STARWEST - Conference List Schedule | TechWell

Conference archive

Conference Schedule

Sunday, September 29

Registration—7:30am–5:00pm
7:30 am to 5:00 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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Foundations of DevOps—ICAgile Certification
Gene Gotimer
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
Tauhida Parveen
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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Python® for Testers
Kristoffer Nordström
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.

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Professional Software Testing Using Visual Studio 2019
Richard Hundhausen
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Learn the contemporary testing principles and practices used by agile teams to deliver high-quality increments of software on regular iterations by leveraging the tools found in Visual Studio, Azure DevOps Services, and more.

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Advanced Tester Certification—Technical Test Analyst
Claire Lohr
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Accredited training for the ISTQB® Advanced Tester Certification—Technical Test Analyst (CTAL-TTA) certification. This course covers risk-based testing, structure-based testing, analytical techniques, quality characteristics for technical testing, reviews, and test tools and automation.

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Fundamentals of Test Automation—SOLD OUT
Byron Katz
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Learn to build solid test automation the right way in this two-day, hands-on course designed for professionals in development and testing roles.

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Agile Test Automation—ICAgile
Robert Sabourin
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
Matthew Grasberger
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
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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Agile Tester Certification
Mike Sowers
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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Selenium Test Automation: From the Ground Up
Max Saperstone
8:30 am to 5:00 pm

Gain the the foundational skills required to leverage Selenium in order to write meaningful automated tests and increase the speed and quality of testing in this two-day, hands-on course.

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Software Tester Certification—Foundation Level
Jeff Pierce, Brian Hicks
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. 

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, September 30

Registration—7:00am–5:00pm
7:00 am to 5:00 pm
Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Full & Half-Day Tutorials—8:30am–12:00pm
8:30 am to 12:00 pm
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 Test Fundamentals: Relating Requirements and Risk to Testing and Test Design Preview NEW
Isabel Evans
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial MC Visual Validation for Test Automation Preview NEW
Angie Jones
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Functional test automation is a wonderful way to frequently and expeditiously execute regression testing. However, the test scripts that we write are limited to the few assertions we’ve considered. Many times, these assertions only cover the tip of the iceberg and account for a small fraction of what a human being would have subconsciously verified. For example, a test automation script can verify that when adding 2 and 2 via a calculator app, the sum that is returned on screen is 4. But does the 4 appear correctly? Is it upside down? Or sideways? Is it the right color? Are there errors...Read more

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Tutorial MD Test Design for Fully Automated Build Architecture Preview
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 MF Agile Test Team Leadership: From Concept to Product Preview
Bob Galen, Mary Thorn
8:30 am to 12:00 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 MG Unit Testing: What Every Developer and Tester Should Know Preview
Tariq King
8:30 am to 12:00 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 MH System-Level Test Automation: Ensuring a Good Start Preview
Chris Loder
8:30 am to 12:00 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 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 automation success...Read more

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Tutorial MI Test Data: Mining, Morphing, Managing and Maintaining It! Preview NEW
Julie Gardiner
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

According to the 2018/2019 World Quality Report, the number one challenge in applying testing to agile development is overcoming the challenges of creating, managing, and maintaining test environments and test data. Over 48% of respondents had issues with test data. As our systems complexity and time to market demands have increased, the appetite for resolving the test data issue can be diminished or be viewed as test data doesn’t really matter. Join Julie Gardiner as she shares the good, bad and ugly of test environments and data, defines an approach to establish where you are in terms of...Read more

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Tutorial MJ Testing Today's Web Applications: Tools You Can Use Preview NEW
Chris Kenst
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

If you are a software tester today, 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 in 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 testing, of course, is to test as thoroughly and efficiently as we can, given our time and resource constraints. Chris Kenst will demonstrate some of his favorite free and inexpensive tools for testing web apps and share stories of using these tools in...Read more

Lunch—12:00pm–1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Full & Half-Day Tutorials Continue—1:00pm–4:30pm
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm
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Tutorial MK Continuous Testing Using Containers Preview NEW
Melissa Benua
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Containers. Every manager thinks they want them, but few teams have experience in knowing what to DO with them. Used thoughtfully, containerization of your services can transform the way your organization thinks about testing. Gone can be the days of maintaining X different compute environments with Y different configurations. Imagine instead spinning up just the code you need, on the machine type it needs, and only for as long as you need it. In this technical training, Melissa will walk through what containerization means for a legacy code base attempting to practice continuous...Read more

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Tutorial ML Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Skills for the Testing World Preview
Tariq King, Jason Arbon
1:00 pm 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...Read more

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Tutorial MM Instill a DevOps Testing Culture in Your Team and Organization Preview
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 MN Test Design for Automation Preview
Hans Buwalda
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Test automation is an essential element in modern system development. 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 and great technical expertise. 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...Read more

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Tutorial MO Get Your Message Across: Communications Skills for Testers Preview
Julie Gardiner
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Communication is at the heart of our profession. If we can’t convey our concerns in ways that connect with key members of the project team, our contribution is likely to be ignored—no matter how advanced our testing capabilities are. Because we act in an advisory capacity rather than being in command, our power to exert influence is almost entirely based on our communication skills. Join Julie Gardiner as she draws on techniques from psychology and marketing to help you get your message across. With people suffering information overload and deluged with emails, it is more important than...Read more

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Tutorial MP 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 MQ Data Analytics and Machine Learning Preview
Eun Chang, Ken Johnston
1:00 pm to 4:30 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 MR Technical Test Automation Challenges: Patterns and Solutions Preview
Seretta Gamba
1:00 pm to 4:30 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 will focus 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 will...Read more

Registration Desk Hours—Closes at 5:00pm
5:00 pm
Speed Networking—5:15pm-6:00pm
5:15 pm to 6:00 pm
Community Dinner—6:15pm-8:00pm
6:15 pm to 8:00 pm

Tuesday, October 1

Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Registration—7:30am–5:00pm
7:30 am to 5:00 pm
Full- and Half-Day Tutorials—8:30am–12:00pm
8:30 am to 12:00 pm
Multi-day Training Classes Continue—8:30am–5:00pm
8:30 am to 5:00 pm
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Tutorial TA X-Ray Vision For Testers: How to Analyze Things Preview NEW
Michael Bolton
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

How do we go about understanding something complex? How do we move from confusion to clarity? What strategies and approaches can we use to identify and reason about things that matter? When we’re dropped into a testing situation, how do we make sense of it all? How can we rapidly achieve a deeper understanding of things that we know little or nothing about? How can we develop skills to make us more powerful testers? The answer to these questions is analysis - the study of things and ideas by examining their elements and structure. In this one-day tutorial, Michael Bolton will lead...Read more

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Tutorial TB Introduction to Selenium 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 Clean Coding Practices for Test Automation Preview NEW
Angie Jones
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

We are often reminded by those experienced in writing test automation that code is code. The sentiment being conveyed is that test code should be written with the same care and rigor that production code is written. However, many people who write test code may not have experience writing production code, so it’s not exactly clear what is meant by this statement. And even those who write production code find that there are unique design patterns and code smells that are specific to test code in which they are not aware. Join Angie Jones for this workshop, at which, you will be given a...Read more

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Tutorial TD Testing Transformation: The Art and Science for Success Preview
Jennifer Bonine
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Technologies, testing processes, and the role of the tester have evolved significantly in the past few years with the advent of agile, DevOps, and other new technologies. It is critical that we testing professionals evaluate ourselves and continue to add tangible value to our organizations. In your work, are you focused on the trivial or on real game changers? Jennifer Bonine describes critical elements that help you artfully blend people, process, and technology to create a synergistic relationship that adds value. Jennifer shares ideas on mastering politics, maneuvering core vs. context...Read more

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Tutorial TE Web Security Testing: The Basics and More Preview
Jeffery Payne
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

Web applications are often security critical or serve as front-ends for security critical applications, making web testing for vulnerabilities an essential part of software testing. Unfortunately, most software testers have not been taught how to identify web security issues while testing applications. Join Jeffery Payne as he shares what you need to know to security test web-based applications as part of your overall testing process. Learn about the most common web security vulnerabilities and how they are introduced into web code and exploited by hackers. Explore test techniques for...Read more

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Tutorial TF Testing Strategies for Microservices Preview
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 TG 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 automation...Read more

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Tutorial TH Shifting Our Testing to Embrace Customer Experience Preview
Isabel Evans
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

In today’s environment, customer and user experience (CX/UX) is overwhelmingly important—and is not just about the product. CX/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 aspects are underpinned by technical qualities. We need to shift...Read more

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Tutorial TI Test Estimation in the Face of Uncertainty Preview
Robert 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...Read more

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Tutorial TJ A Hands-on Intro to Docker for Testers Preview
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 systems. When you finish testing, those containers can be deployed directly into production. At each stage, the environments for...Read more

Lunch—12:00pm–1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Full & Half-Day Tutorials Continue—1:00pm–4:30pm
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm
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Tutorial TL 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 TM Test Automation Strategies for the Agile World Preview SOLD OUT
Bob Galen, Mary Thorn
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

With the adoption of agile practices in many organizations, the test automation landscape has changed. Join Bob Galen & Mary Thorn as they explore current disruptors to traditional automation strategies, and discusses relevant and current adjustments you need to make when developing your automation business case. Open source tools are becoming incredibly viable and beat their commercial equivalents in many ways―not only in cost, but also in functionality, creativity, evolutionary speed, and developer acceptance. Agile and DevOps methods have fundamentally challenged our traditional...Read more

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Tutorial TN Holistic Performance Testing for Modern Applications Preview NEW
Kaushal Dalvi
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial TO Success with Test Automation Projects: A People-driven Approach Preview NEW
Isabel Evans
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

As we face increased demands for speed, change and technical excellence—the pressure, and the need for automating aspects of testing increases. But, successful test automation is not just about selecting and implementing tools and a technical infrastructure. People ensure the success or failure of the automation project; they must drive the project. Join Isabel Evans as she shows you how to make your test automation projects people-driven, by focusing on two vital but often neglected elements of any automation project: attitudes towards automation and experiences of automation. What...Read more

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Tutorial TP Quality and Testing Measures and Metrics Preview
Mike Sowers
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

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...Read more

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Tutorial TQ Automation Framework Essentials Preview NEW
Chris Loder
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Automation is critical in today’s software delivery lifecycle, and yet many organizations struggle to keep their automation running. How can we mitigate difficulties and get consistent automation runs and results we can trust? The secret is implementing a solid automation framework, but that isn’t as easy as it seems. Chris Loder has built several automation frameworks over his career and has learned what works—and, more importantly, what doesn’t. This tutorial will cover what an automation framework is, the benefits of having one, and the keys to a successful framework, including...Read more

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Tutorial TR Driving Lessons for Test Automation Managers Preview
Seretta Gamba
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

In order to support their automation team effectively, test managers must be able to recognize when the team is taking a ‘bad’ turn and know how to steer it back, or, when starting, know how to do things right from the very beginning. They don’t need to know all the technicalities, but they must know the basics of good automation and be able to explain to higher management what automation can or cannot deliver in order to secure and sustain their support. In this tutorial Seretta Gamba introduces the Test Automation Patterns Wiki and explains in detail the patterns test managers...Read more

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Tutorial TS Develop and Refine Your Company Testing Strategy Preview NEW
Dr. Jess Ingrassellino
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Every quality director wants to implement a modern, forward-looking testing strategy, and many test managers look at other companies to try and figure out that "silver bullet" so they can achieve excellent quality, quickly and reliably. But the truth is everything you need to know about your best test strategy is already in your company. In this workshop, you will use your quality priorities, strategies, and code base as the foundation for defining and improving your testing strategy. You’ll work individually and in small groups to examine your current testing structure and methodologies,...Read more

Welcome Reception—4:30pm–5:30pm
4:30 pm to 5:30 pm
Test Lab Kick-Off—5:30pm-7:30pm
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
Women Who Test Meetup—6:00pm-7:00pm
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Wednesday, October 2

Morning Yoga/Morning Run—6:45am-7:30am
6:45 am to 7:30 am
Registration—7:00am–5:30pm
7:00 am to 5:30 pm
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Bonus Session B3 Break Free from Bad Testing Habits Preview
James Senecal, Tricentis
7:15 am to 8:15 am

Join James Senecal to learn how you can:

Simplify test maintenance and avoid the trap of false positives

Focus your limited testing resources on the tasks that will make the greatest impact

Tidy up your test cases and your test execution strategy to “spark joy”

Make more insightful decisions without having to continuously chase and correlate results from your various testing tools

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Networking Events— Lean Coffee (7:30am-8:30am) | Test Lab (All Day) | Couch Sessions (All Day) | Genius Testing Bar (All Day)
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
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Keynote K1 QADevSecOps: Leading a Quality-Driven DevOps Transformation Preview
Stacy Kirk, QualityWorks Consulting Group, LLC
8:30 am to 9:45 am

Have you wondered where QA professionals fit into a DevSecOps transformation? Stacy Kirk thinks they should champion the transformation. Regardless of where your company is on its journey to DevSecOps, quality must be at the forefront for optimal effectiveness and customer value. This means promoting feedback loops that use monitoring and reporting tools effectively, and most importantly, it means creating a culture of collaborative communication and continuous improvement. The role of the QADevSecOps practitioner must evolve from ensuring the quality of software to assessing the...Read more

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Keynote K2 Keynote - Making the Career Transition from Software Testing to Data Science Preview
Ken Johnston, Microsoft
10:00 am to 11:00 am

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...Read more

Visit the Expo—10:30am–2:00pm
10:30 am to 2:00 pm
Networking Break in the Expo—11:00am-11:30am
11:00 am to 11:30 am
Concurrent Sessions—11:30am–12:30pm
11:30 am to 12:30 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP1 Your Shift Left is Failing – What you can do to fix it Preview
Bharath Vantari
11:30 am to 12:30 pm
Everyone is still talking about shift left testing But, how's it going for your team? Learn how to really shift left and get resultsRead more
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP2 Challenges in Testing Cellular M2M and IoT Devices Preview
Alan Ip
11:30 am to 12:30 pm
M2M and IoT Device Testing Trending Transition of M2M to IoT Challenges in testing various radio access technologies (RAT)Read more
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP3 How to Make Selenium Smarter Preview
Mark Lambert, Parasoft, Chris Colosimo, Parasoft
11:30 am to 12:15 pm

Automated testing of the UI is critical to ensure the high-quality customer experience required to maintain competitive advantage and Selenium is the framework of choice adopted by the industry. However, tests created with Selenium still suffer from the common UI testing challenges of maintainability, stability and long execution times due to their complex and brittle nature and inability to automatically adapt to any changes in the application. Join Mark Lambert, VP of Products at Parasoft, and Chris Colosimo, Product Manager at Parasoft, as they address the key challenges of UI test automation and show you how to make Selenium smarter.Read more

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Concurrent Session W1 The Who, What, Where, When, and How of Test Strategies Preview
Janna Loeffler, Ultimate Software
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

What is a test strategy, and how do you develop one? Join Janna Loeffler as she talks through developing a test strategy. She’ll discuss how different software development methodologies influence your test strategy, as well as how techniques like common and coordinated test planning and risk-based testing can be applied to the creation of your test strategy to improve its quality. Janna will also detail how to develop a test strategy when working with different team dynamics; for example, does your test strategy look different for internal teams versus developing a test strategy when...Read more

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Concurrent Session W2 Conquering the Testing Challenges of Serverless Applications Preview
Peter Varhol, Technology Strategy Research, Gerie Owen, Technology Strategy Research
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Serverless cloud applications are rapidly moving into the mainstream. In this model, teams focus on developing and deploying code on a known technology stack and runtime, with fixed interfaces for application, database, and network, and they offer the advantages of lower costs, faster development, and elastic growth. But testing serverless applications brings significant challenges to testers. Because the stack is typically maintained by the cloud provider, it is updated with new versions and security patches on a regular basis. Testers have to continuously test the stack...Read more

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Concurrent Session W3 Fuzz Testing for Fun and Profit Preview
Melissa Benua, mParticle
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

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...Read more

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Concurrent Session W4 From Zero to AI Hero Preview
Kevin Pyles, Domo, Inc
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

AI is here. Will it take over your job? Is it possible to make it beneficial, not detrimental to your career? Kevin Pyles and his team jumped right into the AI universe. Untrained and inexperienced, they realized immediately that they knew nothing, but they were motivated to learn and experiment so they could be part of this revolution. Kevin will show you how his team went from little knowledge of machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence, and, in some cases, even programming and automation to implementing custom automation frameworks, data analytics, and machine...Read more

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Concurrent Session W5 Using Design Thinking to Create Better Test Cases Preview
Larissa Rosochansky, Avanade
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Designing good test cases can be described as an art. With test cases being written with a focus on business, testers should be part of the discovery and design phase of the project, and the business drivers should dictate test case design. But how can we ensure we are focusing on the user and bringing the biggest value possible in this phase? Larissa Rosochansky will describe what design thinking is, how it relates to the testing methodology, and how to use it in the design phase of your project. She will also show you how to better frame the business drivers and select the persona and...Read more

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Concurrent Session W6 Continuous Application Security Testing Preview
Josh Gibbs, Contrast Security
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Because of its specialized nature, many aspects of application security testing are often assigned to testers from another team or another company, and they may be brought in to perform a point-in-time assessment prior to a release. Your team is interested in implementing continuous deployment, and automation seems like the obvious answer. But when attempting to automate your security tests, you may run into a wide variety of challenges beyond simply adding a tool into your build system. Josh Gibbs will discuss how to choose what to test, how to avoid slow tests, how to keep...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 A Pragmatic Approach to QA Transformation – Challenges, Learnings, Outcomes & Best Practices Preview
Kalyan Rao Konda, Cigniti Technologies, Kevin Barry, Pure Insurance
12:30 pm to 1:15 pm

Quality Assurance & Testing plays a very critical role in achieving the desired business outcomes. This session focuses on the QA transformation journey and results achieved in a fast paced & high growth consumer facing organization. Robust Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) is established to provide different testing services to multiple business-lines with business value as the goal. Business functional testing, Test automation and Performance testing are in the scope of TCoE. Metrics & Measurement framework played a very key role in delivering the business value to internal...Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP24 Bettering Quality Engineering, Intelligently Preview
Chaithanya Kolar, Deloitte, Nandini Kalyanasundaram, Deloitte
12:40 pm to 1:25 pm
The topic will explore building efficiencies in quality engineering through AI The team will also demo two solutions: ​ COFTA: Cognitive Functional Test Automation: AI based solution that converts manual test cases to automation scripts CTeP: Cognitive Test Platform: AI based solution that consumes customer feedback from various social media and provides input on test coverage

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Concurrent Sessions—1:30pm–2:30pm
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP5 How to Guarantee Continuous Value from your Test Automation Preview
Eran Kinsbruner, Perfecto
1:30 pm to 2:15 pm

• Learn how to decide which test scenarios to automate. • Understand the criteria for a test to get included in the CI and continuous testing pipelines. • Learn how to maintain tests and optimize your suite so it continues to bring value.Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP6 Spend less time refactoring and more time testing smarter Preview
Christopher Haggan, HCL Technologies, Viktor Krantz
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

• Understanding the challenges of test maintenance • How DevOps exacerbates these issues • Mitigating these problemsRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP9 Cognitive Testing: The New Standard for Accelerated Innovation Preview
Raj Rao, AutonomiQ
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Moving beyond Manual Automation. Transforming Subject Matter Expert (BA/QA) Intent into Automated Action. Breaking through on Coverage, Velocity & Sustainability.Read more
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Concurrent Session W7 You, Inc.: Building Your Life's Development Plan Preview
Aprajita Mathur, Guardant Health
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

We all spend enough time thinking about the next feature and its development plan. Days, months, and sometimes years go by working on things that are a priority for our team and company. But how much time do we spend on discovering what is crucial for us and our own development? We can give more when we are at our best. This is not limited to career aspirations, but also applies to work-life balance, as it takes a family and a team to make anyone successful. Aprajita Mathur will work with you in a live session to build your own development plan. She will discuss six strategies...Read more

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Concurrent Session W8 Industrial-Strength Automation: When You Should and How You Can Preview
Mike Duskis, CyberGRX
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

You wouldn't buy a yacht to navigate your swimming pool, any more than you would paddle a canoe to Finland. The first is overkill and the second is dangerous. But we can't conclude that yachts are always overkill or canoes always dangerous; it depends on the context. The same principle applies to test automation. When a simple script is all you need, a full-scale product development effort would be overkill. On the other hand, you will encounter circumstances where inadequate planning or engineering discipline would drown you in a sea of noisy reports from tests that nobody is...Read more

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Concurrent Session W9 Automating Accessibility Testing with Axe Preview
Dylan Barrell, Deque Systems Inc.
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Accessibility empowers users, increases diversity, and can drive higher adoption and higher growth of your digital services. The axe family of open source technologies has been designed with speed, ease of integration, and zero false positives in mind. It is the perfect tool to start automating the testing of your websites and applications for accessibility issues. Dylan Barrell is the founder of the axe family of technologies and will talk about how they can help you get started with accessibility testing. He will show a complement of tools that integrate with a variety of technologies,...Read more

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Concurrent Session W10 What’s Our Job When the Machines Do Testing? Preview
Geoff Meyer, DellEMC
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Members of the engineering community are beginning to explore the exciting capabilities of artificial intelligence in order to remove even more mundane and manual tasks from our jobs. The next generation of automation within the software development lifecycle comes to us in the form of AI-inspired approaches: analytics, machine learning, and natural language processing. Geoff Meyer refers to this as cognitive automation, and it offers the promise of automating tasks that up until now could only be performed by humans. However, engineering practitioners going down the path of cognitive...Read more

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Concurrent Session W11 How Infrastructure as Code Can Help Test Organizations Achieve Automation Preview
Kat Rocha, ACT/NRCCUA
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

For many test organizations, the first hurdle to automating the testing of a product is deployment of that product in its test environments. Infrastructure as code can be used to facilitate the basic processes of provisioning servers, from bare metal to virtual to cloud, as well as configuration management of the software that resides on the servers. Off-the-shelf infrastructure-as-code tools such as AWS CloudFormation, Chef, Puppet, and Ansible provide less expensive alternatives to developing proprietary in-house deployment solutions. Join Kat Rocha to learn how infrastructure as code...Read more

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Concurrent Session W12 Finding Performance Issues Early with JMeter Preview
Bob Foster, Coveros
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Nonfunctional tests like performance tests are often left until the end of the delivery cycle because they can be expensive in terms of time, resources, and effort. However, performance issues can be difficult to resolve when found late in the software development lifecycle. Apache JMeter is an open source tool designed to load test functional behavior and measure performance. JMeter can be used to develop, manage, and execute load and performance tests while the code is being developed, rather than waiting to do performance testing until just before release. By using it early in your...Read more

Concurrent Sessions—2:45pm–3:45pm
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP10 Enable Continuous Testing with the Right Software Testing tools and Process Preview
Harshal Vora, QMetry
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

• Help digital transformation through continuous testing • Tools that deliver continuous testing • Continuous Testing ProcessRead more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP8 2020 Vision: How Design Thinking Will Change QA Next Decade Preview
Michael Faulise, tap | QA, Anne Hungate, Daring Systems
2:45 pm to 3:30 pm

During the 2010's, we saw a fundamental change in the role of QA. The #1 objective of Testing and QA organizations worldwide is now to ensure end-user satisfaction, and not mere defect finding.

To that end, Design Thinking is a mindset that many world-class QA organizations are adopting to ensure their focus is on customer empathy in the design of innovative, best-of-breed products and solutions.

Join Michael Faulise of tap|QA and Anne Hungate of Daring Systems, a renowned expert in Quality Strategy and Design Thinking, for this important presentation.

Anne and Mike...Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP9 How to Make Testing Awesome with Sauce Labs Preview
Molly Driscol
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm
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 W13 Capturing Testing with 3 Magic Words Preview
Janna Loeffler, Ultimate Software
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

Testers tend to be innately curious creatures. Being curious and evaluating risks—that is what the testing job is about. Often it is the statement “I don’t know” that drives our curiosity in testing. We don’t really know if it’s a good “I don’t know” or a bad “I don’t know” until we start communicating with others. Part of being a great tester is becoming comfortable with saying “I don’t know” and explaining what that means so that people remain confident in you. Join Janna Loeffler as she talks about when it is okay to say “I don’t know," when it’s not okay to say “I don’t know,” and how...Read more

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Concurrent Session W14 AI in Testing: A Moderated Panel Discussion Preview
Adam Auerbach, EPAM Systems
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

Artificial intelligence is the newest trend in software testing. But what is it, and how will it impact the tester's role, both today and in the future? What do you need to do to embrace this emerging technology? Adam Auerbach will moderate this panel discussion—which will include Jason Arbon, Jennifer Bonine, and Tariq King—to give you an opportunity to hear the opinions of industry leaders about AI in testing. You will have a chance to drive the debate, so come prepared with all your AI questions.Read more

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Concurrent Session W15 What's That Smell? Tidying Up Our Test Code Preview
Angie Jones, Applitools
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

We are often reminded by those experienced in writing test automation that code is code. The sentiment being conveyed is that test code should be written with the same care and rigor that production code is written with. However, many people who write test code may not have experience writing production code, so it’s not exactly clear what is meant. And even those who write production code find that there are unique design patterns and code smells that are specific to test code. Join Angie Jones as she presents a smelly test automation code base littered with several bad coding practices...Read more

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Concurrent Session W16 Testing AI-Based Systems: A Gray-Box Approach Preview
Yury Makedonov, Accenture
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

Testing artificial intelligence- and machine learning-based systems presents two key challenges. First, the same input can trigger different responses as the system learns and adapts to new conditions. Second, it tends to be difficult to determine exactly what the correct response of the system should be. Such system characteristics make test scenarios difficult to set up and reproduce and can cause us to lose confidence in test results. Yury Makedonov will explain how to test AI/ML-based systems by combining black box and white box testing techniques. His "gray box" testing approach...Read more

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Concurrent Session W17 Enterprise DevOps: Reducing Big-Bang Integrations in Global Organizations Preview
Madhu Datla, Intel
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

Six or seven years ago, the norm for update rollouts was a single Microsoft Windows OS release every three years being validated with an annual tick-tock cadence of Intel CPUs. About three years ago, new OSes started to be released twice a year, with new platforms developed several times a year. For us at Intel, this meant we had to increase the speed of our integration and test processes up to tenfold. At the time, our scaling challenges included slow software delivery mechanisms, inefficient testing strategies, and lengthy times to find and fix bugs. If we were going to meet...Read more

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Concurrent Session W18 Privacy in a Time of Rich Telemetry Preview
Ken Johnston, Microsoft
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

Most modern testing, especially in a DevOps model, uses a lot of telemetry to evaluate and monitor quality of experience for apps and services. In this interconnected world, there is power and risk in data. Ken Johnston will share his personal experiences dealing with US and European Union privacy regulations and the methods he and his team have implemented to mitigate the potential of significant penalties for the misuse of data. He will cover privacy-preserving techniques such as differential privacy and private enclave, what constitutes primary versus secondary uses of data, and how you...Read more

Networking Break in the Expo—3:45pm-4:15pm
3:45 pm to 4:15 pm
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Keynote K3 Lightning Strikes the Keynotes Preview
Nine Incredible Speakers, Lightning Keynotes
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

Expo Reception & Passport Game Prize Drawings—5:30pm–6:30pm
5:30 pm to 6:30 pm
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Bonus Session B4 Beyond Test Generation: The Sustainable Quality Ecosystem Preview
Raj Rao, AutonomiQ
6:45 pm to 7:45 pm
Community Game Night—7:00pm–9:00pm
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Thursday, October 3

Morning Yoga/Morning Run—6:45am-7:30am
6:45 am to 7:30 am
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Bonus Session B5 Learn How Caesars Entertainment Successfully Implemented and Quantifies the ROI of Their Test Automation Practice Preview
Roosevelt Washington, Caesars Entertainment, Mark Lambert, Parasoft
7:15 am to 8:15 am

Key takeaways:

Best practices for creating a scalable test automation strategy How to leverage key technologies such as UI test automation, API testing, Service Virtualization Key metrics to quantify the value of test automation How to communicate the ROI to key stakeholders within the organization.

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Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Networking Events—Lean Coffee (7:30am-8:30am) | Test Lab (All Day) | Couch Sessions (All Day) | Genius Testing Bar (All Day)
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Registration—8:00am–5:00pm
8:00 am to 5:00 pm
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Keynote K4 Fun as a Productivity Tool Preview
Kristoffer Nordström, Northern Test Consulting AB
8:30 am to 9:30 am
Concurrent Sessions—9:45am–10:45am
9:45 am to 10:45 am
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP12 How to Find Your Balance of Manual and Automated Testing Preview
Cathy Huang
9:45 am to 10:45 am
How to build a cost-effective QA strategy for Agile development The essential steps to get started with test automation and how to accelerate the process When to use automation vs. manual testing and how to find the right balance Agile best practices and pitfalls to avoidRead more
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP13 Are we there yet? Introducing a Method for Evaluating AI Testing Tools Preview
Nate Custer
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Key Takeaways:

Understanding the role of AI in the QA community Test maintenance best practices Reporting on test maintenance tool effectivenessRead more
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Concurrent Session T1 Making the Marriage of Product and Engineering Thrive Preview
Vidya Dinamani, Product Rebels, Heather Samarin, Product Rebels
9:45 am to 10:45 am

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...Read more

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Concurrent Session T2 Getting to Continuous Testing Preview
Max Saperstone, Coveros
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Max Saperstone tells the story of how a health care company striving to get to continuous releases built up their automation to secure confidence in regular releases. Initially, as no test automation existed, Max was able to take an opportunity for greenfield test automation and, in the span of twelve months, develop over two thousand test cases. A pipeline was created to verify the integrity of the automated tests and build Docker containers for simplified test execution. These containers could be easily reused by developers and the DevOps team to verify the application. Join Max as he...Read more

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Concurrent Session T3 Internet of Things: Changing the Way We Test Preview
Jane Fraser, Sonos
9:45 am to 10:45 am

The internet of things (IoT) brings connectivity to a range of previously non-internet-enabled physical devices and real-world objects. This shift has an impact testing—changing what we test, when we test, and the way we test. For one thing, once you’re in the real world, the number of possible issues explodes due to environmental conditions. Just like a race car must adjust its tires for different track conditions, IoT devices must account for environmental factors such as temperature and humidity to prevent unanticipated failures. Jane Fraser believes that for the IoT to be successful,...Read more

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Concurrent Session T4 Testers: The Unsung Data Heroes Preview
Connor Dodge, Domo
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Connor Dodge believes that data is the most valuable commodity in the world, and that testers generate some of the most valuable data in product development organizations. Test data can inform release schedules, aid in decision-making, and shape the direction of the product. However, such benefits can only be realized if test data is effectively tracked and presented, and if testers learn how to present that data in compelling and persuasive ways. Join Connor as he talks about how testers can create and use real-time dashboards to analyze the status of agile projects and...Read more

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Concurrent Session T5 The Game of Continuous Delivery Preview
Tanya Kravtsov, Audible
9:45 am to 10:45 am

The holy grail of a modern QA professional is to achieve high quality while continuously delivering features to customers, and the only way to achieve that mission is via continuous testing and delivery. The most critical step in agile transformation and continuous delivery adoption is identifying the bottlenecks in the product development cycle. Tanya Kravtsov will describe tools and methods that facilitate that discovery process and explore ways you can use mind maps, innovation games, and more to identify, prioritize, and resolve bottlenecks. You'll learn ways to deal with the most...Read more

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Concurrent Session T6 Large-Scale DevSecOps: Bringing Security Confidence to Chaotic Development Preview
Dennis Hurst, Saltworks Security
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Implementing application security (AppSec) programs on a large scale can often seem chaotic and unwieldy. Without the proper knowledge to implement robust AppSec tools, DevSecOps on a large scale can be overwhelming. And with the countless number of customizable build, task-tracking, and CI integration systems available, many companies don’t know where to begin implementation of DevSecOps. Join Dennis Hurst as he shares the knowledge necessary to wield powerful AppSec tools based on his experience with a variety of large corporate clients. Dennis will discuss common pitfalls and...Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP11 Robotic Process Automation (RPA): Threat or Opportunity for Testers? Preview
Wayne Ariola, Tricentis
10:00 am to 10:45 am

What does this mean for software testers? Join this session to explore questions and concerns such as:

How RPA and software test automation compare from a technical perspective The latest indicators on where the two markets are headed The risks, rewards, and challenges of extending from STA to RPARead more
Visit the Expo—10:15am–3:00pm
10:15 am to 3:00 pm
Networking Break in the Expo • 10:45am-11:15am
10:45 am to 11:15 am
Concurrent Sessions—11:15am–12:15pm
11:15 am to 12:15 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP14 The Top Ten Common Misconceptions about AI First Testing- an interactive discussion Preview
Jennifer Bonine, PinkLion AI, Jason Arbon, test.ai
11:15 am to 12:00 pm

Discussion of the myths surrounding AI testing

How AI testing impacts technology teams

The business impact of AI testingRead more

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Concurrent Session T7 Are You the Best Leader You Can Be? Preview
Amy Jo Esser, ProAssurance
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

We are all leaders. At a minimum, we must lead ourselves every single day, but many of us also have teams that we lead and serve. Have you ever stopped to analyze yourself to determine if you are the best leader you can be? Amy Jo Esser has had the joy of learning from many great leaders outside the testing arena, including John C. Maxwell, Tony Robbins, Mel Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Michael and Megan Hyatt, and Rachel Hollis. She continues to learn from leaders in our testing community, including the inspiring leaders and speakers who have been a part of the Women Who Test community....Read more

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Concurrent Session T8 Selenium IDE Is Making a Comeback—Can Codeless Testing Scale? Preview
Moshe Milman, Applitools
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

The rise, fall, and resurrection of Selenium IDE begs the question: Can codeless testing actually scale? Test automation folklore is full of horror stories of failed attempts to apply record-playback tools to perform UI-based functional testing. Putting these stories aside for a moment, let's take an objective look at record-playback tools and compare them with programming-based automation tools in order to evaluate their applicability to functional and visual test automation. Join Moshe Milman as he dives into a hands-on demo of the new Selenium IDE, reviews some of its new capabilities,...Read more

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Concurrent Session T9 Conquering BDD: How One Team Is Making It Work Preview
Christine Fisher, NAIC
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

Behavior-driven development has been a buzzworthy term in the testing and development community for several years. At first glance, the elements of BDD seem simple: testing scenarios, living documentation, automation, and reports. That all sounds great, but then why isn't everyone doing it? Upon a deeper dive, it becomes obvious that the implementation of BDD needs a lot of forethought and planning, and teams must approach it for the right reasons. Christine Fisher will follow the evolution that one team is currently experiencing in their shift to BDD. BDD was selected to help...Read more

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Concurrent Session T10 Creating Self-Documenting, Reportable, DevOps-Driven Tests Preview
Mimi Balcom Meng, Software Engineer
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

For applications that have fully integrated service middleware, application servers, and backend databases, validation and verification of the entire application ecosystem is critical and complex. The challenge of testing these types of systems is compounded when each integrated application or component is developed by a different team or third-party vendor. Furthermore, application teams with diverse development practices generally require quick responses to system validation checks. Mimi Balcom Meng and her team have developed a testing framework that enables quality engineering teams to...Read more

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Concurrent Session T11 Mainframe Continuous Delivery: A Journey to the Left Side Preview
Timothy Wheeler, State Farm
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

DevOps and continuous delivery have produced exceptional results in the industry, and most of this success has been in the area of distributed systems. Tim Wheeler will discuss identifying problems delivering products in a large, integrated, legacy systems environment with PL/I, COBOL, IMS, and large-batch testing. Tim will talk about the journey his company, State Farm, took toward development and implementation of a plan to address inefficiencies in their delivery mechanism and to adopt modern DevOps practices and tools. You'll leave with a greater understanding of mainframe...Read more

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Concurrent Session T12 Connected Cybersecurity: Stories from the IoT Hall of Shame Preview
Arthur Hicken, Parasoft
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

The amount of IoT software in everyday things is growing at an alarming rate. Some cars now have over 100 million lines of code. Software exists in everything from our home security systems and thermostats, our televisions and phones, our children’s toys, and our cars to the systems we rely on every day but don’t think about, like our water supply, electricity, and power plants. Unfortunately, the amount of security testing being done on these devices is not growing at the same rate, as evidenced in the so-called IoT Hall of Shame, which keeps a running account of IoT...Read more

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Industry Technical Presentation End-to-end test automation: Stupid or Legit? Preview
Darrel Farris, mabl
11:30 am to 12:30 pm
Key pain points of end-to-end test automation and the modern technologies that have eliminated those pains The unique benefits of end-to-end test automation Tips to bring home for getting started with end-to-end test automationRead more
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP15 Certification Pathway to Successful Test Automation Preview
Andrew Pollner, ASTQB - American Software Testing Qualifications Board
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

• Effective strategies for implementing automation • Architecting a sustainable solution • Integrating into Continuous TestingRead more

Lunch in the Expo—12:30pm–1:30pm
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP17 Will I have a job in AI Driven Testing? Preview
Nick Casalbore, Mike Eckhoff
12:30 pm to 1:15 pm

• Testing Automation: Evolution, Revolution or Implosion? • Realities of AI in testing: fact versus fiction • Impact on human testers: should you shift left, shift right, shift up?Read more

Concurrent Sessions—1:30pm–2:30pm
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP18 What is Autonomous software testing? Types of testing. How does it work? Preview
Artem Golubev, TestRigor
1:30 pm to 2:15 pm

Artem is going to talk about what is Autonomous testing:

Classes of autonomous testing Talk about which one is applicable when When it is not applicableRead more
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP19 Buy v. Build: 5 Things to Consider When Implementing a Mobile Device Cloud Preview
Steve Orlando, Mobile Labs
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Learn about the benefits of a mobile device cloud Find out if it is better to buy or build a mobile device cloud Examine the five questions you should ask when deciding whether to buy or buildRead more
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP20 Accessibility Automation for the Agile Tester Preview
Noah Mashni
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
In this session, you will learn the basics about digital accessibility and its governing guidelines How you can automate accessibility into your software development lifecycle How agile practices and accessibility can go hand in handRead more
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Concurrent Session T13 Driving Quality with the "Yes, If ..." Mentality Preview
Jane Jeffers, Riot Games
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

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...Read more

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Concurrent Session T14 Make Your UI Tests Resilient with the Next Generation of Frameworks Preview
Satyajit Malugu
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

A big problem with test automation on any platform or operating system is synchronizing test automation interactions with the UI. It is challenging to know when the UI is ready for the next automated click(). Traditional black box tools try to address this problem by explicit or implicit waiting, but this technique is slow and error-prone. A new generation of test frameworks, starting with Espresso, understands the internals of the app and synchronizes interactions only when the view is ready, making the framework very fast and reliable. This same technique is making Cypress and...Read more

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Concurrent Session T15 Evolve Your Testing the Pokémon Way Preview
Paul Grimes, The Pokémon Company International
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

How can you know that your services will handle the requests of millions of users a day? Or that making a fundamental change to one of your technologies won’t break your user experience? The answer: By having your entire team use and build on a phased approach to testing the right pieces at the right time. The Pokémon Company International services group develops and updates the services used for logging into the Pokemon.com website and applications like Pokémon Go and Pokémon TV. Since the launch of Pokémon Go in 2016, their quality-focused team has worked to develop strategies that...Read more

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Concurrent Session T16 Smart Testing with AI Using Data Mining Preview
Lorna Smyth, Smartbear
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

The approaches to testing are continuously evolving as we try to keep up with the application needs of today’s users. Our industry is facing a new paradigm where AI is helping achieve scale, coverage, and business impact for many organizations that have been primarily focused on finding defects and refactoring test cases. Are your teams struggling to figure out how to leverage AI to improve their testing? To successfully do this, you must first understand one of AI’s underpinning foundations: data mining. Lorna Smyth will explain the fundamentals of data mining and how it is the...Read more

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Concurrent Session T17 Before and After You Say ‘I Do’ to Docker Preview
Aprajita Mathur, Guardant Health
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Docker is the most popular containerized solution being used in the software industry for development. Like any other test automation tool, however, implementation can get complicated, tricky, and unmaintainable if all you understand is the record-and-playback features or think it is the same as using a virtual machine. Whether you are already using Docker for your automation needs or plan to start using it soon, join Aprajita Mathur as she shares her journey of using Docker for testing complex and constantly evolving data analysis pipelines. She will discuss basic concepts of...Read more

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Concurrent Session T18 Continuous Performance Testing: A Tale of Two Worlds Preview
Kaushal Dalvi, Ultimate Software
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Once upon a time, in a land far away, application performance was a differentiator in the market. But in today's competitive landscape, having a highly responsive and scalable application is a basic expectation. Performance no longer lives on the fringe of the quality world, and it is becoming more common for organizations to include performance testing as part of their CI/CD pipelines. However, engineers are faced with a common dilemma: Do they implement small and simple performance tests that may not be very realistic but are fast and reliable in the build pipeline, or do they...Read more

Networking Break in the Expo—2:30pm-3:00pm • Closes at 3:00pm
2:30 pm to 3:00 pm
Concurrent Sessions—3:00pm–4:00pm
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP21 Testing the Frontend, Backend, and Everything in Between Preview
Prashant Mohan, Gail Shlansky
3:00 pm to 3:45 pm

Discuss how to successfully implement a strategy for testing both the UIand API sides of your application. Learn how you can reuse work you’ve already completed, effectively test the critical components of your application, and save time, money, and effort. Walk away with an end-to-end testing strategy for success and best practices for maximizing test coverage to share with their team.

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP22 Test Management within Jira: Modern Strategies That Will Scale You Preview
Afsana Atar
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Learn to align test activities with project management phases such as planning, execution, monitoring and controlling, and closure Configure flexible tools like Confluence, synapseRT, and Jenkins for your project, improve collaboration and create a knowledge base Key takeaways include adopting a model-driven approach, utilizing the right tools & techniques, setting up the infrastructure for improved test performance, managing test artifacts for streamlining test efforts, and selective and judicious automation for improved efficiencies and scaling operationsRead more
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Industry Technical Presentation ITP23 The future of intelligent testing: Merging human insight with deep machine learning Preview
Eric Sargent
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Traditional test Automation challenges Machine learning advantages and limitations Natural Language and testing intentRead more
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Concurrent Session T19 Scaling Quality through Community Leadership Preview
Philip Daye, Ultimate Software
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Modern software development organizations often build teams around features. Unfortunately, these teams tend to become siloed, building tools and processes without being aware of how other teams have solved the same problems. As quality and test engineers are federated out to these feature teams, quality itself becomes decentralized. And as an organization scales, this fragmentation can put product health at risk. How does an organization provide guidance and standards to decentralized teams? How can information, tools, and resources be shared among quality engineers? Can we bring...Read more

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Concurrent Session T20 De-Risking the Deployment Process Preview
Philip Soffer, test IO
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

In a world of continuous delivery, deployments happen faster than ever. But while every organization wants to move faster, many teams struggle to keep up with digital consumers’ expectations for quality. Join Philip Soffer to learn how smaller companies can reduce risk in their deployment processes by combining automation with human insight and performing functional and nonfunctional tests in a synchronized process. Using real-world examples, Philip will discuss the interactions among continuous integration, automated functional testing, crowd testing, feature flagging, and...Read more

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Concurrent Session T21 The Impact of the IoT: What’s in Store for Testing Preview
Jennifer Bonine, PinkLion AI
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

No longer just a futuristic concept, the internet of things (IoT) has a strong presence in our world. If your business is not prepared for it, you’re already behind. With the proliferation of connected “things”—devices, appliances, cars, and even clothes—Jennifer Bonine says that the stage is set and IoT mobile apps are here to stay. Testers are now being asked to test on more complex devices and more advanced platforms, so they must keep up with the demand for new skills, new strategies, and an entirely new set of knowledge for testing IoT apps. Jennifer will review where we are today and...Read more

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Concurrent Session T22 Test Data as a Service: Fueling Quality at Speed Preview
Michael Puntumapanitch, 1A1 Innovations
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Any business that uses technology to interface with or provide service to their customers, suppliers, and partners requires customer-facing applications that have exceptional quality. The assurance of business outcomes must become an imperative for IT professionals, which means we must learn how to continually engineer quality into every product and process to provide confidence that our technology solutions protect the company brand. However, delivery within the required time frames is continually constrained by the quality, relevance, quantity, and security of test data. Join...Read more

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Concurrent Session T23 Continuous Testing: A Fishbowl Discussion Preview
Adam Auerbach, EPAM Systems
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Many people confuse continuous testing with test automation, but continuous testing is much more. It requires that all tests to certify a feature are automated and part of the continuous integration pipeline, and the results of those tests determine automatically when the next step should be run. We will discuss how companies have enabled this process, common pitfalls and how to avoid them, and how to move from automation to continuous testing. In a fishbowl discussion, the audience members sit in a circle of chairs in the middle of the room. Several brave souls will fill all but one of...Read more

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Concurrent Session T24 Are You Ready for Your Digital Transformation? Preview
Kishore Kamath, Fiserv
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Many organizations have embarked on a digital transformation in order to stay competitive and gain market share. Whether it is enabling access to legacy applications via a web front end or a migration to the cloud, the journey is complex and requires comprehensive testing. To begin with, most systems use responsive web design to accommodate for the myriad mobile devices retail customers use. How do you test for interoperability across these multiple digital footprints? What about UI testing? ADA compliance? And many digital transformations make use of a microservices architectures using...Read more

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Keynote K5 Storytelling in the Age of AI Preview
Davar Ardalan, IVOW
4:15 pm to 5:15 pm
Testing & Quality Leadership Summit Reception 5:30pm-6:30pm (Summit Registration Required)
5:30 pm to 6:30 pm
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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 4

Continental Breakfast—7:30am–8:30am
7:30 am to 8:30 am
Registration—7:30am–3:00pm
7:30 am to 3:00 pm
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Testing & Quality Leadership Summit
8:30 am to 4:30 pm

"Leadership through Innovation" Thursday, October 3 (evening) and Friday, October 4 (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 understand the changing...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 4 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 test engineers...Read more

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Bonus Session B1 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...Read more

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Bonus Session B2 The Mega-Actionable Continuous Testing Workshop Preview
Shamim Ahmed, CA Technologies, A Broadcom Company
8:30 am to 12:30 pm

If you’re struggling to understand how to implement continuous testing in your company, then this workshop is for you. In just four hours you’ll come away with a solid understanding of the three pillars to implementing continuous testing and the tools needed to be successful. Most importantly, you’ll get your own action plan customized to your environment and your team’s specific needs. During the course, you will respond to various questions as the instructor guides you, and a custom report based on your input will be emailed to you following the workshop. This actionable report will...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