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Writing Testable User Stories and Acceptance Criteria Track 1: 1:00 - 2:00 Switching from traditional requirements to user stories can be a challenging transition. Teams often struggle with writing effective user stories and corresponding acceptance criteria. In her talk, Megan will take a deep dive into writing user stories and their acceptance criteria. Using a case study, Megan will explain the INVEST model. She will discuss where user stories and acceptance criteria fit into agile teams. Finally different ways to express acceptance criteria will be explored. Participants will leave with tips and strategies to take back to their teams that will improve the testability of their User Stories. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SAP Payroll Testing: A Two Year QA Journey Track 2: 1:00 - 2:00 Recently, Scotiabank outsourced its payroll system to SAP managed by an external vendor. The quality assurance effort to integrate and test the system within the existing infrastructure was a challenging two and a half year experience. Prior to the go live date, the QA team had executed over 6,000 unique test cases and raised over 1,000 problem logs during eight QA cycles of payroll. The project team ran in parallel for more then four months with many more defects noted and fixed during this phase. As the QA Director of this initiative, Tom will walk through the experience of coordinating the many teams, systems, and external vendors required to make this project successful. In this session, Tom will cover the QA project management methodology used, the integration of systems, the tools and techniques to manage timelines and cycles, resource balancing, audit reviews, and the processes for ensuring quality is maintained. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Requirements Management Best Practice and Implementation Track 3: 1:00 - 2:00 In many IT organizations, the task of gathering and specifying project requirements is assigned to team members, not because they have the requisite skills and knowledge base to perform that task, but instead because they have the time to do it. All too often, a non-disciplined approach to requirements specification results in requirements that are “fuzzy” -- ambiguous, imprecise, incomplete, non-testable, mutually exclusive, just plain wrong, or missed entirely. As a consequence, we wind up developing and delivering the wrong product, and we may not discover that until user acceptance test time. This presentation will focus on a disciplined approach to requirements, what is involved, who is involved, the requirements process life cycle, and benefits to projects and customers. Requirements implementation and evolution in the framework of the AT&T IT Unified Process will be presented as an example. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Test Planning Approaches for a Smooth Test Execution Track 4: 1:00 - 2:00 You have been given the assignment of creating a test plan for a new project, but where do you begin? Key testing approaches established early in the project life cycle can allow for smoother testing at the end, when time is short. This session stresses the importance of testers joining the project team early to prepare test plans that will help to uncover or even prevent requirement defects. Early in the project, defect triage guidelines should be developed that determine when the project will be ready for release into production. This session explains how to gain confidence that the test plan thoroughly tests the project by using a requirements and test case traceability approach. A good test plan will help you to have smooth sailing on the surface even while being very busy beneath the waves. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quick and Easy Risk Based Regression Testing Track 5: 1:00 - 2:00 Regression testing is usually a large part of any overall project testing effort. Total effort in this area can be reduced by understanding your company or product’s overall risk tolerance and by evaluating product changes and feature areas from a risk perspective. Join Rene and learn about the benefits of a risk-based testing approach. These benefits include shortened regression time to meet business objectives and improved alignment with testing stakeholders reducing conflict and improving communication. Risk-based testing also encourages greater growth and development for the testing team. Real world examples of building a risk-based regression testing strategy will be included. Techniques for identifying risks, mitigation strategies, issues vs. risks, and prioritizing testing will be discussed. Learn how moving from a quality/testing vocabulary to a risk-based vocabulary can help you more effectively communicate the value and ROI of quality/testing activities with executives who seem more focused on schedules and revenue goals than product quality. An IT CMMi Process Improvement Journey Track 1: 11:00 - 12:00 Join Hemant as he discusses the continuous process Improvement journey that his information technology unit embarked upon four years ago. This session will provide you with insights into how the organization evolved through this journey with tangible business benefits that impacted the core operations of the larger organization. During this journey, CMMI L3 certification was a significant milestone for the 1800 strong workforce, and a huge turn around for the region in the area of best business practices in software development. Typical pitfalls in process improvement will be explored as well as what it takes to begin and sustain a process improvement journey. Hemant will also reveal practical learnings gained during the experience. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leading Your QA Team to Achieve Team and Personal Success Track 2: 11:00 - 12:00 During this session, Kent will share his proven techniques, insights, and lessons learned, not only on how to manage your QA team, but on how to lead them to achieve success for themselves, the team, and the IT organization. Kent will cover all aspects of effective QA team management, including defining clear roles and responsibilities, picking the right team members, building development plans and team competency, providing performance feedback and coaching, and developing winning business cases to justify QA staff positions, hardware and software purchases. You will learn leadership techniques for quickly handling internal and external team conflict, issue resolution, uncooperative IT peers and business users, and marginal employee or team performance. This session is intended not only for those who have recently become QA Managers, but everyone who is in a QA Management role. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cheerleading vs. Management by Fact When Improving Processes Track 3: 11:00 - 12:00 Quick fixes and corrections can address immediate software problems, but often just brush these problems aside to have them pop-up again. Only by understanding the importance of defect measurement in a well-defined quality control process can software problems be addressed with long-term results. In this session, Rebecca will present an approach to software development process improvement. Using a practical case study as an example, Rebecca will discusses prerequisites for process improvement and provide direction for identifying what you want to measure and how. She will also discuss the discipline of remaining objective, ways to measure effectiveness, and how to successfully communicate process improvement. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Enabling Automation in Your Organization Track 4: 11:00 - 12:00 In order to remain competitive, organizations are continually driving to deliver products faster and more efficiently. Complicating this situation further is the push to sustain or decrease current resources. Given these constraints, one possible solution is automated testing. In order to successfully implement an automation team, you must focus on speed, cost, and quality. This session will cover the life of an automation team from inception to their ultimate role as a trend setter within your department. Deakon will help you understand how to implement an automation team within your own organization including gaining approval from management for resources and funding. He will cover how to build the team discussing the necessary skill sets, training, commitment, and structure. The role of the team within the project lifecycle will be explored and, finally, Deakon will present ways for the team to communicate their specific successes. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Integrating Exploratory Testing into an Existing Process-Based Organization Track 5: 11:00 - 12:00 Have you attended a presentation on a new technique or process that you thought would work extremely well in your organization? You go back to the office “fired-up and ready to start” implementing that new technique or process. Unfortunately, no one else in the organization is familiar with or has even heard anything about this new idea. As humans, we do not welcome change to the processes that we already know work just fine. Thus, you fall victim to the old adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In her presentation, Gretchen will discuss methods to get the new process, in this case exploratory testing, integrated into the existing one. The discussion will look into the hurdles and roadblocks that might be encountered and what steps can be used to gain acceptance. You will need to be innovative, pick the appropriate time, and have a strategy for integration, possibly starting with small pilot projects to provide proof of concept to those “non-believers” in change. An Effective IT Solutions Delivery Process with Quality Gates Track 1: 11:00 - 12:00 One of the biggest reasons projects fail is because no one understands where the project is in the delivery lifecycle. Development is occurring without design specifications, testing is carried out without a strategy or plan, and the project manager has no idea how far along any function is on the initiative timeline. Chaos reigns! In his presentation, Ken will show you how quality gates will help your initiatives progress more effectively. You will see what questions need to be asked at each gate, understand the consequences of the answers, and leverage those consequences in a positive manner for future improvement opportunities. This presentation will show you how to avoid pitfalls with quality gates, using lessons learned, and other practices that will help your solutions delivery process become more successful. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Organizational Change: A Personal Journey Track 2: 11:00 - 12:00 Companies change for many reasons. They may be expanding or contracting their business, diversifying into new product lines, or even by redesigning or reformulating their current product. In this time of dire economic struggle, organizational change has become the marching order of many companies. So, what is the problem? Organizations are made up of people, who, although they want to change, must evolve through a series of phases to achieve that change. A person must acknowledge change, come to terms with the change details on an internal level, and incorporate that as part of their behavior. Changing behavior is a psychological journey. Geree will discuss a maturity model that will give an actionable view of personal internalization and behavior change. It helps to identify a person’s journey through the three phases of personal transition, so that an appropriate, integrated plan can be developed to facilitate that evolution This maturity model will also help the organization to identify when the change has been fully institutionalized. About the speaker… -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Testing Web Applications: A Practical Approach Track 3: 11:00 - 12:00 Web-based applications have become the most widely used form of software, not only for e-commerce, but in our personal lives as well. Whether your spouse is booking your next vacation, or you are scheduling an appointment in an acute care facility, responsiveness and reliability are key to your satisfaction and desire to return. The quality assurance group testing these applications faces many challenges, with shorter test cycle times, fewer resources, constantly evolving technology, and instant world wide exposure. Explore how to plan, test, and deploy new or updated websites with confidence using practical, no nonsense methods. Functional and non-functional testing including configuration, usability, performance, and security will be covered. Learn how to use software tools to improve your testing techniques. Automated testing, mobile browsing, and the future of Rich Internet Applications will also be discussed. Take home a new perspective on testing web applications; implement these solutions and reduce your testing anxiety. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Running Virtual Services Testing Environments in the Cloud Track 4: 11:00 - 12:00 Cloud computing already provides excellent value potential for deploying enterprise software with increased flexibility and lower cost of entry. So, how can it improve our testing and delivery lifecycles? The Cloud offers great benefits for development team environments and test labs, increasing options for IT assets to be provisioned “on-demand” to help advance the software development and testing lifecycle. However, there are unique risks inherent in incorporating the Cloud for software test and delivery teams. The challenges of test data volatility, capacity, unexpected costs, and constraints from unavailable dependent IT assets can be greater in the Cloud. In this session, Chris will reveal how development and QA teams can avoid these risks and leverage the Cloud to improve their ability to successfully deliver enterprise software on time and under budget. About the speaker… --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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