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Managing Risk and Maintaining Product Quality in a Project Recovery Situation Track 1: 1:30 - 2:30 How many times have you been involved with a project that is in the middle of testing only to find out that fundamental project deliverables were missing? In a time when implementing technology solutions with a proven methodology is known to reduce risk, we still encounter situations where shortcuts were taken without a risk plan to compensate. Using a specific case study, this session will provide an overview of how to mitigate and reduce the risk of delivering a critical product in a time sensitive situation, what to do when there is a lack of detailed business requirements, test plans, and test cases, and finally, how to ensure that quality is not compromised. Tony will discuss the case study and identify the approaches used to ensure product quality was not jeopardized, ensuring the involvement of the stakeholders and project team. About the speaker... When Good Numbers Go Bad Track 2: 1:30 - 2:30 The impact of measures and metrics is dependent on how closely they are linked to business goals and organizational strategy. The closer the linkage, the higher the probability that value will be derived. Metrics that are specifically tailored to address the organization's business context must not only deliver information, however, they must also add value, as information does not inherently equal value. All numbers begin their life as good and useful tools until a combination of mistakes, misunderstandings, organizational politics, and poor usage intersect causing "Good Numbers to Go Bad." Whether you are a function point specialist, project manager, or metrics guru, one of your roles is to act as the chief steward both of the numbers and the information. This presentation will highlight, through a series of vignettes, the stark realities of how measures can go wrong combined with suggestions on how to address those unfortunate realities. About the speaker... Phases of the Test Cycle: Discrete Entities or an Overlapping Network? Track 3: 1:30 - 2:30 The software test cycle is divided into several stages, including unit test, component or function test, and system test. Other test phases, such as performance, globalization, and translation must also be factored into the process. Customarily, these phases are considered to have discrete boundaries with specific starting and ending points. Different departments or teams may have responsibility for the various phases. In a complex software environment, however, the boundaries are often not discrete and it is difficult, if not impossible, to simply "throw the ball over the net" to those responsible for the next phase. In this presentation, you will examine the boundaries between the phases, look at the overlaps, and see how they can mesh together to form an effective test strategy tuned to the specific organization. Jerrold will draw on his own experiences from his many years as a test coordinator at IBM. He will also provide a forum for audience members to share experiences from their own individual companies. About the speaker... 'A' is for Abstraction: Managing Change in a Test Automation Implementation Track 4: 1:30 - 2:30 Implementing a test automation solution can be like an expedition to the summit of Mount Everest. It is a daunting task and, while some attempt it, few are truly successful. Companies invest considerable resources to be able to reach the elusive goal of providing some reliable means of automating manual tests. Spending significant amounts of money investing in tools and building teams to jump into test automation is one thing. Fully understanding the reality of change and the role of abstraction as a precursor of success, however, is quite another. In his presentation, Mark will focus on the key areas that must be considered to be successful with a test automation solution. You will gain a clear understanding of the concept of change in a test automation project and the use of abstraction to manage change. Additionally, work will be done to understand the context of test automation within a testing group, how to research the right tools, how to find and keep the right people and, finally, how to build essential processes. About the speaker... Creating and Implementing Efficiencies in Your QA Team Track 1: 11:30 - 12:30 In the highly competitive and fast-paced technology industry, QA teams rely on efficiency processes to respond to ever-changing methodologies. In her presentation, Melissa will provide you with guidelines instrumental in the analysis of efficiency process points. You will learn both to understand and apply efficiency strategies to your individual organization's needs. Melissa will guide you on sharing the key points of this presentation with your own team and collaboratively developing an implementation plan for increasing efficiency within your department. Real-life examples and studies will also be shared to reinforce the benefits of correlating the relationship between team efficiency and employee contentment. Central concepts presented will include organizational management, meaningful meetings, deliverables, consistency in test execution, career enrichment and advancement, and communication both within your company and your department. About the speakers... The Quality Assurance Program: Supporting Process Compliance and Improvement Track 2: 11:30 - 12:30 When you think about QA, your mind naturally turns to testing. However, testing is a customer of quality assurance just like development, vendor management, or estimation practices. In a successful organization, quality assurance is an umbrella function that helps to provide consistency in process application across the enterprise. This consistency is achieved through an ongoing internal audit program, continuous process review and improvement, clearly defined process owners, and a communication method that gets the word out to the right audience at the right time. Jane's presentation is a journey through the work-life of a QA Specialist in a CMMi Level 4 organization. Join Jane in exploring the techniques used to successfully deliver a QA program that supports practical process application and process improvement to the software development lifecycle. About the speakers... Advanced Test-Driven Development Track 3: 11:30 - 12:30 Today, there is plenty of discussion about test-driven development (TDD) and plenty of pressure to perform test-driven development in many software projects. In this "bandwagon" atmosphere, it cannot be bad to ask the question: What is really behind TDD? Test-driven development is an approach to software construction in which developers write automated unit tests before writing code. These automated tests are then run as the code changes. Proponents of this approach assert that it delivers software that is easier to maintain and of higher quality than traditional development methods. Join Peter as he shares his view of TDD's advantages and limitations and discusses how the TDD concept can be extended to all levels of testing. Based on real-world experience, Peter will explain how to use TDD practices to support preventive testing throughout the development process resulting in closer cooperation between developers and testers. About the speaker... A Collaborative Approach - Building Performance Testing Capabilities into Your Teams Track 4: 11:30 - 12:30 Performance testing is not well understood and usually is not an activity that one individual can take on. To do it well, it requires broad knowledge and both business and technical skills. It can be complicated and can encompass many roles. Available methods, tools and test environments might be missing. This session will share real world experience of implementing performance testing capabilities where they didn't exist before. It will discuss the challenges that were overcome and the resources that were needed to facilitate the performance test. We will discuss baselines, work load models, tools and environments setup techniques as well as the process framework to establish repeatable methods. In this session you will learn how to overcome the ambiguous performance requirement of "make it fast" and instead use a systematically test approach to meet acceptance criteria and remove risk of a performance problem. About the speakers... A Case Study of a Multi-Year Quality Program for an Enterprise System Implementation Track 1: 3:00 - 4:00 To deliver quality, there must be a focus on both quality assurance and quality control. A quality program can not be just about testing the product. It must also include defined QA processes and systematic actions designed to concentrate on overall quality throughout all stages of the development lifecycle. This case study outlines a quality program that focused on a comprehensive set of processes and activities that began during requirements definition and continued after system went live. Bob will outline for you the approach taken and discuss lessons learned from delivering a comprehensive quality program for a three year enterprise implementation impacting well over 25,000 users. Requirements: Practical Techniques to Improve Quality and Effectiveness Track 2: 3:00 - 4:00 As quality assurance professionals, we repeatedly hear the same questions about how to handle difficult requirement issues. How do I get our customers to review and sign-off on the requirements? How much detail do I need to document? How can I write better quality requirements? To succeed in this area, we need to get the software requirements right the first time. Too often, lessons about requirements are realized far too late in the SDLC to effectively reduce the cost of quality. This presentation looks at practical techniques to improve quality and effectiveness of requirements. By tackling many of the tough questions raised by industry professionals, you will discover how to make the business case for investing in better requirements practices. Practices that include the fundamentals of creating meaningful requirements, clearly documenting project scope, implementing use cases effectively, improving quality reviews, and writing requirements that avoid ambiguity. About the speaker... Data and Environments: Foundations for Effective Testing Track 3: 3:00 - 4:00 Managing test data and test environments are two critical activities that often are not allocated enough time within the software development process. A considerable number of defects discovered during testing can be traced to data or environment issues, not developer code. This can have a significant impact on the progress of testing and is a leading cause for project delays. Test data and test environments need to be managed as related entities. The technical aspects of loading and refreshing the data are often explicitly tied to the configuration of the environment. Moreover, the current approach to creating and managing test data must change as the usual practice of using production data is complicated by the increased regulations on privacy and security. Tracey's presentation will highlight some of the typical challenges companies face, along with the organizational, process, and tool solutions that can be used successfully to avoid these problems. The emphasis will be on real-world solutions that can be implemented within the scope of a single project. About the speaker... The Problem with Problems: The Hidden Cost of Application Problem Resolution Track 4: 3:00 - 4:00 Since the beginning of software development, the process for determining the root cause of application issues has remained largely unchanged. Major analyst group studies show that approximately thirty percent of software development costs and time go toward this analysis. Other disciplines have adopted new methods, including automation, that have dramatically streamlined the process. Why is the software development industry lagging? In his session, Doug will discuss the various inefficiencies, fallacies, and expenses of the software problem resolution process. He will introduce radical, from the point of view of the software development industry, methods for improving software development capacity, quality, and timeliness. Doug's presentation is based on the experience of numerous companies with the optimization of their application development processes. It also incorporates 2008 research on the costs and opportunities associated with current methods of application problem resolution. About the speaker... Passion for Process Improvement and the Reality of a Large Organization Track 2: 11:30 - 12:30 Process improvement initiatives are easy to sponsor but difficult to implement. Management decisions are made related to producing results in a fast paced, dynamic organization with many influencing factors. Creating new methods and habits requires creativity and may require changes for many people. This session will share real world experiences implementing process improvements in large organizations. What changes were introduced? Why were they chosen? What methods were used to implement them? What results were realized? What didn't work? There are many challenges working in large organizations where the theory requires customization based on continual assessments and support. Passion is needed to build management support and team support to ensure process improvements are successful. Critical success factors will be discussed to ensure that changes have a long lasting affect on the project lifecycle. About the speaker... Testing Community: Connect, Collaborate, Learn... Excel! Track 3: 11:30 - 12:30 All large companies occasionally face testing challenges. Buy-in from the top, sharing of information, working across teams and physical locations, and issues of culture can all present complex dilemmas to the testing professional. All too often, individual projects and functional groups build their own isolated processes, tools, and knowledge. In today's competitive, service-oriented environment, silo-based models can no longer keep up with the need to deliver consistent and predictive results. Distributed teams require a structured, knowledge-centric approach. In this session you will learn how such a knowledge-centric approach can dramatically improve testing practices in an organization. Daniela will explain the systems and tools necessary to get there and some options and mechanisms you can use to transform your testing practice from reactive to preventive and predictive. About the speaker... Testing as Integral to the Software Development Lifecycle Track 4: 11:30 - 12:30 Organizations continually struggle to produce solutions that meet quality bars and address business challenges. Proper testing and traceability are a key aspect of this goal. In this session, you will examine the role of the software tester in the application lifecycle. The focus will be on traceability, reporting, and effective testing techniques in a .NET environment. Join Adam as he uses specific examples to demonstrate testing scenarios that show the impact of good integration and the underlying intelligence that can be provided to the project team during the development lifecycle. About the speaker...
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