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Conference archive

Conference Schedule

Sunday, September 30

Registration and TechWell Experience—7:30am–6:00pm
7:30 am to 6:00 pm
Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Multi-day Training Classes Begin—8:30am–5:00pm
8:30 am to 5:00 pm
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Agile Test Automation—ICAgile (2-Day)—SOLD OUT
Chris Blain
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Explore the many ways automation supports agile testing in this two-day course with real-world, vendor-neutral examples of agile test automation approaches and tools. In addition, successful attendees are awarded the ICAgile Certified Professional in Agile Test Automation (ICP-ATA).

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Mobile Application Testing (2-Day)
Brian Hicks
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Many testers attempt to apply what they know to mobile testing, and while that may work for some functional testing, it often leaves many critical features untested. Critical errors that go untested can mean a swift end to a mobile application. Learning how to identify common issues in mobile applications and how to test the unique aspects of a mobile application is the only way to be truly successful. This two-day course will cover usability across multiple platforms and resolutions, network and security testing, creating application unit tests, mobile UI automation, and performance testing for various devices over various networks and carriers.

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Security Testing for Test Professionals (2-Day)
Jeffery Payne
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Explore security testing in an interactive workshop setting. This course is appropriate for software development and testing professionals who want to begin doing security testing as part of their assurance activities. 

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Real-World Software Testing with Microsoft Visual Studio® (3–Day)
Anna Russo
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Gain real world software testing techniques and technical skills using the latest Microsoft Test Manager 2017®, Visual Studio 2017®, and Team Foundation Server 2017® tools. This hands-on course covers manual testing features such as test case management, execution and reporting, and how Visual Studio® makes these processes powerful and organized. You will also learn about the newly released Visual Studio® Web Test Manager and be introduced to automated testing with Visual Studio®.

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Foundations of DevOps—ICAgile Certification (2-Day)
Tom Stiehm
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

DevOps combines development, testing, and operations and includes continuous integration, automated testing, continuous delivery, and rapid deployment practices. Because DevOps practices require confidence in nearly all changes, automated testing is an essential ingredient that is integrated into the process and relied upon for enforcement of quality gates and to ensure overall delivery quality. This two-day course will teach you how to avoid the common mistakes of DevOps implementations and to leverage DevOps best practices. Test professionals, operations engineers, developers, project managers, and business owners will all benefit from this curriculum.

 

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Performance, Load, and Stress Testing (2-Day)
Dawn Haynes
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Designed for system testers, system designers, system tuners, software engineers, QA professionals, and project leaders, this course provides an introduction to the complexities of software performance testing and delivers testing skills that participants can immediately apply back on the job.

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Software Tester Certification—Foundation Level (3–Day)
Conrad Fujimoto
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Accredited training for the ISTQB® Certified Tester—Foundation Level (CTFL) certification, aligned to the new 2018 syllabus. ISTQB is the only internationally accepted certification for software testing and has granted more than 500,000 certifications in more than 110 countries around the world. In this three-day course, learn what it takes to be a successful software tester and learn about the relationship of testing to development, test levels, black-box methods, white-box testing, experienced-based testing, and more. This course is appropriate for those new to the testing profession and those seeking certification in software testing. 

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Agile Tester Certification (2-Day)
Rob Sabourin
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Agile software practices are being employed within many development organizations worldwide, and as a result, many testers struggle to understand the agile development process and their place in it. In Agile Tester Certification, both novice and experienced testers learn the fundamentals of agile development, the role of the tester in the agile team, and the agile testing processes. Learn technical and team skills testers need for success in the world of agile development, as well as the techniques of Test-Driven Development (TDD), Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD) and Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) during this two-day course. All participants are expected to have experience in or knowledge of agile development fundamentals.  

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Python® for Testers (2-Day)
Fredrik Håård
8:30 am to 5:00 pm
This is a course for testers who are frustrated by the laborious and manual work that makes up day-to-day test work, anyone who has tried or wants to try scripting and programming in order to help them focus more on the sapient test activities and let the computer do the repetitive work. During the course we will work with a strong focus on practical knowledge and learning by doing with much hands-on coding. This so that attendees can work independently with Python after the course. A large amount of exercises are built to give the opportunity to build simple but powerful tools using Python, which gives a deeper understanding of the opportunities that the language offers.
Lunch—12:00pm-1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Training Classes Continue—1:00pm–5:00pm
1:00 pm to 5:00 pm

Monday, October 1

Registration and TechWell Experience—7:00am–4:30pm
7:00 am to 4:30 pm
Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Multi-day Training Classes Continue—8:30am–5:00pm
8:30 am to 5:00 pm
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Tutorial MA Critical Thinking for Software Testers Preview
Michael Bolton
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial MB What Testers Must Know about Git and GitHub Preview
Wilson Mar
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

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....Read more

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Tutorial MC Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Skills for the Testing World Preview
Tariq King, Jason Arbon
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial MD Fundamentals of Testing Requirements Preview NEW
Isabel Evans
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Testing and requirements are bound together: You use requirements to understand what to test and what your customer expects from the product under test. Requirements appear in many forms—verbal, diagrams, user stories, or formal specifications. But sometimes once we start testing, we find that requirements are missing, inadequate, wrong, or changing. This is normal, and as testers, part of our role is to help the team and the customer clarify what is required. (Sometimes we even build the requirements to clarify our tests!) Join Isabel Evans to understand how to identify, capture, review,...Read more

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Tutorial ME Better Test Design for Great Test Automation and DevOps Preview
Hans Buwalda
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Test 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...Read more

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Tutorial MF Implement BDD with Cucumber and SpecFlow Preview
Mary Thorn
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial MG Using Docker Containers for Automating Web Testing Preview NEW
Gene Gotimer
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Docker 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...Read more

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Tutorial MH Measurement and Metrics for Test Management Preview
Mike Sowers
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

To be most effective, test managers must develop and use metrics to help direct the testing effort and make informed recommendations about the software’s release readiness and associated risks. Because one important testing activity is to “measure” the quality of the software, test managers must measure the results of both the development and testing processes. Collecting, analyzing, and using metrics are complicated because many developers and testers are concerned that the metrics will be used against them. Join Mike Sowers as he addresses common metrics—measures of product quality,...Read more

Lunch—12:00pm-1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Full-Day Tutorials Continue—1:00pm–4:30pm
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm
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Tutorial MI Influence Diagrams: A New Way to Understand Testing Preview
Isabel Evans
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

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 simple way to understand and manage the complexities of key interactions among testers, developers, and business stakeholders. In this practical workshop with hands-on activities, Isabel will help you construct and interpret influence diagrams to illustrate typical team and project problems and solutions in testing. With just pen...Read more

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Tutorial MJ Instill a DevOps Testing Culture in Your Team and Organization Preview NEW
Adam Auerbach
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

The 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...Read more

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Tutorial MK Achieving Real Test Agility with Session-Based Exploration Preview NEW
Jon Bach
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

The authors of the Agile Manifesto wanted to emphasize lightweight and collaborative ways to deliver good quality software, not create a bunch of procedures and rituals to blindly follow. If you find that your project considers testing to be only about making sure you have unit tests for every method or a user story for every requirement, you may be missing out on a lot of bugs. Join Jon Bach to learn about session-based exploration, a lightweight and fun way to find new and emerging issues while also managing your testing focus and increasing your effectiveness as a quality engineer....Read more

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Tutorial ML Test Automation Strategies for the Agile World Preview SOLD OUT
Bob Galen
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial MM System-Level Test Automation: Ensuring a Good Start Preview
Chris Loder
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

Registration Desk Hours—Closes at 4:30pm
4:30 pm

Tuesday, October 2

Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Registration and TechWell Experience—7:30am–5:00pm
7:30 am to 5:00 pm
Multi-day Training Classes Continue—8:30am–5:00pm
8:30 am to 5:00 pm
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Tutorial TA A Rapid Introduction to Rapid Software Testing Preview
Michael Bolton
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

You're under tight time pressure with barely enough information to proceed with testing. How do you test quickly and inexpensively—yet still produce informative, credible, and accountable results? Rapid Software Testing, adopted by context-driven testers worldwide, offers a field-proven answer to this all-too-common dilemma. In this one-day sampler of the approach, Michael Bolton introduces you to the skills and practice of Rapid Software Testing through stories, discussions, and “minds-on” exercises that simulate important aspects of real testing problems. The rapid approach isn't just...Read more

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Tutorial TB Selenium Test Automation: From the Ground Up Preview SOLD OUT
Max Saperstone
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

Knowledge of Selenium, the industry-standard tool for testing web applications, is a much sought after skill in today’s world of test automation. If you want to learn Selenium, then this full-day tutorial provides a great start. Max Saperstone shows you how to build test automation using Selenium. But he doesn’t stop there. He uses his years of experience to show you how to build automation that is clean, robust, and easy to maintain. Max introduces other tools that work with Selenium to help manage the data used to drive your tests, evaluate JavaScript-heavy applications, manage your test...Read more

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Tutorial TC Taking Test Design Techniques Beyond Planning Preview
Isabel Evans
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Understanding when and how to apply test design techniques is fundamental to your testing. Join Isabel Evans to learn some basic techniques that she uses in her own work, and add these vital test design techniques to your personal toolbox of methods. Isabel will demonstrate how to use test design techniques not just to decide what tests to conduct, but also to find potential defects and missing requirements before coding starts, to derive a test basis when requirements are unwritten, to drive the direction for nonscripted approaches, and to provide input to automation. Different techniques...Read more

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Tutorial TD Testing Strategies for Microservices Preview NEW
Tariq King
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Software development is trending toward building systems using small, autonomous, independently deployable services called microservices. Leveraging microservices makes it easier to add and modify system behavior with minimal or no service interruption. Because they facilitate releasing software early, frequently, and continuously, microservices are especially popular in DevOps. But how do microservices affect software testing and testability? Are there new testing challenges that arise from this paradigm? Or are these simply old challenges disguised as new ones? Join Tariq King as he...Read more

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Tutorial TE Agile Testing: Team Tactics that Deliver the Goods Preview SOLD OUT
Bob Galen, Mary Thorn
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Let’s face it—agile testing is different. Challenges exist in successfully integrating within the teams themselves. Scrummerfall continues to run rampant. The dichotomy of testing vs. quality—and balancing both the team’s and your focus—still exists. Delivering value is both an imperative and a challenge. In this dynamic workshop, join agile coaches Mary Thorn and Bob Galen to explore the tools, techniques, and mindset you must bring to the table to successfully test in agile contexts. Mary and Bob examine risk-based testing, iterative test planning, exploratory testing, agile...Read more

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Tutorial TF Technical Test Automation Challenges: Patterns and Solutions Preview
Seretta Gamba
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Many organizations find that test automation does not work as well as they thought it would. In many cases, these failures are due to generic technical reasons, which can be fixed with relative ease. Other solutions that have worked well are patterns, common to automation efforts at any level with whatever tools you are using. Seretta Gamba focuses on often-neglected technical issues—i.e., non-management issues—and the patterns that help solve them. These are not development or code patterns—this is a code-free tutorial. Using a set of patterns developed with Dot Graham, Seretta...Read more

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Tutorial TG Security Testing for Test Professionals Preview
Jeffery Payne
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Today’s software applications are often security critical, making security testing essential in a software quality program. Unfortunately, most testers have not been taught how to effectively test the security of the software applications they validate. Join Jeffery Payne as he shares what you need to know to integrate effective security testing into your everyday software testing activities. Learn how software vulnerabilities are introduced into code and exploited by hackers. Discover how to define and validate security requirements. Explore effective test techniques for assuring that...Read more

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Tutorial TH Data Analytics and Machine Learning Preview
Eun Chang, Ken Johnston
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Do you have access to lots and lots of test, development, app, and service data—really big data—from client and cloud service log files, test execution results, and more? Then, you have a great opportunity to begin using data analytics and machine learning (ML) to gain new product quality insights. Bring your laptops and your sense of discovery as Eun Chang introduce analysis techniques and ML tools to help you develop new and potentially groundbreaking insights. First, she will present a fast-paced statistics primer for those with no prior data exploration experience and others looking...Read more

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Tutorial TI Test Design for Fully Automated Build Architecture Preview NEW
Melissa Benua
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Imagine 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...Read more

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Tutorial TJ Test Estimation in the Face of Uncertainty Preview
Rob Sabourin
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Anyone who has ever attempted to estimate software testing effort realizes just how difficult the task can be. The number of factors that can affect the estimate is virtually unlimited. The keys to good estimates are understanding the primary variables, comparing them to known standards, and normalizing the estimates based on their differences. This is easy to say but difficult to accomplish because estimates are frequently required even when we know very little about the project—and what we do know is constantly changing. Throw in a healthy dose of politics and a bit of wishful thinking,...Read more

Lunch—12:00pm–1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Full- and Half-Day Tutorials Continue—1:00pm–4:30pm
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm
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Tutorial TK Agile Test Team Leadership: From Concept to Product Preview SOLD OUT
Bob Galen, Mary Thorn
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial TL How to Break Software: Robustness Edition Preview
Dawn Haynes
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Have you ever worked on a project where you felt testing was thorough and complete—all features were covered and all tests passed—yet in the first week in production the software had serious issues and problems? Join Dawn Haynes to learn how to inject robustness testing into your projects to uncover those issues before release. Robustness—an important and often overlooked area of testing—is the degree to which a system operates correctly in the presence of exceptional inputs or stressful environmental conditions. Dawn shows you how—by expanding basic tests and incorporating specific...Read more

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Tutorial TM Integrating Automated Testing into DevOps Preview
Jeffery Payne
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

In many organizations, agile development processes are driving the pursuit of faster software releases, which has spawned a set of new practices—DevOps. DevOps stresses communications and integration between development and operations, including rapid deployment, continuous integration, and continuous delivery. Because DevOps practices require confidence that changes made to the code base will function as expected, automated testing is essential. Join Jeffery Payne as he discusses the unique challenges associated with integrating automated testing into continuous integration/continuous...Read more

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Tutorial TN Unit Testing: What Every Developer and Tester Should Know Preview
Tariq King
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Do you want to take your testing skills to the next level? Are you trying to stay relevant on an agile team where testing is shifting to the left on the project timeline? Do you want to help your organization reap the full benefits of testing earlier? Then join Tariq King to explore the fundamentals of unit testing so you can find bugs as soon as they happen and do more thorough, targeted testing during software development. This introductory session is for everyone—of all programming skill levels. Learn how to apply program-based techniques such as testing by looking, automated unit...Read more

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Tutorial TO Performance Testing Services for Web and Cloud-Based Architectures Preview NEW
Amber Race
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Does your application have what it takes to handle the number of customers you expect—or hope for? Does it provide a quick, responsive experience for your users all the time? Join Amber Race to explore the performance testing tools and techniques you need to help ensure that your application is ready for the load from real users. If you are just getting started as a performance tester and wondering how to begin, Amber will take you through the basics and review the different facets of load and performance testing. You’ll learn how to analyze your application for potential issues, create...Read more

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Tutorial TP Testing Leadership IQ Preview
Jennifer Bonine
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Have you ever needed a way to measure your testing leadership IQ? Or been in a performance review where the majority of time was spent discussing your need to improve as a leader? If you have ever wondered what your core leadership competencies are and how to build on and improve them, Jennifer Bonine shares a toolkit to help you do just that. This toolkit includes a personal assessment of your leadership competencies and the evolution of testing and testing leadership. Join Jennifer as she explores a set of eight dimensions of successful leaders, provides suggestions on how you...Read more

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Tutorial TQ Shift Left to Test User Experience Preview
Isabel Evans
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

In today’s environment, the user experience (UX) is overwhelmingly important—and is not just about the product. UX describes all facets of a person’s interactions with and reactions to the product, the organization that supplies it, and the environment in which it is experienced. Isabel Evans says that in order to focus our tests appropriately, it is vital that we testers understand our users’ experiences. We need to explore and measure human, business, and societal impacts of products we develop, and how those are underpinned by technical qualities. Unless we “shift left” as testers and...Read more

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Tutorial TR Testing Today's Web Applications: Tools You Can Use Preview
Alan Page
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

I f you are a software tester in 2018, chances are you're testing a website or web application. Whether you are testing in a browser, within a web “wrapper” framework like Electron, or even a web app wrapped in a mobile application, your customers are using web apps and websites constantly—and they want them to work well. Our challenge in test, of course, is to test as thoroughly and efficiently as we can, given our time and resource constraints. Long time software testing veteran Alan Page demonstrates some of his favorite free or inexpensive tools for testing web apps and...Read more

Welcome Reception—4:30pm–5:30pm
4:30 pm to 5:30 pm

Wednesday, October 3

Registration and TechWell Experience—7:00am–5:30pm
7:00 am to 5:30 pm
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Bonus Session B1 Taking Flight: How Continuous Testing in DevOps will Help you Achieve Business Success Preview
Alex Martins, CA Technologies, Adam Auerbach, EPAM Systems
7:15 am to 8:15 am

Everyone talks about building great apps to gain a competitive edge, but there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work that is required before your app can take flight. Moving your organization to a continuous testing model is key to achieving business success for the long term. Join Continuous Testing experts Alex Martins of CA Technologies and Adam Auerbach of EPAM Systems as they discuss what it takes to get your flight team and your apps ready to soar! This lively panel discussion will be moderated by Jeff Hughes of CA Technologies who will ask them the tough questions that you want answered...Read more

Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
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Keynote K1 The Life of a Tester, from Once Upon a Time to Happily Ever After Preview
Jennifer Bonine, tap|QA, Janna Loeffler, Carnival Corp.
8:30 am to 9:45 am

Most 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...Read more

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Keynote K2 Testing Outside of the Box Preview
Jon Bach, eBay, Inc.
10:00 am to 11:00 am

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...Read more

Networking Break • Visit the Expo—10:30am–2:00pm
11:00 am to 11:30 am
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP1 Case Study: Effective Test approach for Multinational SAP Hybris digital commerce Projects Preview
Hailey Bak, WISEWIRES
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

● Understanding of Samsung e-Commerce platform project based on SAP Hybris digital Commerce ● Insights by Project Challenges and Mitigation Strategies ● Wisewires Global Service DeliveryRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP2 Accessibility Testing in Agile Preview
Travis Marasca, Deque Systems Inc.
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

• What is Accessibility and why is it important to my role on an Agile dev team? • How does test automation work with accessibility? • How can teams prevent issues before testing begins?Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP3 A Flight Plan For Your Continuous Testing Journey: Transforming the Traditional Testing COE Preview
Adam Auerbach, EPAM Systems, Alex Martins, CA Technologies, Stephen Feloney, CA Technologies
11:30 am to 12:15 pm

The pace of business continues to quicken and companies recognize that remaining competitive requires new methods for building, testing and releasing software. Release cadences have greatly accelerated. A 6- to 18-month find-and-fix turnaround is no longer acceptable.

Testing is no longer a single event. It is not something done when development is completed. Instead, it must be done by everyone all the time, even before development starts. Defects and problems must be identified early, instead of being caught or missed when the product reaches the customer.

This is where a “Flight Plan” for your Continuous Testing journey is required.

Join this insightful panel discussion with Adam Auerbach, Alex Martins and Stephen Feloney to learn the 11 Disciplines of Continuous Testing including practices such as Requirements Engineering, Virtualized Environments, Test Data Management, Performance Testing, Pipeline Orchestration and more. Learn what transformation must occur in your testing organization for DevOps success.Read more

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Concurrent Session W1 Fighting Test Flakiness: A Disease that Artificial Intelligence Will Cure Preview
Tariq King, Ultimate Software
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making it possible for computers to diagnose some medical diseases more accurately than doctors. Such systems analyze millions of patient records, recognize underlying data patterns, and generalize them for diagnosing previously unseen patients. A key challenge is determining whether a patient's symptoms and history are attributed to a known disease or other factors. Software testers face a similar problem when triaging automation failures. They investigate questions like, Is the failure due to a defect, environmental issue, or nondeterministic test script?...Read more

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Concurrent Session W2 7 Proven Ways to Ruin Your Test Automation Preview
Seretta Gamba, Freelancer
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Test automation projects fail, but why? Could you stop it from happening? In this tongue-in-cheek talk, Seretta Gamba will share seven proven methods to disrupt or utterly ruin a test automation project, including letting a lone champion keep important knowledge to himself, ignoring good programming practices, setting impossible goals, and feigning support. Seretta’s humorous recommendations will provide managers, testers, and automators alike with the early signs of an automation project in danger. By “warning” that the most effective defenses are found using the test automation...Read more

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Concurrent Session W3 Help! I am Drowning In 2 Week Sprints....Please Tell Me What NOT to Test! Preview
Mary Thorn, Mary Thorn Consulting
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Sometimes we allow ourselves to drown in work… Mary Thorn hears it all the time: testers complaining at retrospectives to their teams that they do not have enough time to test everything. She often sees testers work overtime the last week of a sprint to ensure the definition of done is accomplished. Why do they do this? Why do we, as testers, enable the bad behaviors of “Scrummerfall” or a lack of whole-team ownership of quality? Mary aims to arm testers with techniques that allow them to test smarter, not harder, and enable the testers and the team to have better conversations that make...Read more

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Concurrent Session W4 Testing In The Dark Preview
Rob Sabourin, AmiBug.com
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Isn’t it amazing? Stakeholders drop software on our desks and expect us to test it—without any requirements, design, or product knowledge whatsoever. About the only clear thing is the absurd and unrealistic deadline. We are expected to bend over backward, spread magic pixie dust, and heroically test quality into a product we have never heard of before. But testing in the dark is not impossible, and as Rob Sabourin shows, it can even be a very valuable and fun experience. Learn strategies to emerge from a murky fog into clear, meaningful quality insights and leverage unlikely sources about...Read more

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Concurrent Session W5 Reduce Wait Time with Simulation + Test Data Management Preview
Chris Colosimo, Parasoft
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Data has become the most significant roadblock that testers face today. In fact, up to 60% of a tester’s time is spent waiting for data. Chris Colosimo shows that many factors contribute to this wait time, including internal requirements from the test data management team to pull data in the proper form, wait times for sanitized or “test-safe” data, or, most importantly, building data sets that do not exist. Compounding these challenges is the inherit complexity of today’s data. You have to be a DBA to even begin to understand the structure and relationships needed to support your testing...Read more

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Concurrent Session W6 The Logic of Verification Preview
Michael Bolton, DevelopSense
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Software testing is sometimes described as “verification and validation”—or, according to Wikipedia, “the process of checking that a software system meets specifications and that it fulfills its intended purpose.” Yet, renowned tester and teacher Michael Bolton argues, if we examine the concept and logic of verification, we quickly recognize that there are serious limitations to what can and cannot be checked and verified. This is not to say that checking is a bad thing—on the contrary; checking can be very valuable. Still, it’s important for testers and their clients to recognize the...Read more

Lunch in the Expo—12:30pm–1:30pm
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP4 DevOps/Agile Leaders vs Laggards: New Forrester Research on What Software Testing Practices and Metrics Really Matter Preview
Wayne Ariola, Tricentis
12:45 pm to 1:30 pm

A new Forrester research project surveyed over 600 organizations to determine what matters the most for DevOps and Agile success. The research discovered high-level findings like: 1) They are transforming software testing into continuous testing by adopting five core practices. 2) Experts focus primarily on contextual metrics (e.g., requirements coverage) while others focus on “counting” metrics (e.g., number of tests). 3) Experts are more likely to measure the user experience across an end-to-end transaction while others rely on application-specific or team-specific metrics.

This session by Wayne Ariola, author of Continuous Testing for IT Leaders, provides a detailed analysis of the research findings—including the 20 most important quality metrics that separate DevOps/Agile experts from their less advanced peers. All attendees will gain complimentary access to the complete report.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP5 A Fresh Start: How The Pokémon Company International Focuses on Quality Preview
Earl Adona, Mobile Labs, Jim Griffin, The Pokémon Company International
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

· Learn how The Pokémon Company International (TPCi) got it right the first time by developing the right processes and infrastructure from the ground up. · Discover how TPCi worked with key mobility partners to successfully build a mobile device pool capable of powering digital transformation. · Find out how TPCi created an internal culture of collaboration and support.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP6 The Future of Test Automation: Resolving the Quality/Velocity using AI Preview
Oren Rubin, Testim
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

● Current challenges of test automation ● How to leverage AI to overcome software quality pitfalls ● The future of test automation and how to prepare for itRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP7 Software Metrics Worth Measuring: Aligning Business Goals to Quality Metrics Preview
Adam Satterfield, Anthem
1:45 pm to 2:30 pm

In this session, you will learn how to gather the metrics for 3 key areas to demonstrate business value, including: - The cost of a defect - Efficiency gains from test automation - Risk identification through coverage metricsRead more

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Concurrent Session W10 The Art of Software Investigation Preview
Ben Simo, Medidata Solutions, Inc.
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

Although processes and tools play an important role in software testing, the most important testing tool is the mind. Like scientists, testers search for new knowledge and share discoveries—hopefully for the betterment of people’s lives. More than sixty years ago, William I.B. Beveridge reframed discussion of scientific research in his classic book The Art of Scientific Investigation . Rather than add to the many texts on the scientific method, he focused on the mind of the scientist. Join Ben Simo as he applies Beveridge’s principles and techniques for scientific investigation to software...Read more

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Concurrent Session W11 Use Soap Opera Testing to Twist Real-Life Stories into Test Ideas Preview
Hans Buwalda, LogiGear
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

Reality is a great source of inspiration. Real-life situations can present complexities that are not always anticipated—and, as a consequence, not always handled well. Business functional tests should try to present situations that are routed in reality but also aren’t too obvious. Testing and automation pioneer Hans Buwalda came up with a concept for test design called "soap opera testing" based on this concept. It is a style of writing tests where one writes as if they were episodes in an imaginary soap opera on television. Soap opera episodes are based on real life, but usually they are...Read more

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Concurrent Session W12 Improve Planning Estimates by Reducing Your Human Biases Preview
Andrew Brown, SQS
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

Are you puzzled about why your estimate turned out wrong, or stressed from working to meet an impossible deadline? Some teams on inaccurately estimated projects suffer stress, burnout, and poor quality as pressure is applied to stick to an unrealistic schedule. Such project teams also descend into irrational decision-making—with potentially catastrophic consequences. Frustratingly, even when teams perform well, they are often judged by their failure to meet impossible deadlines. Andrew Brown will show how estimation errors are caused not just by new technology or intentionally...Read more

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Concurrent Session W7 Marrying Artificial Intelligence with Software Testing: Challenges & Opportunities Preview
Wendy Siew Wen Chin, Intel Corporation, Heng Kar Lau, Intel Corporation
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

Emerging technologies such as the internet of things (IoT) and cloud computing have introduced a significant software variety and complexity. Wendy Siew Wen Chin and Heng Kar Lau explain that testers are challenged to support a wide product portfolio within harsh time, resource and budget constraints. More test automation may seem to be a solution to test efficiency, however there are many inefficient hot spots throughout the test automation life cycle. Join Wendy and Heng Kar as they share their experiences from the Intel IoT team. They share how to make use of artificial intelligence (AI...Read more

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Concurrent Session W8 No More Shelfware—Let’s Drive Preview
Isabel Evans, Independent Consultant
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

When Isabel Evans learned to drive a car, she also learned how to check, clean, and change spark plugs, mend the fan belt with a stocking, and indicate speed and direction changes with arm and hand signals. Now, we don’t expect to have to do any of those things; we just drive the car. That’s how test tools and automation could be. Just drive and concentrate on the journey of delivering software continuously—concentrate on engineering the solutions, not on the automation. To be effective engineers, we need the support of a powerful toolset that we understand. Is that what we have? Or do we...Read more

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Concurrent Session W9 Managing BDD Automation Test Cases inside Test Management Systems Preview
Max Saperstone, Coveros
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm

Behavior-driven development (BDD) has been around for a while and is here to stay. However, the added abstraction levels pose a technical problem for writing and managing tests. While BDD does a great job of marrying the nontechnical aspect of test writing to the technical flow of an application under test, keeping this information under source control becomes problematic. Frameworks such as JBehave, Cucumber, or Robot give subject matter experts that additional ability to write tests, but they are often restricted access from them; because people treat test cases as code, they get stored...Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP10 5 Essential Elements of a Successful CT Environment Preview
Eran Kinsbruner, Perfecto
3:00 pm to 3:45 pm

1. Frameworks: Open source, commercial or a combination? Learn the pros and cons, and determine which test framework is right for you 2. Test Automation: Get a how-to guide for deciding which tests to automate and when to run them 3. Coding: Learn best practices for developing test automation code the right way to save time and reduce flakiness 4. Measurement: Identify KPIs that matter 5. Fast Feedback: Ensure the best possible mean time to resolution (MTTR)Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP8 ASTQB Road Map to Building Quality - and Your Career Preview
Debbie Friedenberg, Northbay Software Testing Group
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

• The official ASTQB Road Map makes it easy • Develop skills in everything from test automation to performance to mobile testing • Learn how it helps your career whether you test part time or full time • Discover how you can use these skills for recognition and advancementRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP9 Agile Teams Deserve Agile Testing Preview
Bria Grangard, SmartBear Software, Jonathan Fortunati, SmartBear
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Highlights include:

• When to leverage automation for maximum Return on Investment • The importance of reusability through every step of your development and testing process • Test Management for on-demand execution to deploy faster with higher qualityRead more

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Concurrent Session W13 How to Automate Testing for Next-Generation Interfaces (BOTs, Alexa, Mobile) Preview
Sanil Pillai, Infostretch
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Today’s IT systems communicate with customers through multiple points of engagement and various interfaces, ranging from web, mobile, and voice to BOTs and apps like Alexa and Siri. Sanil Pillai says these systems need to provide seamless handoffs between different points of interaction—while at the same time providing relevant and contextual information quickly. To accomplish this, a team must be able to successfully pair device hardware capabilities and intelligent software technologies such as location intelligence, biometric sensing, and Bluetooth. Sanil shows that testing...Read more

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Concurrent Session W14 Automation and Test Strategies to Save Our Project from the Brink of Collapse Preview
Jonathan Solórzano-Hamilton, Procore Technologies
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Teams are sometimes asked to turn a mess of undocumented, poorly structured legacy code into a robust product under impossible deadlines. Test strategies blending automation, exploration, and refactoring can help focus development efforts and converge even the most chaotic projects. But, where do you start? Join Jonathan Solórzano-Hamilton as he shows how automation can help drive products into a state of release readiness. Learn how refactoring, test-driven development, SOLID principles, dependency injection, and mocking frameworks help break down complex development problems into...Read more

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Concurrent Session W15 Compliance and Agility—How It Can Be Done Preview
Aprajita Mathur, Guardant Health
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Delivering a compliant product is a resource intensive and challenging activity for most teams. Whether a team is trying to adhere to company, industry, or international standards, it needs to produce deliverables under tight deadlines with the right level of quality. When you work with Forensic teams the stakes are high! Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) is a new forensic DNA sequencing technology which can result in increased detection ability for degraded and complex mixture samples. It can also provide ancestry and physical trait information which help's narrow down suspects....Read more

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Concurrent Session W16 Rediscover Exploratory Testing Preview
Ingo Philipp, Tricentis
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

The testing community is caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to exploratory testing. Although exploratory testing has been around for ages, it often leads to more confusion than clarity. Is exploratory testing an activity-something that you do? Or is it an approach-a way or a style of doing something? Isn't all testing exploratory? When do you do it? How do you do it properly? How does it relate to the entire software lifecycle? To answer these questions, join Ingo Philipp as he shares the most common confusions and controversies on this topic. He explains what exploratory...Read more

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Concurrent Session W17 Engineering for Compatibility Preview
Melissa Benua, mParticle
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Modern software development has brought us an incredibly powerful tool: continuous integration and deployment. However, taking advantage of this new system isn’t always straightforward. With powerful new tools come powerful new ways of making mistakes that can take your product down in a heartbeat. Melissa Benua has years of experience making CI and CD work for her, with lots of insights—both good and not so good. Come and learn from her as she shares key tips and tricks for coding and testing for both forward and backward compatibility in software releases. Useful for both traditional...Read more

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Concurrent Session W18 Risk Based Testing: Communicating WHY You Can't Test Everything Preview
Jenny Bramble, WillowTree Apps
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

The idea of testing everything is a popular one—in fact many stakeholders think that’s exactly what their quality teams do. It usually isn’t and can’t be; but how can teams communicate this? Join Jenny Bramble as she helps to pave the way using the language of risk-based testing. By defining risk in two simple parts, the team and project have a tangible and usable metric. She shares how to apply this metric and use it to determine where the team should focus testing, making it more effective and efficient whilst communicating that effort through the creation of a risk matrix. As a result,...Read more

Networking Break • Visit the Expo—3:30pm–6:30pm
4:00 pm to 6:30 pm
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Keynote K3 Lightning Strikes the Keynotes Preview
Rob Sabourin, AmiBug.com
4:15 pm to 5:15 pm

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...Read more

Reception in the Expo Hall 5:30pm–6:30pm
5:30 pm to 6:30 pm
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Bonus Session B2 The Future of AI in Software Development Preview
Raj Rao, AutonomiQ
6:45 pm to 7:45 pm

Generations of software engineers and QA personnel have been slowed down and nearly brought to a standstill by the vexing and intractable problem that so much manual effort is still relied upon in the software development and testing processes: transforming stories to test cases; transforming test cases to test scripts; generating and stewarding test data to support rapid and large scale testing; responding to application and business process changes – all these things have largely or exclusively been manual efforts, to-date. The real change and the real acceleration in development...Read more

Thursday, October 4

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Bonus Session B3 The State of API Testing: New Industry Survey Results Highlight the Challenges of Test Automation Preview
Theresa Lanowitz, voke, inc., Mark Lambert, Parasoft
7:15 am to 8:15 am

APIs provide the core business logic that powers today’s modern applications, but when you couple the technology with the accelerated adoption of microservice-based architectures, and today’s rapid Agile development cycles, you open the door for significant business risks. API testing has become a critical methodology for test teams in order to mitigate these risks, as well as keep pace with development efforts. However, many organizations face challenges that result in struggling to scale API testing and recognize the true value of the practice. Join voke founder/analyst Theresa Lanowitz...Read more

Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Registration and TechWell Experience—8:00am–5:00pm
8:00 am to 5:00 pm
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Keynote K4 Be the Lord of Your OWN Rings: How to Build Your OWN Insider Testing Program Preview
Dona Sarkar, Microsoft
8:30 am to 9:45 am

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...Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP11 Applying Machine Learning and Data-Driven Architecture to Selenium Preview
Greg Messer, TurnKey Solutions
9:45 am to 10:45 am

• Discover how machine learning can be leveraged for the fully automatic creation of automated test cases. • Understand what defines true data driven testing. • Learn more about test management, executing, and reporting.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP12 There’s More to Automation Than Just Testing Preview
Marianne Hollier, HCL Technologies, Matt Tarnawsky, HCL Technologies, Christopher Haggan, HCL Technologies
9:45 am to 10:45 am

You may have been told “we need to automate all our test scripts” or “we need to test faster, so let’s automate our tests”, but automating only tests likely will not improve your quality or time to market. Applications are continuing to become more and more complex, with integrations to back-end mainframe systems all the way to mobile devices, and everything in between. With this additional complexity, delivering high-quality applications in a timely manner is difficult.

We share how looking at your delivery pipeline to determine where improvements can be made is necessary for removing bottlenecks and streamlining application delivery. We show you examples of how our clients improved their delivery cycles and overall efficiency by implementing service virtualization, test automation, deployment automation, and other continuous delivery best practices and tools.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP13 Continuous Testing Made Awesome with Sauce Labs Preview
Kunal Makhija, Sauce Labs
9:45 am to 10:30 am

• Overview of how to run your automated Selenium tests in the Sauce Labs cloud • Decrease the amount of time it takes your suite to run by executing tests in parallel • Ensure your apps work all of the time with functional testing on real devicesRead more

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Concurrent Session T1 Evolution—Not Revolution: Transforming Your Testing Preview
Julie Gardiner, Independent Consultant
9:45 am to 10:45 am

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...Read more

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Concurrent Session T2 Frontend Testing: Stepping in and Collaborating with Developers Preview
Gil Tayar, Applitools
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Testing is shifting left, moving closer to testing the code itself before the full product is ready for release. While the backend world already has established methodologies for testing, frontend developers and testers are still trying to figure out how to work together to effectively test the code. Gil Tayar suggests testers need to communicate with the frontend developers to understand the framework by which frontend code is tested, the various kinds of testing that can be performed on frontend code, and which tools can be used. During this session, Gil helps ease your fear of the...Read more

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Concurrent Session T3 Being More Agile Without Doing Agile Preview
Dawn Haynes, PerfTestPlus, Inc.
9:45 am to 10:45 am

The most common requests Dawn Haynes gets as a consultant these days is to help testers transition to an agile development process, or to help testers be more effective in “agile-ish” environments. But Dawn recognises that transforming the process and the environment is not enough. Interestingly, the core answer to these questions starts with forgetting the process for a moment and focusing on yourself and what you’re trying to accomplish. Being agile starts with a mindset and an attitude that drive focus, approaches, and solutions. When you start there, the path to improvement can almost...Read more

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Concurrent Session T4 Building a Modern DevOps Enterprise Testing Organization Preview
Adam Auerbach, EPAM Systems
9:45 am to 10:45 am

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...Read more

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Concurrent Session T5 Working with Anxiety: From Personal Weakness to Career Strength Preview
Julene Johnson, Lucid Software Inc.
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Each of us has personal weaknesses that are often perceived to have negative impacts on performance and capability in the workplace. When this weakness is prominent to yourself or others, are you capable of benefiting IT teams and qualified to do the job? In dealing with negative impacts of her Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Julene Johnson falls into this category and has experienced personal doubt in her ability to perform her job well. Over time, however, she’s noticed that habits and techniques developed while dealing with anxiety can be applied in a manner that improves her...Read more

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Concurrent Session T6 What Aircrews Can Teach Testing Teams Preview
Peter Varhol, Kanda Software, Gerie Owen, QualiTest Group, Inc.
9:45 am to 10:45 am

United Flight 232 should have crashed with all 296 lives lost. Asiana Flight 214 should not have crashed at all. But the reality is very different. Peter Varhol and Gerie Owen explain that the critical difference between the two flights was the interactions of their respective aircrews. United Flight 232 divided up responsibilities and worked as a team, using Aircrew Resource Management (ARM) to guide how the crew behaved during the flight, and especially in a crisis. Asiana Flight 214 deferred to the captain, neither communicating nor questioning his decisions in crisis. ARM...Read more

Networking Break • Visit the Expo—10:45am–3:00pm
10:45 am to 11:15 am
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP14 Assuring Business Outcomes through Customer Experience Optimization Preview
Michael Giacometti, Eggplant
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

• Customer experience monitoring can provide insights on how real users are using a software process and whether the system is meeting its business goals. • Software can be tested in terms of customer experience, rather than the traditional view of functional, performance or other forms of testing. • Customer experience insights can be used to link the world of customer analytics back to the development process — to provide a tangible improvement in code which can have a measurable business improvement benefit.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP15 Leveraging Intelligent Test Automation for Agile and DevOps Preview
Harshal Vora, QMetry
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

· While implementing Agile and DevOps practices, the key challenge is to deliver applications at high velocity along with achieving quality and efficiency through a smarter adoption of test automation. · The new paradigm in automation is driven by tools with Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning capabilities that offer predictive and prescriptive quality analytics to generate actionable intelligence. · This is achieved through a Digital Quality Platform providing data-driven testing, AI optimized test coverage, BDD scripting and intelligent customized reports and dashboards.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP16 Back to The Future of Test Automation: Technologies from the future that you can use today Preview
Chris Colosimo, Parasoft, Nathan Jakubiak, Parasoft
11:15 am to 12:00 pm

You will learn how to: · Simplify the process of building comprehensive API test scenarios by leveraging artificial intelligence · Use machine learning to make your test automation tool better every day · Instantly aggregate code changes with coverage gaps to quickly pinpoint the impact of code changesRead more

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Concurrent Session T10 Automate Your Application Test Deployments with Docker Preview
Artem Golubev, TestRigor
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

In a busy world, testing teams are asked to adopt new approaches to increase speed and flexibility of change. What methods and tools can help? Artem Golubev has seen many testing teams being told to use Docker. But for testers, this brings confusion. What it Docker and why is Docker useful to testers? How can Docker be used to increase confidence in our releases? To help you answer those questions, Artem shares his experience using this popular tool and approach. Starting with terminology Artem shares what is meant by Dockerfile, Docker Image, Docker Container, Compose, Kubernetes...Read more

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Concurrent Session T11 What's an API and How Do I Test It? Preview
Paul Merrill, Beaufort Fairmont Automated Testing Services
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

API-based applications have become ubiquitous in the past few years. Yet many of us still really don't know what an API is from the inside out. Moreover, many of us don't know much about how to comprehensively test them! Join Paul Merrill to learn what everyone is doing and talking about, related to APIs: microservices, REST, endpoints, requests, request methods, and responses. Paul demonstrates four free tools you can use to directly interact with a simple API: curl, the browser, Postman, and Java (with Rest Assured). Learn techniques for testing APIs at the service level and how to test...Read more

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Concurrent Session T12 7 Fundamentals of a Successful Testing Team Preview
Greg Paskal, Ramsey Solutions
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

You want to build an effective testing team, but you’re asking yourself, “Where do I begin?” Greg Paskal, a quality assurance engineer with over thirty years of testing experience, shares seven keys to building a successful testing team. Learn the fundamentals every tester should know and how to build upon them to achieve an effective manual and automated testing strategy. Greg’s minimal essential testing strategy (METS), coupled with his proven experience, will help you build an amazing testing organization. Greg will provide specific instruction through each of these seven areas...Read more

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Concurrent Session T7 Building a Skilled Testing Practice In an Innovative Digital Agency Preview
Nimesh Patel, Valtech Canada
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

Everybody 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...Read more

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Concurrent Session T8 Delivering the Goods: Harmonizing Regulated and Agile Practices Preview
Griffin Jones, Congruent Compliance
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

Agile testing is hard. Testers contend with terse requirements, minimal process, little documentation, continually evolving business, technical and organizational factors. Auditors demand proof of compliance. Some teams have trouble conforming to regulations while preserving agile practices. Griffin Jones, a tenured regulated software testing consultant, says “not only can agile practices blend with regulatory compliance - they can be harmonized with them leading to high quality and more agility.” Griffin feels that regulators are project stakeholders, who join the product owner in...Read more

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Concurrent Session T9 Agile Performance Testing in the Real World Preview
Amit Patel, Total Performance Consulting
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

Performance issues substantially impact quality, cost, and customer confidence. Agile teams are challenged to build in performance processes throughout the lifecycle, but it is critical to incorporate performance into your CI/CD pipeline. Join Amit Patel as he shares his recent project experiences and the steps his team took to change processes, leverage different technologies, and align internal stakeholders. He explains how they use production-monitoring solutions to create a real-world production feedback loop in order to ensure they can analyze data and turn the information...Read more

Lunch in the Expo—12:30pm–1:30pm
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP17 It’s All About The Peeps: Hiring And Retaining High-Performing Teams Preview
Kirk Walton, tap|QA
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm

Learn how to attract, and keep, the best team for YOUR company, even in today’s competitive market! We currently live in an impossibly tight market for IT Talent. It is extremely tough to assemble a top-notch QA / Automation / DevOps team. Sometimes, it’s even tougher to keep the “peeps” on that team together! This can make or break a successful SDLC organization!

In this presentation, we’ll cover strategies on how to build the best team possible for YOUR organization, with tips on how to make talented individuals fall in love with your team, the right questions to ask in an interview to ensure you are hiring the right people, and what to do once your team is built to keep your high-performers happy and motivated to stay with your team over the long haul! We’ll provide a best practices guide as a takeaway after the presentation is complete.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP18 Don’t Break on Me: Using Machine Learning to Automatically Adjust Tests to Frequent Changes in Web Apps Preview
Dror Todress, TestCraft
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm

• How ML can be applied to test automation maintenance • Leveraging manual testers’ knowledge by using codeless Selenium • Real examples of ML algorithms implementation & statistics • Q&A sessionRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP19 Improve Resource Sharing, Lower Costs and Optimize Your Test Lab Network Preview
Steven Shalita, Pluribus Networks
12:30 pm to 1:15 pm

In this session we will discuss how SDN can help you to:

· Create, automate and provision production-like test environments in minutes, not days · Cable once and automate to instantly share expensive local and remote lab resources · Leverage the programmability and cost-efficiencies of SDN to automate and streamline test lab operations · Cost-effectively support next-generation interfaces with upgradeability to 10, 25, 40 and 100 Gigabit connections · Gain real-time visibility into lab performance and efficiency with embedded network visibility, analytics and resource utilizationRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP20 Scaling Test Automation with Environment-as-a-Service Preview
Pascal Joly, Quali
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

• The pitfalls organizations typically encounter as they deploy test automation • A practical approach to scale your test automation initiative • Specific examples/case study where this approach has been implementedRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP21 Enterprise Test Management Right Inside Jira with KBC Group Preview
Vitor Pelizza, Adaptavist
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

· Using Adaptavist Test Management for Jira to accelerate delivery and improve the quality of the KBC Group products · Migrating from legacy test management solutions · Managing test cases and tracking test executions right inside JiraRead more

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Concurrent Session T13 AI for Testing Today (Panel: Part I) Preview
Tariq King, Ultimate Software, Jason Arbon, test.ai
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

How can we apply AI to the testing problems of today? What works and what doesn't work? Are there any critical lessons that have been learned? This panel discusses AI frameworks and approaches that are most useful today for testing real world systems. Hear advice from the folks that have had successes and failures applying AI to real world testing problems so you can avoid the same mistakes and bring back proven techniques for applying AI to software testing challenges.Read more

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Concurrent Session T14 Mission Critical Automation Testing Preview
Mike Keith, Progressive Insurance, Domonic Nunley, Progressive Insurance
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

When critical subsystems fail, the resulting losses can be catastrophic. In the insurance industry, if premiums are miscalculated, defect costs can reach well over a million dollars. In this session, Mike Keith and Dom Nunley draw on their practical experience with insurance systems testing to provide an overview of combinatorial automation testing for high-risk backend system areas—i.e., features that absolutely must work correctly. They share a process for categorizing requirement risk levels to determine which requirements warrant combinatorial testing. Mike and Dom illustrate various...Read more

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Concurrent Session T15 Troubleshooting and Understanding Modern Systems: Tools Testers Need Preview
Chris Blain, Medidata Solutions, Inc.
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Successful agile testers collaborate with programmers as code is written, isolating problems, troubleshooting defects, and debugging code all along the way to getting the product to done. But modern systems are scaling beyond what traditional teams are able to understand using familiar tools. New appreciation for systems and complexity theory, as well as disciplines and tools around emerging areas such as observability and resilience engineering, are offering solutions that allow teams to actively debug their systems and explore properties and patterns they have not defined in advance....Read more

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Concurrent Session T16 What You Can't Measure, You Can't Improve: Measurements for a Continuous Delivery Organization Preview
Ashwin Desai, Hudl
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Ashwin Desai has faced the daunting challenge of using measurements and metrics to assess and improve product quality through process change. Join him as he shares what he learned on the journey to move the sports technology firm Hudl from a reactive approach to quality to quantitative, data driven, proactive means to improve product quality. Just as Hudl itself provides the ability for coaches and teams to analyze and improve their performance based on data, they wanted to move the teams building Hudl to use the same approach to improve quality. Ashwin shares how they selected...Read more

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Concurrent Session T17 Testing Imprecise Requirements Preview
David Gelperin, ClearSpecs Enterprises
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Articles on abc.net and elsewhere reported that Volvo has recently discovered a non-traditional requirement: Any self-driving vehicle approved for use outside Australian cities must recognize kangaroos on or near the roadway and take proper actions. The kangaroo’s bounce confused the large animal detector! In this session, industry expert David Gelperin shares a new perspective on the value of imprecise requirements and explores the nature of testing them. Excess precision may hamper the development of optimal solutions by excluding effective designs. Imprecise statements reduce the risk...Read more

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Concurrent Session T18 Why "Why...?" Can Be the Most Important Question for QA to Ask Preview
Jane Jeffers, Riot Games
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

To test a product, there are so many questions to ask, and so little time in which to ask them. More often than not, we get caught up in the who, what, when, and how, but Jane Jeffers from Riot Games explains that “why…?” questions can be the most important ones to ask when it comes to QA work. When missing the whys, we can wind up only focusing on specific details like who needs to do the work or when our deadlines are, and subsequently lose the bigger picture of why a project matters, and why we do what we do. Learn some of the key ways that you can ask why for product, for...Read more

Networking Break • Visit the Expo—Closes at 3:00pm
2:30 pm to 3:00 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP23 Your Path To Promotion and Visual AI Preview
James Lamberti, Applitools​: AI-powered Visual Testing and Monitoring
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

We know - you’re sick of hearing about AI - but what if you could harness it to plot a new course for your career? Get yourself a raise and promotion? Have recruiters calling you with attractive new job opportunities? Visual AI is here. It’s not a vision for the future. It’s not science fiction. It’s a technology allowing manual testers to plot a new career path for themselves.

It’s time for manual testers to step out from the back room and into the limelight. A new professional career track is yours for the taking.

Join this session to learn: (i) Evolution of manual testing role in the era of digital transformation (ii) Prove your ROI in the age of test automation: emerging career paths for manual testers (iii) Leverage technology to your advantage: best practices of getting started with Visual AIRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP24 The Future of AI in Software Development Preview
Raj Rao, AutonomiQ
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

• Software Testing is the greatest drag on rapid Software Innovation • Continuous/Autonomous Technology is the Path to Relieving the log jam in Software Engineering • The Anatomy of the Solution: Scriptless Testing, Dynamic Synthetic Data, Continuous ExecutionRead more

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Concurrent Session T19 AI for Testing Tomorrow (Panel: Part II) Preview
Tariq King, Ultimate Software, Jason Arbon, test.ai
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

What does AI mean for the future of testing? What aspects of testing will the machines replace? What things will AI soon be better than humans at and what things will humans always do better than AI? This panel explores the future of AI for testing including thoughts on how humans can prepare for a future of testing where we work alongside AI. Hear experts discuss their views on the future impact of AI in testing and where the boundary between human and AI-powered testing truly lives.Read more

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Concurrent Session T20 An Innovative Test Automation Approach without Making Test Cases Preview
Mehmet Duran, ProRail, Hatim Chahim, ProRail
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Does test automation need traditional test cases? Mehmet Duran says no. Using the open source tool TESTAR, he devised an innovative approach to automated testing. Join Mehmet as he shares the research he conducted to solve this challenge and how he confirmed his findings by comparing test approaches using a new framework with the quality attributes of learnability and usability. Mehmet will also describe he worked with Hatim Chahim of Prorail on a real-world railroad project to try out his theory. After applying the framework, results showed that within this setting, the test automation...Read more

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Concurrent Session T21 Everything I Learned about Automation, I Learned from Saturday Morning Cartoons Preview
Chris Loder, InGenius Software
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Do you remember sitting in front of the television as a kid enjoying your favorite Saturday morning cartoons? Chris Loder shows you how the lessons we learned from those cartoons apply to our everyday work in test automation. Wait until you hear what we’ve learned from the likes of Scooby Doo®, Wile E. Coyote®, and many other favorites! Like Bugs Bunny®, maybe we should “have taken that left turn at Albuquerque” and possibly done things a little differently. Discover how the animators in Spiderman® didn’t redraw every background but reused the animation cells, similar to our reusing pieces...Read more

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Concurrent Session T22 A Tale of Continuous Testing Preview
David Lumpkin, Craftsy
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

When the atmosphere is hostile to QA, and yet the demands on the QA Team are increasing, how do you transform a team where everything is tested and deployed manually, to an organization that delivers great software multiple times a day? Where do you start and how do you create the strategy for implementing Continuous Testing? Join David Lumpkin as he shares his company's journey to answer these questions and the team's evolution along the way. Over a three-year period, Craftsy went from an environment hostile towards QA, to one that embraces automation and exploratory testing,...Read more

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Concurrent Session T23 Measuring and Maximizing Crowdsourced Vulnerability Discovery Preview
Mike Shema, Cobalt.io
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

There are many crowdsourcing vulnerability discovery techniques available today, making it difficult for testers to choose an approach that finds important vulnerabilities while offering the best bang for the buck. Join Mike Shema as he shares several years of real-world data that will help you understand the different discovery techniques, such as bug bounty programs and scanners, and the best time to use each technique. Mike also will discuss how your approach may change according to your lifecycle, and ways to think about integrating security within that process. You'll see how metrics...Read more

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Concurrent Session T24 Risk Based Testing – Are You Talking the Talk, Or Walking the Walk? Preview
Gitte Ottosen, Capgemini
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Risk-based testing is essential to focus our testing, but it is not always easy to apply to our projects. Risk management tends to focus more on project and process risks (i.e., Will we make the deadline? Do we follow our processes?) and less on the product risks that can act as a foundation for a risk-based approach to test. Including this aspect of risk in your test coverage will give you a solid foundation for defining a test strategy that implements and executes the right tests with the right intensity to mitigate the most critical product risks. In this presentation, Gitte...Read more

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Keynote K5 Testing Your Tests: Securing Confidence In Your Automation Preview
Max Saperstone, Coveros
4:15 pm to 5:15 pm

The growth of automation testing in today’s software development organizations is changing the way we test applications. Software development practices have matured over the last thirty years to include all forms of testing in order to verify software quality. In the last ten years, there has been a huge spike in the adoption of automated tests, effectively replacing some manual testing practices and supplementing traditional testing activities. Many parts of the software development industry, however, are wary of replacing manual testing with automated testing. Not only is there often a...Read more

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Leadership Summit Session SMT1 Reception and Summit Kickoff: As a Leader, What Is Keeping You Up at Night? Preview
Jeffery Payne, Coveros
5:30 pm to 6:30 pm

Kickoff the Testing & Quality Leadership Summit with a reception and some networking.Read more

Friday, October 5

Registration Desk Hours—7:30am–3:00pm
7:30 am to 3:00 pm
Continental Breakfast—8:00am–8:30am
8:00 am to 8:30 am
Bonus Sessions—8:30am-4:30pm
8:30 am to 4:30 pm
Testing & Quality Leadership Summit (Summit Registration Required) 8:30am–4:30pm
8:30 am to 4:30 pm
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Testing & Quality Leadership Summit
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

"Empowering Leadership within Your Organization" Thursday, October 4 (evening) and Friday, October 5 (all day)

The business world is changing faster than ever. Dynamic global markets are forcing organizations to adjust to meet ever changing customer demands. Advances in technology are providing both opportunities and challenges for our software product lines. Join in the conversation with your peers as experienced business leaders share ways to manage quality in the face of change. Work with your peers to...Read more

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Women Who Test
8:30 am to 4:00 pm

Women Who Test is a full-day event on Friday, October 5 for women to network with other women who work in software testing. It is also a day to learn from and be inspired by each other. The program will cover testing topics and will support women’s personal and career journeys and include content like: reengineering your life, growing your personal brand, setting goals, discovering your career superpowers, and how to problem-solve when you are a female in the tech industry where your gender is out numbered 7:3. Join women...Read more

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Bonus Session B4 The Workshop on Regulated Software Testing (WREST) Preview
John McConda, Moser Consulting, Bill Moseley, Bayside Consultants
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

Join us at The Workshop on Regulated Software Testing (WREST)—a free, full-day bonus session held on Friday after the conference concludes. A unique peer workshop, WREST is dedicated to improving the practice of testing regulated systems. We define regulated software as any system that is subject to an internal or external review. WREST relies on its attendees to make the workshop a success. There are no formal presentations, only experience reports with plenty of time designated for facilitated discussion. We hope to learn from each other by hearing the success and (especially!) failure stories of real practitioners who test regulated software. Have a problem you want input on solving? You can bring that to the workshop as well—just be prepared to participate! WREST is hosted by John McConda and Bill Moseley. NOTE: Limited seats are available. Reserve your seat when you register online for the conference or by contacting the Client Support Group at 888.268.8770 or [email protected]Read more

Lunch—12:00pm–1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Leadership Summit & Bonus Sessions Continue—1:00pm–4:30pm
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm