SQE STARWEST Conference Brochure 2008

COnCUrrent SeSSiOnS weDneSDay, OCTOBeR 1, 3:00 p.m. W11 TEST MAnAGEMEnT W14 PERSOnAL EXCELLEnCE test estimation: Painful or Painless? Lloyd Roden, Grove Consultants As an experienced test manager, lloyd Roden believes that test estimation is one of the most difficult aspects of test management. you must deal with many unknowns, including dependencies on development activities and the variable quality of the software you test. lloyd presents seven proven ways he has used to estimate test effort. some are easy and quick but prone to abuse; others are more detailed and complex but may be more accurate. lloyd discusses FiA (finger in the air), formula/percentage, historical reference, Parkinson’s law vs. pricing, work breakdown structures, estimation models, and assessment estimation. He shares spreadsheet templates and utilities that you can use and take back to help you improve your estimations. By the end of this session, you might just be thinking that the once painful experience of test estimation can, in fact, be painless. Useful utilities will be given out during the session to help with estimation. W12 top ten non-technical Skills for Better testing Krishna Iyer and Mukesh Mulchandani, ZenTEST Labs in the era of sOA and web 2.0, as it becomes more and more difficult to accomplish comprehensive testing, Krishna iyer and Mukesh Mulchandani describe ten non-technical skills that will make you a better tester. The first five are qualities we often look for in testers yet seldom practice scientifically and diligently—collaboration, creativity, experimentation, passion, and alertness. The second five are abilities that are seldom mentioned, yet equally important for testers— connect the dots, challenge the orthodox, picture and predict, prioritize, and leave work at work. Drawing from their experiences of building a testing team for their organization and consulting with global firms in building “testing capability,” Krishna and Mukesh show how you and your test team can improve each of these ten nontechnical skills. Practice these skills during the session and take back techniques you can use to hone your skills at work. W15 TEST TECHnIquES SPECIAL TOPICS exploratory testing: the next generation David Gorena Elizondo, Microsoft exploratory testing is sometimes associated with “ad hoc” testing, randomly navigating through an application. However, emerging exploratory techniques are anything but ad hoc. David Gorena elizondo describes new approaches to exploratory testing that are highly effective, very efficient, and supported by automation. David describes the information testers need for exploration, explains how to gather that information, and shows you how to use it to find more bugs and find them faster. He demonstrates a faster and directed (not accidental) exploratory bug finding methodology and compares it to more commonly used approaches. learn how test history and prior test cases guide exploratory testers; how to use data types, value ranges, and other code summary information to populate test cases; how to optimize record and playback tools during exploratory testing; and how exploratory testing can impact churn, coverage, and other metrics. W13 the Power of Specially gifted Software testing Thorkil Sonne, Specialisterne specialisterne (“The specialists”) is a Danish company that employs people with very special capabilities to perform complex and difficult tasks, including software testing, quality control, and data conversion. Their customers are companies such as Computer sciences Corporation (CsC), Microsoft, and leading Danish iT organizations. Their founder and our presenter, Thorkil sonne, received the iT Award 2008 from the Danish iT industry Association for the company’s ability to find and employ especially talented people in iT. seventyfive percent of the employees of specialisterne have autism— Autistic spectrum Disorder (AsD)—typically Asperger’s syndrome. Traditionally, society has viewed people with AsD as handicapped. yet, their abilities to concentrate, stick to tasks, and quickly absorb highly complex technical information are exactly the characteristics of the best software testers. Hear Thorkil’s vision and strategy on how he believes the software testing industry worldwide can derive considerable benefit from employing special people with autism. TEST AuTOMATIOn test automation techniques for Dynamic and Data intensive Systems Chris Condron, The Hanover Group if you think you’re doing everything right with test automation but it just won’t scale, join the crowd. if the amount of data you’re managing and the dynamic changes in applications and workflows keep you in constant maintenance mode, this is the session for you. encountering these problems, Chris Condron’s group reviewed their existing automation successes and pain points. Based on this analysis, they created a tool agnostic architecture and automation process that allowed them to scale up their automation to include many more tests. By aligning their test scripts with the business processes, his team developed a single test case model they use for both manual and automated tests. They developed a test data management system incorporating storage of and a review process for three types of test data: scenarios, screen mappings, and references. Their new test scripts contain only the application flow information and reference the test data system for the input values. Join Chris and find out how you can enjoy the same success. “So many choices! Loved that I can learn so much about things I don’t currently do on my job. Like Lee said, if you don’t do it, who will? Wonderful event! I loved it.” Lynn rossell Software Test Engineer, Follett Software Company 20 Call 888.268.8770 or 904.278.0524 to register • www.sqe.Com/swreg http://www.sqe.com/swreg

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SQE STARWEST Conference Conference-At-A-Glance Pre-Conference Tutorials Keynote Sessions Concurrent Sessions Registration Information

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