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Monday, October 4

Tutorial MA A Beginner's Guide to AI and Testing NEW
Dionny Santiago
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

AI has been rapidly changing the way we approach software testing. Traditional test automation is time-consuming to create and breaks down easily in the presence of change. Thankfully, AI is helping testing teams create less procedural, more resilient tests that are able to self-heal in the presence of modern, rapidly changing, highly dynamic production systems. This sounds great, but you may be asking yourself: How do I get started? What additional skills do I need to learn? What tools are available for me to start using, right now? Join Dionny Santiago as he breaks down different AI...Read more

Tutorial MB Unit Testing: What Every Developer and Tester Should Know
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

Tutorial MC Test Automation: Start and Succeed
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 as their product matures and changes over time. 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 added value? Chris Loder explains the critical issues you need to know to get a good start, and he will share his extensive experience in building great automation. He covers the most important management issues you should address for test automation success,...Read more

Tutorial MD Test Strategies for a Modern World
Janna Loeffler, Adam Satterfield
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

With the advent of DevOps, Agile, and ever-increasing complex technologies under test, the classic, the bloated test strategy document has quickly become outdated. Many testers struggle to understand how to convey complex testing tasks concisely. However, there is hope! There is a way to create a concise, actionable, and useful test strategy for Agile, DevOps, and even the dreaded Waterfall! Janna and Adam will leverage real-world test strategies that they have used and will break down the critical components and detail out how to create a test strategy, no matter what development style...Read more

Tutorial ME Cypress 101 NEW
Sneha Viswalingam
8:30 am to 12:00 pm
NOTE: Due to a schedule conflict with the speaker, this tutorial will be held on Monday, October 11. Registrants of this tutorial will be contacted with more details.

Cypress is an end-to-end testing tool that is creating a lot of buzz in the world of test automation due to its speed, ease of use and many more factors! Are you new to the world of test automation or are you shifting from the world of Selenium to Cypress and don’t know where to start? No worries, this tutorial has got you covered! In this tutorial, we will start with the walkthrough of the basics of Web UI Automation that will help build your foundation and then we will get an understanding of the Cypress framework and some key differences between Cypress and Selenium Webdriver. After...Read more

Lunch—12:00pm–1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Tutorial MF Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Skills for the Testing World
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 that still...Read more

Tutorial MG Test Design for Fully Automated Build Architecture
Melissa Benua
1:00 pm to 4:30 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

Tutorial MH Instill a DevOps Testing Culture in Your Team and Organization
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

Tutorial MI The Tester's (New) Role in Agile Development
Robert Sabourin
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Avoiding siloed development is a tricky business. It’s so easy for agile teams to fall into the rut of testers only doing traditional testing activities and programmers strictly doing their time-worn coding activities. But there are actually many places testers can contribute value on a cross-functional team. Rob Sabourin will share a number of examples of how testing skills can be applied to a wide variety of activities in an agile project. For instance, testers are among the most skilled team members in story grooming, elicitation, and exploration. Risk analysis in self-organized agile...Read more

Tuesday, October 5

Tutorials—8:30am–12:00pm
8:30 am to 12:00 pm
Tutorial TB Testing Strategies for Microservices
Tariq King
8:30 am to 4:30 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

Tutorial TC Web Security Testing: The Basics and More
Richard Mills
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 Richard Mills 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

Tutorial TD Getting Smart on API Testing & Automation
Jeffery Payne
8:30 am to 12:00 pm

API testing has become more and more popular as service-oriented architectures have become common. In addition, testing at the API level can be effectively automated to provide maintainable regression tests that work well in a DevOps process. In this tutorial, Jeffery Payne discusses what API testing is all about and how it is effectively done. Techniques and tools are discussed that highlight where in the testing process API testing makes the most sense to perform. Various open source and commercial tools will be demonstrated and the pros and cons of various solutions discussed. Effective...Read more

Tutorial TE Automation Framework Essentials
Chris Loder
8:30 am to 12:00 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

Tutorial TF Quality and Testing Measures and Metrics
Jeff Pierce
8:30 am to 12:00 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 Jeff Pierce as he...Read more

Tutorial TG Agile Black Box Test Design Techniques NEW
Jenna Charlton
8:30 am to 12:00 pm
Agile Black Box Test Design Techniques begins where most software testing training ends, when it is time to create specific test cases. Because testing everything is impossible and agile practices demand, we test strategically, focusing on risk to give us the highest return on our testing investment. This course shows you how to create an effective set of test cases and develops your practical skills to become a more effective and strategic tester. Explore the science and the art of designing test cases for black-box testing, getting hands-on with practical exercises designed to challenge and...Read more
Lunch—12:00pm–1:00pm
12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Tutorials Continue—1:00pm–4:30pm
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm
Tutorial TH Exploratory Testing in Action NEW
Jenna Charlton
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Exploratory testing is where the art and science of software testing meet and fills in the gap between automation, unit testing, and story testing. Exploratory testing is unique. Unlike other test techniques, exploratory testing values the individual tester’s expertise and perspective, centering the testers’ intuition and knowledge of software as the test basis. Explore the science and the art of exploratory testing, getting hands-on with exploratory testing by exploring real applications and playing testing games designed to challenge and deepen your skills. The respected instructor...Read more

Tutorial TI Docker 101 NEW
Aprajita Mathur
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Docker is the most popular containerized solution being used in the software industry for development. Test automation is no exception to this. Like any other test automation tool, implementation and testing can get complicated, tricky, and unmaintainable if all you understand is the “Record and Playback” features of Docker or think it is the same as using a virtual machine. Do you want to better test Docker-based applications and use Docker for your automation needs? Then join Aprajita Mathur to understand fundamental concepts of Dockers like images, containers, volumes, most used Docker...Read more

Tutorial TJ Running Risk Assessment Sessions
Jenny Bramble
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

Risk is a feature of every project. We work to minimize it when we're aware of it and mitigate it regardless. However, we have very few avenues to formally discuss risk with our teammates, which is why we need risk assessment sessions. Jenny will lead the group through the five stages of a well-run risk assessment session, and you will be able to break off into smaller groups to run your mini risk assessment on an example application! You will pick your features: how do we select the features for a risk assessment session? Jenny will suggest several methods, including grouping by pages and...Read more

Tutorial TK Integrating Automated Testing into DevOps
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

Tutorial TL Holistic Performance Testing for Modern Applications
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

Tutorial TM Test Estimation in the Face of Uncertainty
Robert Sabourin
1:00 pm to 4:30 pm

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

Wednesday, October 6

Morning Yoga—6:45am-7:30am
6:45 am to 7:30 am
Visit the Expo—8:00am–4:15pm
8:00 am to 4:15 pm
Bonus Session B2 Test Automation Management Best Practices: Centralize & Scale with Tricentis qTest
Alan Roberts, Tricentis, Jarrod Grayson, Tricentis
8:00 am to 8:30 am

In an enterprise environment, success with a diverse test automation toolset will require testing leaders to strike a balance between tool choice and governance. Join us to learn how Tricentis qTest can help you strike this balance, while ensuring each new tool is anchored within a strategic, integrated, and scalable test automation management strategy.

In this session, we’ll walk you through how Tricentis qTest can help you manage and scale test automation across both open source and proprietary tools. You will learn how to:

Achieve an organization-wide view of quality,...Read more
Keynote K1 The Deal—Quality & Development Together
Jenny Bramble, Papa, Adrian Dunston, Papa
8:30 am to 9:45 am

Why are developers and QA professionals so often at odds? We know that it takes both disciplines to make better software faster. So how do we get from an adversarial relationship to a beneficial one? Join Jenny Bramble, Director of Quality Engineering, and Adrian P. Dunston, Director of Backend Engineering, as they discuss and explore “The Deal”—a pact between one test engineer and one software engineer that can make a huge impact for the two and for the teams around them by strengthening both disciplines. They will describe The Deal (development supports test; test keeps development safe...Read more

Keynote K2 Open Testing: What If We Opened Our Testing Like We Open Our Source?
Andrew Knight, PrecisionLender, a Q2 Company
10:00 am to 11:00 am

Testing is a vibrant discipline with well-established practices, but many times, nobody but the testers who write the tests ever see them. Tests could offer so much value if they were openly shared—with developers, product owners, and perhaps even end-users. So, why don’t we open our tests like we open our source? There are so many parallel benefits: helping others learn, helping teams develop higher-quality software, and helping users gain confidence in the products they use. Opening tests includes sharing the tools, frameworks, and even test cases themselves. With AI and ML technologies...Read more

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
Industry Technical Presentation ITP1 10 Steps to Continuous Performance Testing in DevOps
Kristen Webb, Tricentis, Paul Bruce, Tricentis
11:30 am to 12:30 pm
There’s no question that enterprises today want to further integrate continuous performance testing into automated pipelines. However, many are finding it difficult to reconcile the mismatched clock-speed of testing with today’s accelerated pace of development and delivery. This session presents field-tested best practices on how to get started with automated continuous testing and how to overcome common testing automation blockers. You’ll learn, among other things, the key steps to continuous performance testing in DevOps, including how to: • Gather the right metrics to assess your gaps •...Read more
Industry Technical Presentation ITP2 Quickly Enabling Test Data for SAP Upgrades
Mark Asbury, Broadcom, Punit Chordia, Infosys
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

One of the vital challenges faced in SAP testing is the unavailability of Test Data needed for critical testing phases. Organizations across the globe are looking for self-service data generation capabilities for SAP apps and databases to enable CI-CD in the landscape. Those undergoing S4 HANA Landscape transformation need to accelerate the data extraction from multiple data sources and SAP tables, all while adhering to data privacy and compliance, such as GDPR guidelines.

Watch our session and learn how you can:

Utilize SAP S/4HANA browser-based tools and API's to access SAP...Read more
Industry Technical Presentation ITP3 The State of Software Quality | 2021 Trends and Insights
Jennifer Lowenthal, SmartBear, Phil Voulgaris, SmartBear
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Join a panel of SmartBear experts as they walk through the 2021 State of Software Quality Testing and API reports, and divulge the key trends and observations uncovered. SmartBear collected insights from thousands of developers, testers, and managers worldwide who are passionate about quality as it relates to software testing and bringing APIs to market. These reports are designed to capture benchmarks for software testing professionals. It reaches across industries and takes into account the methodologies, practices, and tools used to build, validate, and deliver software. It reveals...Read more

Concurrent Session W4 End to End Performance Testing - Automated!
Kaushal Dalvi, UKG
11:30 am to 12:30 pm
End to end tests used to be the de facto standard in the performance testing world. However, with the advent of microservices that evolve rapidly, it has become more and more difficult to maintain end to end performance test suites. As a result, teams have gravitated towards having isolated micro-service level performance tests that are easier to maintain. This, however, leaves a gap in achieving the transaction mix and overall system load that E2E performance tests are best suited to provide. So when faced with this dilemma, Kaushal and his team took on an ambitious goal to automate the...Read more
Concurrent Session W5 Gatekeeper to Enabler: 5 Steps to Make QA the Darling of Your Company
Erika Chestnut, Calendly
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

How’s the culture of quality in your organization? In 2021, many companies will still place QA at the end of the delivery lifecycle - acting gatekeepers to production. Does your leadership act as a gatekeeper in your release cycles or do you have the final say? Gatekeeping creates a wasteful test experience that ultimately drives longer delivery cycles and does not cultivate a culture where everyone is empowered to assure quality. In this talk, Erika Chestnut, Head of QA at Calendly will share 5 concrete steps to transform your leadership from costly gatekeeping to enabling quality. If you...Read more

Concurrent Session VI1 8 Bit Pro—A Gamer's Guide to Testing
Daniel Billing, Microsoft
11:30 am to 12:30 pm

Let me take you back in time to the 1980s and tell you a story. A story of an 8-year-old boy, seaside arcades, chunky cartridges, tape drives, floppy discs, pokes, cheats, and magazines full of code! This is the start of how I became a tester. Gaming is often written off as a wasteful pastime. Hours of time are sunk into playing the latest games, just to get kudos amongst other fellow gamers. Some do take it to extremes and ignore all other aspects of their lives. I would argue that gaming is a productive activity. Gamers test all the time. Gamers explore, model, tweak, mod, exploit and...Read more

Lunch in the Expo—12:30pm–1:30pm
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm
Concurrent Sessions—1:30pm–2:30pm
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Industry Technical Presentation ITP4 The Game Changer of Software Automation
Alex Chernyak, ZAPTEST
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

ZAPTEST is a new generation Software Automation solution for Functional and Performance testing and the Robotic process automation (RPA) supporting modern Hyperautomation for Digital Transformation industry movement.

In this session, we'll cover:

Company Overview Technology Advantages On-boarding ModelRead more
Industry Technical Presentation ITP5 A Winning Strategy: Optimize Test Automation With CI/CD & Virtualization
Jeff Peeples, Parasoft
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Enterprise companies are constantly challenged with delivering high-quality applications that meet customer expectations. The only way to make sure you meet schedule, budget, and quality targets is with a comprehensive testing strategy that provides insight to test coverage and results with guidance for continuous improvement.

Implementing a winning testing strategy requires a partner and a platform that work with your priorities to reach your goals. Parasoft provides an end-to-end software testing solution with world-class support that addresses the needs of modern enterprise...Read more

Industry Technical Presentation ITP6 How to Create a Balanced Approach to Testing
Darrel Farris, mabl
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Manual testing has long been the cornerstone of quality, but relying on manual testing alone is no longer a viable testing strategy. High-velocity teams often struggle to keep up with frequent releases which demands a hybrid or even fully automated approach.

To manage, quality teams are turning to low-code test automation solutions. But, the line between what to automate and what to test manually is blurred. Understanding the role of each - and their impact on UX - is critical to building an effective strategy. In this session, we’ll explore how to create a balanced, high-impact...Read more

Concurrent Session W9 APIs – Security & Performance – How to Avoid Getting in the News!
Adam Sandman, Inflectra
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

We all know that Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are critical in the modern economy, however, if you don't pay attention to the security or performance aspects of APIs, the results can be catastrophic. From large scale data-breaches, major system-wide outages and executives being hauled in front of Congress, failure to adequately plan and carry out API performance and security testing will definitely make the front-page news.... not in a good way. This session will discuss the present a comprehensive strategy for performance and security testing of your APIs, it will include best...Read more

Concurrent Session W12 The Human Side to Testing
Amanda Perkins, Rocket Homes
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

We’re known for breaking things and testing the limits, and patience of our team and our systems. We advocate for quality in all things and we advocate for the end user. But, none of us actually think about how our varied backgrounds influence what we do and how we test. In this session we’ll explore how our previous (and current) experiences subconsciously affect our testing and how to bring those experiences to the forefront in order to be better testers all around. We’ll show how our experiences with tech and outside of tech influence how, what, and why we test the way we do. We’ll also...Read more

Concurrent Session VI2 How I Became Agile When It Came to Mental Health
Maryam Umar, Thought Machine
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Maryam Umar comes from a household of high achievers. Her parents never asked to be awesome in what she studied. They always had this unsaid expectation. Luckily, she did really well throughout school, college and university. She likes to think she got her dad’s sense of achievement and her mum’s great way of organizing her tasks. From her teens onwards, she started developing a high sense of perfection for every-thing she took on. However, she did not realize that having this high bar was slowly consuming her. Maryam will talk about how the desire to be awesome slowly engulfed her. The...Read more

Concurrent Sessions—2:45pm–3:45pm
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm
Industry Technical Presentation ITP7 DevOps Approach to Ensure Quality in Microservices
Richard Mills, Coveros
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

You’ve shifted to microservice architecture, but now you have hidden dependencies which are maintained by teams that don't talk to each other. You’re stuck with the inability to figure out which versions work together, driving the need to test your old system in pieces and as a whole. What do you do?

Join DevOps Architect Rich Mills as he shares experiences introducing DevOps with a high degree of automation to build, deploy, and amplify the level of testing. Learn how the CI/CD pipeline can be used to foster communication between well-structured teams and how to ensure that each...Read more

Industry Technical Presentation ITP8 AI in Testing
Harshal Vora, QMetry Inc.
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

As more organizations gear up to improve customer experience across digital channels, delivering incremental features and enhancements has become par for the course. Users expect continuous improvement and the best quality in the products and services they access. According to World Quality Report, around 23-28% Enterprise IT Budget is allocated to testing which amounts to enormous $40 billion! Even after this huge budget allocation, according to Global Developer Report from GitLab, Testing is the #1 barrier to speed and agility. Why is this the case? Why testing is always a challenge for...Read more

Concurrent Session W13 AI-Driven Test Automation: A Tour De Force
Tariq King, test.ai
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

The use of AI for testing is one of the latest trends in the software industry. Within the last decade, there has been a vast increase in the number of vendors and startup companies promoting AI-driven test automation tools, platforms or frameworks. But what are the real benefits of this technology? Does it have any weaknesses? Are all AI technologies created equally? Join Tariq King as takes you on a journey and shows you the true strength of AI in testing. In this tour de force, Tariq will describe some of the recent advances in AI-driven test automation, while keeping it down to earth...Read more

Concurrent Session W16 Performance Testing in DevOps
Lee Barnes, Utopia Solutions
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

Performance testing isn’t the first thing organizations think about when moving to DevOps – in fact, it’s often ignored as traditional approaches don’t jive well with the fast and nimble world of DevOps. However, performance is still a critical part of the user experience, and poor performance and outages will quickly negate the value of the features you’re delivering. Lee believes that organizations don’t have to gamble with application performance. He will discuss techniques for implementing continuous performance testing in your pipeline, so you don’t have to roll the dice on your user...Read more

Concurrent Session VI3 Does Low Code Mean Low Testing?
Jan Jaap Cannegieter, Squerist
2:45 pm to 3:45 pm

Low Code and No Code are new on the block. There are very much low code and no code platforms and the number of organization that use low code or no code is growing. And does low code or no code mean we don't have to test or have to test less on these systems? We will go deep into this question in this talk and explore the risks of low code and no code systems. This presentation will start with a short introduction in low code. We will explain what they are, how they work and will tell that the vendors promise us and that reality is. In the second part we will dive deep into the question...Read more

Networking Break in the Expo—3:45pm-4:15pm
3:45 pm to 4:15 pm
Keynote K3 Lightning Strikes the Keynotes
Alison Wade, TechWell Corp.
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

Thursday, October 7

Morning Yoga—6:45am-7:30am
6:45 am to 7:30 am
Visit the Expo—8:00am–4:00pm
8:00 am to 4:00 pm
Bonus Session B3 Continuous Testing with Remote Execution
Anand Kameswaran, Worksoft
8:00 am to 8:30 am

The speed of innovation continues to increase, driving rapid and relentless change for today’s ever-evolving IT landscapes, creating greater risk as IT and business teams scramble to ensure timely delivery. How can your organization keep pace? Test more, worry less. With Worksoft’s Connective Automation Platform, you can easily build and maintain automated tests, accelerating testing time without losing scope or volume. Learn how you can schedule and execute remote, continuous tests to intercept defects sooner and prioritize remediation—without sacrificing your nights and weekends. Explore...Read more

Keynote K4 Performance—Really What Is It These Days? Why Does It Matter?
Leandro Melendez, QualiTest
8:30 am to 9:45 am

System performance has become critical with the pace of agile and continuous delivery, where things like microservices, cloud, IoT, and many other environments keep changing the landscape of the IT world. Unfortunately, many teams still try to hold on to the old testing methods and only load test. Or worse, they think performance testing is the same as load testing. There are many ways we can expand how we test performance—everything from testing, assurance, validation, verification, optimization, notification, and many other activities. These actions will enable our organizations to...Read more

Concurrent Sessions—9:45am–10:45am
9:45 am to 10:45 am
Industry Technical Presentation ITP10 Developing and Testing a Web App with Continuous Integration + Visual End to End Testing Using C#
Nikolay Advolodkin, Sauce Labs
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Join Nikolay Advolodkin to learn more about continuous integration and visual testing using Sauce Labs.

Continuous integration can seem difficult to many individuals. However, CI doesn't need to be with the combination of the right tools. In this video, Nikolay Advolodkin will go over how to create a web-app using React. Then, we will shift-left by adding some automated unit tests using React Testing Library. Next, we will shift-right by adding some visual tests using Sauce Visual. And finally, you will learn how to continuously build and test the web app through a Github workflow...Read more

Industry Technical Presentation ITP11 Deploying a Large Scale Army of AI-Driven Testing Bots
Patrick Alt, test.ai
9:45 am to 10:45 am

AI-driven test execution is helping organizations scale their software validation and verification efforts and keep pace with the speed of DevOps. However, this new level of test automation is not without additional infrastructure costs. AI testing bots tend to consume a significant amount of resources when using deep machine learning models to generate and execute test cases. And so a new problem has arisen: how do we scale AI-driven testing efficiently and reliably to support the needs of large enterprises? Join Patrick Alt as he describes an approach for running hundreds of AI testing...Read more

Industry Technical Presentation ITP12 The Benefits of Shift-Left Automated Testing for the Mainframe
Stuart Ashby, BMC
9:45 am to 10:45 am

When developing mainframe applications, testing even a simple code change can take up to half a day - while testing a more complex changes can take two to four days. In a recent Mainframe DevOps survey, businesses budgeted three to four days out of every 10-day sprint for just to conduct manual testing. In addition to the lack of efficiency, this manual process is rife with risk as developers can easily neglect running a test case or even misinterpret the results. It all ends in poor software quality for the end user.

In this session, Stuart Ashby, DevOps architect and evangelist...Read more

Concurrent Session T2 Don’t Be Scared of AI! It’s Here to Stay and So are You
Aprajita Mathur, Guardant Health
9:45 am to 10:45 am

AI is here to stay and we know it’s going to change our world. There is so much information about AI that it's hard to know where to start, what to learn, what to ignore, and what to believe. How do we tester’s cope up with this new technology and will this technology bring an end to our field of work? Join Aprajita Mathur as she shares the basics of AI and where this technology stands today, what problems are being solved by it and why AI is not just about “ Test Bots” or “Robotics”. She will discuss how testers add/can add value in AI, what testing skills are transferable when working...Read more

Concurrent Session T3 Testing Your Serverless Applications
Talia Nassi, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
9:45 am to 10:45 am

This talk is about applying best practices of testing to your serverless applications. Serverless technologies allow you to focus on building your application by reducing the work you do managing infrastructure. You'll learn how to overcome the challenges of testing in a serverless architecture, and how to efficiently test your Lambda functions efficiently. This includes unit testing, integration testing, and end-to-end testing. After this talk, you will gain an understanding of the benefits of using the AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM) CLI to test code manually, and verifying...Read more

Concurrent Session VI4 Say Goodbye to Test Flakiness and Welcome AI into Open Source Mobile Testing
Amit Lacher, TestProject
9:45 am to 10:45 am

Mobile automation testing, especially if open source (i.e best of breed – Appium), can be frustrating at times, as it comes with quite a few common challenges: complex environments & setup processes, constantly maintaining locator strategies, struggling with team collaboration, tiresome iOS dependencies, trying to avoid fragility and flakiness within your tests, lack of visibility into test results, and so much more... In this talk we’ll deep dive into each of these obstacles and discuss how Agile methods & advanced tools that will leverage your open source mobile testing with the...Read more

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
Industry Technical Presentation ITP13 How to Build for Scalable Salesforce Test Automation
Michael Dailey, Provar
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

Explore recommended practices for set-up of scalable build processes including: structure, orgs, test environments, smoke test projects, verification process, and test reporting structure.Read more

Industry Technical Presentation ITP14 How to Make a Market-Driven Decision on Test Automation Frameworks
Eran Kinsbruner, Perfecto by Perforce
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

In this rapidly evolving world of app development and testing, how does one pick a test automation framework? Or decide whether to add or switch to a different framework? In this session, you’ll learn how to select future-ready frameworks that best support your testers and developers.

You’ll learn:

Driving forces that are impacting the mobile & web app landscape. Selection criteria for major & emerging test automation frameworks. When to switch, mix, or remain with your current tech stack.

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Industry Technical Presentation ITP15 Applying a Risk-Based Approach to Testing Mission-Critical Applications
Adam Sandman, Inflectra
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

One of the most under-appreciated aspects of testing is risk. There is never enough time to do all the testing that would be needed for 100% coverage (this is true for automated testing and manual testing). Consequently, there is a tradeoff between spending time on different types of testing and focusing on specific features, modules or requirements. By applying a risk-based approach to testing, you can seek to optimize these trade-offs with a data-driven methodology.

In this talk I will discuss the different types of risk that you should be considering (technical, business, etc.)...Read more

Concurrent Session T8 Security Testing is Everyone's Responsibility
Adam Satterfield, Global Payments
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

How many news stories have you seen recently where a company puts out a statement stating they have been hacked? As applications grow in complexity and scale with technologies such as mobile, microservices and cloud hosting, testers are finding themselves on the forefront of needing to understand how to add security to their suite of testing skills. Paired with an uptick in bad actors trying to take advantage of any application that can be reached via the internet, there is a large need for security testing. Unfortunately, combined with the move to push testing left, security is oftentimes...Read more

Concurrent Session T12 Enhance Mobile Exploratory Testing with Performance Metrics
Sofia Palamarchuk, Apptim
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

Consumers now expect digital experiences to exceed face-to-face experiences. Recent studies show that 80% of people have deleted a mobile app if they faced problems with its performance. This abandonment rate impacts the digital transformations that many companies are going through. In this talk, you will learn how mobile performance impacts user experience, what you need to look for when evaluating the performance of an app and the different types of tests that can be done according to the multiple factors that affect the performance: the server, mobile device, network, and programming of...Read more

Concurrent Session VI5 Bots Testing Bots: From Manual to Automated Testing for Conversational AI
Christoph Börner, Botium GmbH
11:15 am to 12:15 pm

Testing is a crucial enabler for the success of chatbots and voice assistants. Doing it manually requires enormous time and effort. As DevOps and furthermore AIOps grow in importance, automated testing will remain critical to ensure that bots actually do what their designers intend. Unlike traditional software where the application follows a predefined flow, a chatbot runs without any restrictions. Talking to a chatbot has no barriers. Combining this with an unpredictable user behavior, it becomes utmost difficult to verify the correctness of conversational AI. Training data and test sets...Read more

Lunch in the Expo—12:30pm–1:30pm
12:30 pm to 1:30 pm
Concurrent Sessions—1:30pm–2:30pm
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm
Industry Technical Presentation ITP16 Cracking the Code of DevSecOps: Intelligent Orchestration + Code Dx
Meera Rao, Synopsys
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Here at Synopsys, we believe application security should be invisible, completely abstracted, extensible to any AST tools. We built Intelligent Orchestration a purpose-built, intelligent, cloud enabled CI/CD pipeline, inclusive of native world-class software security scanning, which enables DevOps teams to produce highly secure software faster. Intelligent Orchestration, offers a holistic, intelligent solution that combines people, process and technology pillars of DevSecOps.

The excitement from the June. 8th announcement of the Code Dx acquisition continues to grow. Code Dx is an...Read more

Industry Technical Presentation ITP17 Change with Confidence in CI/CD Environments-Automate Testing to Speed Implementation & Ensure Quality for Agile+DevOps
Erik Leaseburg , Worksoft
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Explore how to closed-loop automation for process intelligence, testing, and RPA aligns with the CI/CD pipeline. Hear how automation with an API-first approach brings modern capabilities to the packaged application space to support process understanding and process validation that inform, enable and accelerate Agile+DevOps initiatives.

Join Worksoft Director of Product Management, Anand Kameswaran, as he explores how the Worksoft Connective Automaton Platform integrates with your CI/CD pipeline, delivering day zero value with codeless automation that flattens the learning curve so...Read more

Concurrent Session T15 From Fear to Risk: Redefine What Drives Your Enterprise Testing Strategy
Jenna Charlton, Coveros
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Many quality engineering leaders say they do risk-based testing, but walking the walk is showing to be more challenging than enterprises realize. Often, quality engineering teams practicing risk-based testing end up testing “everything” because they continue to test from a place of fear as opposed to calculated risk. Others never reassess or renegotiate risk as their application matures. Additionally, sometimes quality engineering teams lack accurate testing data in order to make well-informed decisions.

Enterprise quality engineering leaders must apply a truth-telling question:...Read more

Concurrent Session T18 Don't Ignore the Happy Path—Know That It Was Never There
Noel Wurst, SmartBear
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

The allure of a "happy path" in testing (and in many other walks of our professional and personal lives) is strong. “A happy path? Sign me up!” you might say to yourself. Imagine yourself standing before two roads. One of them is well lit, maybe you’ve taken it before. Maybe you can even see the end. and you’re confident in what’s waiting for you there. The other road…is different in every way. It’s overgrown, poorly lit, and you can’t see anything past a sharp turn only a few steps in, leaving you with little confidence how long it will take you to walk it, and if you will even reach the...Read more

Concurrent Session VI6 Storytelling with Data for Test Transformation
Kenia Sousa, TD Bank
1:30 pm to 2:30 pm

Teams use project statistics and insights to improve and deliver better products to customers, but as each team has their own set of definitions, formulas and tools, it can be difficult to consolidate data and create clear reporting for leadership. There is an opportunity to improve how data and analytics are presented to leadership, to increase consistency in the data collection and evaluation processes. In this conversation, we will answer two important questions: How can we balance the autonomy teams have with the need of aggregated reporting for leaders? And, how can we leverage data...Read more

Networking Break in the Expo—2:30pm-3:00pm • Closes at 4:00pm
2:30 pm to 4:00 pm
Concurrent Sessions—3:00pm–4:00pm
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm
Concurrent Session T21 Demystifying Microservices—Breaking Down Legacy Applications to Deploy Faster
Abrar Hashmi, Agile Brains Consulting
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Agile is all about speed and one of the fundamental principles of Agile is adherence to technical excellence. Microservices is an architectural style that structures an application as a collection of services that are: Highly maintainable and testable; Loosely coupled; Independently deployable; Organized around business capabilities. Learn how a large Fortune 20 financial institution used microservices to deploy code faster. We will focus on Understanding the using Microservices and how to map technical practices to the business strategy behind microservices. The session will detail how to...Read more

Concurrent Session T24 Conducting an Agency Accessibility Audit
Connie Widener, WA State Department of Licensing
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Often it is up to IT to conduct an accessibility audit. Most government organizations (and private ones for that matter) are hopelessly behind in digital accessibility and vulnerable to litigation. In addition to the legal requirements to be WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 compliant, being digitally accessible is simply the right thing to do. This is our success story of conducting an organization-wide audit, establishing a baseline, conducting a gap analysis, and recommending a remediation plan, all within six months in the one of the largest agencies in Washington State government. No...Read more

Concurrent Session VI7 DevOps: Test Alone
Bjorn Boisschot, CTG
3:00 pm to 4:00 pm

As in the movie HomeAlone, it seems that Dev and Ops have gone on a journey and forgot to take testing/QA with them. We hear big companies tell stories that they have no more testers, all testing is done in production, everything is fully automated by dev, etc. The actual truth lies somewhere in between these statements!

For most DevOps implementations, QA is actually crucial in order to succeed. DevOps however has a dramatic impact on the way we do QA! In this session, I will give you some concrete examples and tips on how we as...Read more

Keynote K5 Life After Selenium
John Hill, KBR, Inc.
4:15 pm to 5:15 pm

Selenium has been the unchallenged leader in open source UI testing since 2004. As the web evolved, Selenium adapted and abstracted alongside it. Unfortunately, that abstraction came with performance and reliability penalties. Now, UI testing is understood to be "slow" and "flaky." Test automation architecture was shaped into "pyramids" to avoid the performance penalty. As a result, QA could not shift left because our results were too slow or unreliable. In 2021, there are now open-source alternatives that will make you consider changing your framework as well as your test strategy. Now,...Read more

Friday, October 8

Testing & Quality Leadership Summit
8:00 am to 2:00 pm

"Leading in a Challenging World"

Friday, October 8 (8:00am-2:00pm PT)

Leadership has never been more important. Between having to lead remotely, deal with economic uncertainty, and navigate the COVID waters, the current environment is a challenge. Join in the conversation with your peers as experienced technology leaders share ways to lead and make organizations successful. Discover how seasoned leaders have grown their leadership skills and what they believe the keys are to becoming an exceptional leader.

At...Read more

Wednesday, October 13

Bonus Session B1 The Mega-Actionable Continuous Testing Workshop
Surya Suravarapu, Broadcom
9:30 am to 12:30 pm
Select this bonus session option when registering! Login information will be emailed separately closer to the bonus session day.

If you’re struggling to understand how to implement continuous testing in your company, then this workshop is for you. In just three 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