STARWEST 2022 - Tutorial | TechWell

Conference archive

STARWEST 2022 - Tutorials

Full- and half-day tutorials are consistently the most popular and highly rated part of the conference. Tutorials allow you to take a deeper dive into a specific topic so that you can learn to make improvements to everyday processes in the areas that matter most to you.

Monday, October 3

MA

BDD for Champions!

New
Monday, October 3, 2022 - 8:30am to 4:30pm

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) is a set of pragmatic practices that prioritizes our focus on the behaviors we want to develop. Why? Users get value out of good behaviors. If we focus on developing high-quality features that users want, then everything else falls into place. In the first half of this workshop, we will explore behaviors for an example product using a group activity called Example Mapping. Then, in the second half, we will refine all the scenarios for those behaviors by writing Gherkin "Given-When-Then" scenarios that follow the Arrange-Act-Assert pattern. Through these...

MB

Getting Started with AI-Driven Automation

New
Monday, October 3, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

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...

Tariq_King
EPAM Systems
MC

Unit Testing: What Every Developer and Tester Should Know

Monday, October 3, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

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...

Chris_Loder
Upland InGenius
ME

Test Automation: How to Start and Succeed

Monday, October 3, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

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 will explain 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,...

Rob_Sabourin
AmiBug.Com, Inc.
MG

The Influential Tester in Agile Development

Monday, October 3, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm
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 be influential and contribute value on cross-functional teams. Rob Sabourin will share several 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-...
Adam Satterfield
Global Payments
MH

Test Strategies for a Modern World

Monday, October 3, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

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...

Tariq_King
EPAM Systems
MI

Full-Stack Testing for Microservices Architectures

New
Monday, October 3, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

Software development is trending toward building systems using small, autonomous, independently deployable microservices. Leveraging microservices makes it easier to release software early, more frequently, and even continuously, which aligns well with Agile and DevOps. But how does the microservices architectural pattern affect software testing and testability? How can you ensure microservice-based applications have an adequate level of test coverage at each level? Does this paradigm change the test automation pyramid, and if so what does that look like? Join Tariq King as he walks...

Melissa Benua
mParticle
MJ

Test Design for Fully Automated Build Architecture

Monday, October 3, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

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...

Adam_Auerbach
EPAM Systems
MK

Instill a DevOps Testing Culture in Your Team and Organization

Monday, October 3, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

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...

Chris_Loder
Upland InGenius
ML

Automation Framework Essentials

Monday, October 3, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

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...

Péter Földházi
EPAM Systems
MM

Become Your Company's Quality Consultant

New
Monday, October 3, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

Companies of all sizes are facing difficulties in achieving higher quality standards within their organization. As quality engineering includes a variety of different roles and activities, it is also challenging to find the right people to analyse the current state from a wide perspective and to provide the recommendations that will allow these organizations to mature their teams, improving their testing culture in the process. Join Péter Földházi as he illustrates the knowledge and skills necessary to become your company's quality consultant. Péter's goal is to involve testers from...

Tuesday, October 4

Tariq_King
EPAM Systems
TA

A Quality Engineering Introduction to AI and Machine Learning

New
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 4:30pm

Although there are several controversies and misunderstandings surrounding AI and machine learning, one thing is apparent — people have quality concerns about the safety, reliability, and trustworthiness of these types of systems. Not only are ML-based systems shrouded in mystery due to their largely black-box nature, they also tend to be unpredictable since they can adapt and learn new things at runtime. Validating ML systems is challenging and requires a cross-section of knowledge, skills, and experience from areas such as mathematics, data science, software engineering, cyber-security,...

Kristoffer Nordström
Northern Test Consulting AB
TB

Testing in the Cloud From All Four Corners of the World!

New
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 4:30pm

This is a workshop for those of you that have done some sort of scripting or automation before. It’s a workshop where we’ll write a simple test agent using Python for sending traffic to a centralized REST API. You’ll follow up by creating 10,000 items of random test objects for offline test data. You’ll spin up server instances in the AWS cloud using Python. And finally, to top it all off, you’ll deploy your test agent and test data in cloud instances spread out over the four corners of the world, all of them generating simultaneous test traffic toward a single REST API where you’ll all...

Chris_Loder
Upland InGenius
TC

Building Your Own Automation Framework

New
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 4:30pm

Let’s face it, building an automation framework is hard. That’s why there are so many commercial ones available on the market. But what if you wanted to build your own? One that you could customize to suit your needs, as opposed to you having to work within the confines of a tool or other framework. Where do you start? What does it need to have to be successful? Chris Loder will walk you through building your own automation framework based on his successful framework architecture. You will start with a basic test case runner and then build on it by adding new modules, such as UI...

Bob Galen
Zenergy Technologies
Mary Thorn
S&P Global Ratings
TD

Techniques for Testers to Thrive in Agile Contexts

New
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

Let’s face it – agile testing is different. First of all, there are challenges integrating successfully within the teams themselves. Scrummer-fall is still running rampant. Then there is the dichotomy of testing vs. quality and balancing your and the teams focus. Finally, delivering value is also an imperative, but a challenge. In this dynamic workshop, join agile coaches Mary Thorn and Bob Galen as they show you the tools, techniques, and mindset you have to bring to the table in order to successfully test in agile contexts. We’ll examine risk-based testing, iterative test planning,...

Jeff Payne
Coveros
TE

Getting Smart on API Testing & Automation

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

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...

Jeff Pierce
Coveros
TF

Quality and Testing Measures and Metrics

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

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...

Tom-Stiehm
Coveros
TG

Web Security Testing: The Basics and More

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm

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 Tom Stiehm 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...

Rob_Sabourin
AmiBug.Com, Inc.
TH

Exploratory Testing in the Heat of the Sprint

New
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 8:30am to 12:00pm
Agile teams are burdened with the challenge of delivering working product increments after short iterations of development. Getting software from an ambiguous terse, incomplete requirement–to a done, working, solid, valuable, high-quality code requires testers to continuously adapt to change in a turbulent context and deliver actionable results. Rob Sabourin will illustrate how charter-driven session-based exploratory testing techniques can empower agile teams and help them learn quickly and adapt based on what really matters. Testers can design and execute tests on the fly as they explore...
Bob Galen
Zenergy Technologies
Mary Thorn
S&P Global Ratings
TI

Leading Agile Testers— Successfully Making the Leap

New
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm
Based on the learning objectives from the iCAgile, Leading with Agility workshop, this ½ day version will explore the craft of agile leadership in guiding your journey to becoming a catalyst leader in testing and quality contexts. Along the way, we'll explore the why of leading with agility, how to develop and grow your personal agility, tactics for developing and deepening your organizational relationships, and approaches for leading cultural and organizational transformation. Critical topics include your responsibility in shaping an organizational testing, and quality culture that is...
Andrew Knight
Applitools
TJ

Automating Visual Tests with Cypress

New
Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

In this workshop, we learn what "visual testing" is and how it's different from traditional functional testing. Essentially, a picture is worth a thousand assertions. We can take visual snapshots of our apps during automated tests and compare them over time. Any changes detected are flagged for testers to inspect. Good visual testing uses AI to flag significant things like missing elements instead of insignificant things like a 1-pixel shift. To demonstrate this, we will automate a test for an example web app using Cypress and JavaScript without and then with visual snapshots. For visual...

Jeff Payne
Coveros
TK

Integrating Automated Testing into DevOps

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

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...

TL

Holistic Performance Testing for Modern Applications

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

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...

Rob_Sabourin
AmiBug.Com, Inc.
TM

Test Estimation in the Face of Uncertainty

Tuesday, October 4, 2022 - 1:00pm to 4:30pm

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,...