Conference Presentations

Baby Steps-Testing Therapy for Developers

Learn from a "developer-in-recovery" the strategies for overcoming testing phobia and testing animosity among developers. Now a "convert" to disciplined, quality-oriented software development, Susan Joslyn provides you with approaches that are helpful in educating developers, most of whom actually want to make a better contribution to quality practices. The testers who must beg, cajole, and trick their developers into using them will benefit greatly from attending this session.

Susan Joslyn, SJ+ Systems Associates, Inc
Critical Skills and Effective Attitudes for Testers

What distinguishes good testers? Some characteristics explained in this presentation:

  • the right attitudes
  • the appropriate skills
  • continuous skills growth
Rex Black, Rex Black Consulting Services, Inc.
Mining the Gold from Your Web Server Logs

How often have you wished that you knew what your customers really thought of your Web site? You can extract a gold mine of information from your Web server's log to reveal how your site is used. Learn ways for your team to use this information to organize browser testing based on user statistics, improve testing coverage of your Web site, and plan more realistic load testing.

Karen Johnson, Peapod, Inc.
When Test Drives the Development Bus

Once development reaches "code complete," the testing team takes over and drives the project to an acceptable quality level and stability. This is accomplished by weekly build cycles or dress rehearsals. The software is graded based on found, fixed, and outstanding errors. Development strives to increase the grades in each build--improving the quality and stability of the software. Learn how to use this "dress rehearsal" process to build team morale, develop ownership by the entire development team, and ensure success on opening night.

Cindy Necaise, MICROS Systems, Inc.
The Role of Information in Risk-Based Testing

With risk-based testing, you identify risks and then run tests to gather more information about them. Formal risk analysis is often necessary for identifying and assessing risks with new domains or technologies. A common problem, however, is how to assess risks when you have little information. Learn how to use testing to identify risks, reach team agreement on risk magnitude, and identify actions which allow these risks to be understood and mitigated.

Bret Pettichord, Satsfice
STAREAST 2001: The Power of Retrospectives to Improve Testing

Testing is a tough job! Most test professionals learn the hard way what works and what doesn't. Retrospectives are focused, facilitated reviews of a defined piece of work. Learn how software project retrospectives are used as a test process improvement technique to capture the essence of a work, provide closure, and establish a springboard for active improvement in an organization.

Esther Derby, Esther Derby Associates, Inc
A Short Course in Managing Expectations

Have you ever delivered exactly what your customers said they wanted, and still they were dissatisfied? This session uses a case study of one such experience as the basis for introducing information, tools, and guidelines to help you better manage expectations. Naomi Karten addresses issues such as how to build a strong foundation, avoid conflicting interpretations, implement effective feedback-gathering processes, and understand the other party's perspective.

Naomi Karten, Karten Associates
Problem Resolution Cycle Time Optimization

No matter how well we plan and execute software development, defects are generated and can escape to the customers. Failure to quickly resolve software problems leads to negative consequences for our customers and increases internal business costs. A quick deterministic
method to prioritize problems and implement their solution helps to reduce cycle time and costs. Achieving this goal requires several steps. The first is to determine a model that links problem resolution performance to institutional variables and problem characteristics. Statistical Design of Experiments (DOE) is a tool that provides data requirements for estimating the impacts of these variables on problem resolution. Once data has been gathered the results of statistical analysis can be input into a mathematical optimization model to guide the organization.
This paper describes such an analysis.

Don Porter, Motorola
Managing Your Outsourcing Contract Through Metrics

Have project demands led you to consider outsourcing as a possibility? If so, make sure you get the most bang for your company's outsourced buck-and be able to prove it too. Learn about techniques you can use to manage your outsourcing contract based on an appropriate set of service level measures. Koni Thompson also provides specific recommendations for a metrics-centered approach based on the Capability Maturity Model (CMM).

Koni Thompson, The David Consulting Group
A Unified Model for Software Management

This is the presentation that puts all the concepts into perspective. The speaker constructs a model of the software development company as a layered organization comprised of core values at the center, then radiating out to best practices, software lifecycles, software management processes, and finally support tools and systems. Wael Amin reveals how to understand an organization's culture, identify its core values, adopt best practices, and more. His exploration runs the gamut from corporate vision to delivering quality.

Wael Amin, IT Worx

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