STARWEST 2005 - Software Testing Conference

PRESENTATIONS

Don't Wait, Innovate!

Our test teams often struggle for so long ... to do so much ... with so little, and they usually manage to just squeak by. In the next cycle when asked to do even more with even less, they are likely to fail. Working harder and smarter isn't enough-the rules of the game must change. Innovation is the currency of success.
Heath Newburn, IBM Global Services
End the Guessing Game - Regression Test Selection Methods

Developing your regression test suite does not have to be a guessing game. Impact analysis offers a detailed, code-based, regression test selection process to determine what areas of a software program need-and which do not need-to be re-tested. This approach produces big reductions in the amount of regression testing required. Brian Robinson discusses regression test selection principles, change determination, impact analysis of changes and tests, test selection or creation, and automation tools.
Brian Robinson, ABB Inc.
Globalization Testing

Globalization testing encompasses both internationalization testing and localization testing. Localization testing focuses on system details that must be modified for a particular location, region, or culture. These include language, appropriate idioms, currency formats, alphabetic sort order, left/right vs. right/left language display, date/time formats, and clip art and photograph appropriateness. The necessity of testing these is generally well understood.
Terry Shidner, Symbio
Going Wireless - Test Strategies for Mobile Applications

Testers face unique challenges with mobile applications. Not only do the testers have to test the software for functional and performance correctness, they have to consider compatibility with innumerable combinations of devices and networks. Manish Mathuria discusses how test automation can be leveraged to tame this complex testing challenge in a highly competitive market. He offers a comprehensive perspective on the challenges, justifications, and requirements of doing test automation in the dynamic world of mobile applications.
Manish Mathuria, InfoStretch Corporation
How Much Quality is Enough?

Are you striving for more quality than you really need? How would you know? "Good enough" quality does not mean "substandard" or "mediocre" but is actually an optimal and responsible economic principle we use everyday. Managing test lead for Quardev Laboratories, Jon Bach says because quality is expensive, the "good enough" framework provides the criteria to enhance decision-making about when to ship. He discusses the perils of quality-at-all-cost techniques and shares examples of software that features sufficient quality.
Jon Bach, Quardev Laboratories
Intelligence Testing: Techniques for Validating a Data Warehouse System

Many organizations have implemented information repositories-single-source data warehouses-to capture and provide key business intelligence information. Data warehouse testing presents unique challenges including: the absence of a user interface, constantly shifting user requirements, slow-changing data, a lack of user control with reporting tools, and a state of perpetual change in the applications supplying data.
Geoff Horne, iSQA
It's 2005, Why Does Software Still Stink

We've now been writing software for an entire human generation. Yet software is arguably the least reliable product ever produced. People expect software to fail, and our industry has developed a well-deserved and widely accepted reputation for its inability to deliver quality products. James Whittaker explores the history of software development over the last generation to find out why. He uncovers several attempts to solve the problem and exposes their fatal flaws.
James Whittaker, Florida Institute of Technology
Journey to Test Automation Maturity

Organizations that want to automate their testing generally go through a number of stages before they reach maturity. Whether you are about to begin your journey or are well under way, it is important to know where you are going and where you could go. In automating test execution, many organizations stop short of achieving their maximum benefits. This presentation looks at six levels of maturity in test automation and includes a self-assessment test to see where you are.
Dorothy Graham, Grove Consultants
Let's End the Defect Report-Fix-Check-Rework-Cycle

Find out how teams transitioning to Agile practices must re-think their workflows and project metrics originally designed to handle many hundreds of defect reports that occur in typical testlast development cycles. Richard Leavitt discusses how a real-world implementation of key practices like early testing and continual integration-though not without bumps and bruises-lowered the number of open defect reports by an order of magnitude.
Richard Leavitt, Rally Software Development
Let's Make Bugs Miserable

Preventing and eliminating bugs is what quality is all about. Help! Call the virtual exterminator! From the moment a bug is created until it is killed or morphs into another bug, it goes through many stages in its "life." Anibal Sousa discusses what can be done to shorten a bug's life and offers a manageable bug-handling process, which can be used to track, prioritize, inspect, catalog, and fix bugs safely.
Anibal Sousa, Microsoft Corporation

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