developed is stored in Git-based repositories such as GitHub, GitLab, and BitBucket. GitHub's domination of social coding makes it the new business card to demonstrate your creativity, popularity, capability, and tenacity. “Configuration as code” is a standard DevOps practice so testers must know how to set up and use Git to obtain and update versions of their infrastructures. In this hands-on tutorial, create your own website and learn the GitHub markdown used to format documents....
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Skills for the Testing World
Software continues to revolutionize the world, impacting nearly every aspect of our work, family, and personal life. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are playing key roles in this revolution through improvements in search results, recommendations, forecasts, and other predictions. AI and ML technologies are being used in platforms for digital assistants, home entertainment, medical diagnosis, customer support, and autonomous vehicles. Testing practitioners are recognizing the potential for advances in AI and ML to be leveraged for automated testing—an area that still...
Better Test Design for Great Test Automation and DevOps
PreviewTest automation is an essential element in agile and DevOps processes. And test design can make or break automation efforts throughout the entire CI/CD pipeline. We want automated tests to find problems in a build quickly, run without a hitch, and be easily maintained. However, if tests are badly structured and unnecessarily detailed, you may have a hard time automating them—even with great tools. Hans Buwalda explores how testers, both technical and non-technical, can design or restructure tests to make them suitable for automation. In this session, you’ll learn how domain...
Implement BDD with Cucumber and SpecFlow
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. Mary Thorn says help is at hand. Enter behavior-driven development (BDD), and Cucumber and SpecFlow, tools for running automated acceptance tests and facilitating BDD. Mary explores the nuances of Cucumber and SpecFlow, and shows you how to...
Using Docker Containers for Automating Web Testing
NewDocker is one of the hottest technologies in our industry today. It lets you create and manage containers—like virtual machines but smaller and faster. They can provide on-demand, disposable test environments that start quickly, repeatably, locally or in the cloud. When you want, you can tear down the environment and recreate a pristine copy within seconds. And since the process is automated, anyone on the team can use the same commands to get their own test systems. Then, when you finish testing, those containers can be deployed directly into production. At each stage, the environments...
Instill a DevOps Testing Culture in Your Team and Organization
NewThe DevOps movement is here. Companies across many industries are breaking down siloed IT departments and federating them into product development teams. Testing and its practices are at the heart of these changes. Traditionally, IT organizations have been staffed with mostly manual testers and a limited number of automation and performance engineers. To keep pace with development in the new “you build it, you own it” environment, testing teams and individuals must develop new technical skills and even embrace coding to stay relevant and add greater value to the business. DevOps really...
Test Automation Strategies for the Agile World
Sold Out!With many organizations adopting agile practices, the test automation landscape has changed. Bob Galen explores current disruptors to traditional automation strategies, and discusses relevant and current adjustments that must be made when developing an automation business case. Open source tools are becoming incredibly viable and often best their commercial equivalents―not only in cost but also in functionality, creativity, evolutionary speed, and developer acceptance. Agile methods have fundamentally challenged our traditional automation strategies. Now we must keep up with incremental...
System-Level Test Automation: Ensuring a Good Start
Many organizations invest a lot of effort in test automation at the system level but then have serious problems later on. As a leader, how can you ensure that your new automation efforts will get off to a good start? What can you do to ensure that your automation work provides continuing value? This tutorial covers both “theory” and “practice”. Chris Loder explains the critical issues for getting a good start and also describes his experiences in getting good automation started at a number of companies. The tutorial covers the most important management issues you must address for test...
Tuesday, October 2
Test Design for Fully Automated Build Architecture
NewImagine this … As soon as any developed functionality is submitted into the code repository, it is automatically subjected to the appropriate battery of tests and then released straight into production. Setting up the pipeline capable of doing just that is becoming more and more common and something you need to know about. But most organizations hit the same stumbling block—just what IS the appropriate battery of tests? Automated build architectures don't always lend themselves well to the traditional stages of testing. In this hands-on tutorial, Melissa Benua introduces you to key test...
Agile Test Team Leadership: From Concept to Product
Sold Out!Today, many agile organizations are making a terrible error. They are assuming there is no place for test management and leadership in agile, self-directed team contexts. Mary Thorn and Bob Galen beg to differ with this view and believe a strong need exists for testing leadership in agile organizations—just different from the way we’ve typically approached it. Join Mary and Bob as they explore what excellent test team leadership looks like in agile contexts. Explore the aspects of self-directed teams and the implications to your previous leadership styles. Look under the covers of Scrum...
Wednesday, October 3
The Life of a Tester, from Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After
PreviewMost fairy tales start out with a scary premise and move to a happy ending. Lately, we have heard lots of scary stories about the future of testing. As machine learning and artificial intelligence continue to gain prominence, we see even more concerns about the tester’s career. With the help of a famous animation team, Janna and Jennifer will take you through a wild animated journey from what it was like in the early days of software to where we are today. We’ll explore the evolution of the testing profession, as well as what it will become in the future. As this story moves from...
Testing Outside of the Box
The cognitive skills of testing are being threatened by two major forces: the assumption that automation can replace all other forms of testing, and the acceptance of lower quality by consumers. You might be feeling like you’re living on an eroding island, but there is a way to adapt and even thrive using your testing skills. Your project still needs to have someone who will question assumptions, examine design, create experiments, analyze data, and report meaningful metrics. It needs your social skill to connect teams who work in silos, bring customer insights to light, and track risks...
Thursday, October 4
Be the Lord of Your OWN Rings: How to Build Your OWN Insider Testing Program
Many testers just don't plain get listened to. Management doesn’t seem to listen despite you having a really good idea on how to reduce costs without reducing quality. How can a well-meaning tester act as an agent of change and change your corporate landscape? Dona is the Lord of the Rings at Microsoft where she co-creates the future of Windows with 10M + #WindowsInsiders all over the world. They are one of the biggest fan and influencer programs in the tech industry—one that helps shape the future of Microsoft technology every single day. She will guide you on how to create a fan and...
Evolution—Not Revolution: Transforming Your Testing
You may have heard the saying “The only constant on any project is change.” Yet the prospect of change is rarely welcomed—either personally or professionally. How is it that we still believe that these changes apply to others but not to us? Julie Gardiner says that now is the time to re-evaluate and transform how we do testing in order to deliver more value to organizations—from a people, processes, and tools perspective. Join Julie as she shares current experiences of transformations and lessons learned within different organizations. She discusses an automation framework that ended up...
Building a Modern DevOps Enterprise Testing Organization
The DevOps movement is front and center across enterprises. Companies with mature systems are breaking down siloed IT departments and federating them into product development teams and departments. Testing and its practices are at the heart of these changes. Traditionally, development organizations have been filled with mostly manual testers and a limited number of automation and performance engineers. Adam Auerbach says this has to change. To keep pace with development in the new “you build it, you own it” environment, testing teams and individuals must develop new technical skills and...
Building a Skilled Testing Practice In an Innovative Digital Agency
PreviewEverybody wants to have their projects tested so that they can deliver top-notch products to their clients. But with multiple projects all running in parallel, all with tight deadlines and all needing testing, simply allocating a tester on a project for some time isn’t going to give you quality. This, in turn, can sometimes make our stakeholders question the value of testing. Join Nimesh Patel as he shares his experience in building a test practice and team from the ground up into valued, credible members of a project, in a digital agency where the focus is often on delivering...
Reception and Summit Kickoff: As a Leader, What Is Keeping You Up at Night?
Kickoff the Testing & Quality Leadership Summit with a reception and some networking.
Friday, October 5
It's Not All Rainbows & Unicorns (The Picture This Clothing Story)
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...
Transforming Your Testing Organization: Embracing Test Automation
Organizations are consistently looking to deliver high quality products in a quick, repeatable and predictable manner. Deliver more, deliver faster, and deliver quality! Often QA leaders are challenged to do just this while keeping the lights on, addressing process impediments, and dealing with pressure from sales and/or clients to continue standard operating procedure. In this session, Leigh will share her journey in transforming a testing organization from manual to leveraging test automation. She will discuss best practices in transforming testing teams, the challenges and pitfalls she...
Spin Your Tale: The Fiction Writers’ Guide to Telling YOUR Story
People are talking about you behind your back. Everyone is doing it: Your friends. Your co-workers. Your management. People you don’t even know! What are they saying? (What? You don’t know?!!) Whether you like it or not, your name has a brand attached to it. Like Jeff Bezos (you know, the CEO of a tiny company called Amazon with a VERY strong brand) says, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Here’s the kicker though—you can't control your brand. It’s what OTHER PEOPLE think, say, and feel about you. However, you CAN craft and control your story. Your story...
Inside-Out Leadership for a Changing World
We live in a time of rapid change when products and services often become obsolete overnight, and competition includes startups and companies in adjacent industries — where the traditional formula for leadership may no longer hold relevance. A new value system is beginning to emerge for the leaders of the future which will continue to grow with the rise of tools like robotics, automation, and artificial intelligence. The leaders who thrive are those who work well in unknown conditions, and who continuously inspire into their culture the ability to...
The Power of Collective Experience
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...
Think Tank Discussion Part I, II, III, and Wrap-Up
Join your peers in an engaging and highly interactive discussion about the issues that concern you most. Using answers to the question—"As a Leader, What Is Keeping You Up at Night?"—posed at Thursday’s evening reception, participants will form small groups to work on finding solutions to pressing test management issues. Discussions will review identified issues and barriers to change, and focus on innovative strategies and practical next steps. At the end of the think tank discussion, all feedback will be collected and posted online to encourage further collaboration....
Creative Trespassing: Sneaking Your Spark into Your Work Without Getting Busted
As co-creator of the internationally viral campaign #ItWasNeverADress, Tania Katan knows the power of sneaking creativity into spaces where it belongs but isn’t always a priority in order to start a creative revolution! She will share uniquely developed exercises for flexing your creative muscles, funny stories from the frontlines of a productive disruptor and enough inspirational shouting to make your high school soccer coach crack a smile. You will leave this talk with tools for embracing your inner cape crusader and engaging in your everyday work and life with more gusto, curiosity,...
Panel–Career Superpowers
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 2018 and going forward.