STARWEST 2019 - Test Leadership

Testing is fundamentally associated with understanding requirements and risk. We use test design techniques to deliver what is required by our customers, and we use testing to help our customers assess risk at every stage of the software’s life. These goals give us a focus for what to test and what to report, but they also present tricky and changing targets. Join Isabel Evans to practice using test design techniques in multiple ways, not just to design tests for execution, but also to understand risks, clarify requirements, and report the information that is most useful to our team and...

With the advent of frameworks like Angular, React, and Vue, the landscape of application performance has changed significantly in terms of testing and measurement. Gone are the days of measuring response time as a single value based on back-end performance. In modern web and mobile applications, additional layers need to be peeled apart at the front end to truly understand its performance characteristics. Traditional approaches to performance testing are no longer sufficient to provide a delightfully responsive user experience. Join Kaushal Dalvi as he details new developments in the...

To be most effective, leaders—including development and testing managers, ScrumMasters, product owners, and IT managers—need metrics to help direct their efforts and make informed recommendations about the software’s release readiness and associated risks. Because one important evaluation activity is to “measure” the quality of the software, the progress and results of both development and testing must be measured. Collecting, analyzing, and using metrics are complicated because developers and testers often are concerned that the metrics will be used against them. Join Mike Sowers as he...

A decade ago Microsoft had over twelve thousand full-time testers, and when you added up all the contract and outsourced testers too, there were more software test engineers than developers. The test automation solutions alone had more than a hundred million lines of code. However, that process was built for a company that would release a new version of a monopoly-scale product once every three years and ship it on a CD. That world had already begun to change, and Microsoft was missing the boat. When Microsoft tester Ken Johnston first encountered agile development and DevOps, he realized...

A software test is no better than the data that drives it. Fuzz testing is a great way to find buggy, exploitable, or otherwise bad code – and if you’re working with a native application that operates on file input, it’s a solved problem. Grab AFL or some other all-in-one suite, hit go, and profit! But what about web services? What about managed applications? For a service-based developer, fuzz testing your HTTP serving layer isn’t all that interesting if you’re running on the latest version of Apache. Fuzz testing your application along its interface boundaries, though? Very interesting...

By now you have probably heard that there should be a healthy tension between the product and engineering teams. The key word there is "healthy"—when this relationship is unhealthy, silos tend to form, ideas may be thrown over the wall, and a lack of ownership can develop. But what exactly goes into making this relationship work? Vidya Dinamani and Heather Samarin will explore this question and provide the product perspective in not just identifying and overcoming the root causes of most dysfunctions, but getting on the path to thriving. They will share examples from their...

It can be easy to feel like the villain when you work in testing and QA. After all, part of the job is to point out when things are broken, people have made mistakes, timelines aren't realistic, or a plan just can't work. But if your team feels like you're a frequent naysayer, trust can and will erode, and quality suffers because of it. If you find yourself constantly saying, "No, because ..." and being the baddie, it's time to reframe how you approach your team's ideas and development processes. Join Jane Jeffers as she talks about the power of instead saying, "Yes, if ..." and what this...

Around the world, citizens are actively engaging in civic tech, social robots are tweeting, and veteran storytellers are capturing and curating stories in new and dynamic ways using virtual and augmented reality. This explosion of tools, sources, voices, and data is indicative of a new, more collaborative era for storytelling. But is the public getting quality stories? Join award-winning storyteller and entrepreneur Davar Ardalan for a dynamic look at the intersection of emerging technology, transparency, and inclusivity in media. The founder and storyteller-in-chief of IVOW, a cultural...

When we look at today's gender imbalance in the tech field, it's easy to doubt ourselves and wonder if we even belong. However, the fact of the matter is that at one point in time, women dominated technology. Not only did we outnumber men, but we excelled - to the point that tech was considered a woman's sport. So, what changed? How could we have possibly gone from the initial innovators and dominating force of tech to now being vastly underrepresented? Let's take a trip back to the 1980’s, the period where there was a sharp decline in the number of women entering the tech field. You'll be...

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....