Effective and timely planning can have a huge impact on your testing success. Rick Craig introduces you to proven test planning methods and techniques, including the master test plan and specific test plans for acceptance, systems, integration, and unit testing. Learn how to manage test activities, estimate test effort, analyze risks, and achieve buy-in. You’ll also receive instructor-recommended test measurement and reporting tactics for monitoring and control.

 
About the Instructor
Rick Craig is a frequent speaker at testing conferences and is well received worldwide as a test and evaluation instructor. He has implemented and managed testing efforts on large-scale, traditional, and embedded systems, and he’s co-authored a study that benchmarked industry-wide processes.

Many developers and testers are making the transition from testing traditional client/server, PC, and/or mainframe systems, to testing rapidly changing Web applications. This tutorial makes this transition easier by explaining these new technologies and recommending techniques that can be included in a Web site’s functional, compatibility, usability, and navigational test plans. Gain an invaluable overview of the most common technologies being used to build Web sites and applications. Learn proven tips and techniques for testing Web technologies, and discover the latest tools available for Web testing.

 
About the Instructor
Steve Splaine is a chartered software engineer with more than 20 years of experience in developing software systems: Web/Internet, client/server, mainframe, and PCs. He is an experienced project manager, tester, and presenter who has consulted at more than 100 companies North America and Europe. He’s also a regular speaker at software testing conferences and lead author of The Web Testing Handbook.

Doing software testing after coding is like looking for typos once a book has gone to press. Not only is it ineffective, it’s costly. The most efficient testing approach applies sound testing practices throughout the entire software lifecycle. In this tutorial, Dale Perry details a testing lifecycle that parallels the software development lifecycle and focuses on defect prevention as well as early detection. Learn when, what, and how to test, plus ways to improve the testability of your system. Get the basics for implementing a pragmatic, yet systematic, integrated approach to testing software.

 
About the Instructor
Dale Perry has over 25 years of experience in information technology. He has been a developer, DBA, project manager, tester, and test manager. His project experience includes large system conversion, distributed systems, online applications, client/server, and Web applications.

This tutorial provides a practical guide for selecting and managing test automation. Mike Sowers and Tom Wissink present core testing tool terminology, concepts, and best practices, while illustrating techniques for evaluating and implementing tools. Live demos are used to illustrate representative, full-function tools. Learn how to effectively integrate tools into the testing process. Examine a best-of breed list of tool vendors and test automation products.

 
About the Instructors
Mike Sowers has over two decades of experience in the engineering and quality fields with extensive experience in requirements gathering, defect prevention techniques, defect containment approaches, software verification and validation-practices, and software engineering methodologies.

With deadline pressures and shifting requirements often facing you, good test case design can make the difference between success and failure in a testing effort. Ross Collard explains how to sharpen your deductive skills in order to design workable, reusable test cases with a reasonable assurance of test coverage and reliability. This tutorial provides you with the opportunity to work on a series of real-life testing scenarios and learn a step-by-step process for designing the "best" test cases.

 
About the Instructor
Ross Collard is a consultant specializing in software testing. His current clients include American Express, General Electric, IBM, Cisco, Dell, Nortel, and NASA. He also teaches software testing at the University of California Berkley.

Testing from the Beginning: Use Cases at Work 

When it comes to getting test professionals involved, the sooner the better is a good rule of thumb. This workshop teaches you how to involve test professionals early in the software development lifecycle by participating in the analysis, review, and refinement of use cases. It’s intended for test managers, QA engineers, and test leads who develop and lead testing methodologies within their organizations. The facilitators also describe lessons learned from the application of use-case technology and how they’re used at Rational Software to get testers involved on the ground floor in order to effectively avoid problems mid-cycle or later. In this hands-on workshop, learn:

• What use cases are and how they’re used to specify functional requirements
• How to write use cases and to review and refine use cases written by others
• Ways to apply the developed use cases as patterns to directly drive the development of system test cases and test procedures

 
About the Instructors
Dean Leffingwell is a software industry veteran and author who provides product planning and strategic advisory services to software companies. Recently, he was a senior vice president at Rational Software, where he was responsible for methodology and software process, as well as the company's requirements management and defect tracking products. He's also lead author Managing Software Requirements: A Unified Approach.

Discovery Zone: A Guide to Software Bug Habitats 

Elisabeth Hendrickson has seen numerous species of software bugs. Drawing on real-world examples of bug reports, she uses this forum to reveal tips and techniques for capturing the wiliest and squirmiest of the critters crawling around in your software. In addition to learning to identify leading causes of defects, you’ll also discover new approaches to ensuring that once found, the bugs are fixed.

• Software bugs: where they hide, how you find them, and how to tell other people they exist
• Discover the habitats of the most common types of bugs in Windows ® applications
• Learn how to make bugs more likely to appear even in a sterile test lab setting

 
About the Instructor
Elisabeth Hendrickson is an independent consultant who specializes in software quality assurance and management. She has more than 12 years of experience working with leading software companies and is the founder of Quality Tree Software, Inc. An award-winning author, she has published more than 20 articles and is a frequently invited speaker at major software quality and software management conferences.

Test Design by Contract 

A behavior contract specifies the preconditions, invariants, and postconditions associated with a specific application function. Contract specifications are both precise and easily reviewed. In addition, contracts provide essential test information. Preconditions and invariants are things that test professionals must ensure during setup. Postconditions and invariants are things that test professionals must check after execution.

• A demonstration of a method for the clear and precise specification of software behavior that also makes essential test information easily accessible
• Learn to develop clearly written behavior contracts, reviewing contracts, and designing tests based on contracts
• Receive a “Guide to Behavior Contracting” that contains definitions, guidelines, and contract patterns

 
About the Instructor
David Gelperin has more than 30 years’ experience in software engineering, including as lead verification manager on a large automatic test equipment project. He also chaired development of the ANSI and IEEE standards on software testing. He is chief architect of the STEP™ testing methodology.