Conference Presentations

Test Automation for Packaged Systems: Yes, You Can!
Slideshow

Today, most businesses are heavily dependent on packaged systems, sometimes called commercial off-the-shelf software, for large parts of their operation. Highly-customizable packages such as BMC’s Remedy, Oracle's Maxim, and many others run the show at many of the world’s largest companies.

Chris Bushell, ThoughtWorks
Automation Culture: Essential to Agile Success
Slideshow

For organizations developing large-scale applications, transitioning to agile is challenging enough. If your organization has not yet adopted an automation culture, brace yourself for a big surprise because automation is essential to agile success. From the safety nets provided by automated..

Geoff Meyer, Dell, Inc.
The Pathologies of Failed Test Automation Projects
Slideshow

Most test automation projects never die—they just become a mess and are redone. Initial solutions that start well and are full of promise often end up as brittle and unmaintainable monsters consuming more effort than they save. Political feuds can flourish as different automation solutions...

Michael Stahl, Intel
Innovations in Test Automation: It’s Not All about Regression
Slideshow

Although classic test automation, which usually focuses on regression testing, has its its place in testing, there is much more you can do to improve testing productivity and its value to the project and your organization. Through experience-based examples, video clips, and demonstrations...

John Fodeh, Cognizant
Setting Automation Expectations: Lessons from Failure and Success
Slideshow

Test automation is undeniably a key strategy for any test manager—and for good Test automation is undeniably a key strategy for any test manager—and for good reason. Test automation promises faster regression testing, higher productivity, better quality, and cost reduction.

Laura Salazar, Softtek
Four Crucial Tips for Automated Web 2.0 Testing
Slideshow

The vast majority of problems found in web-based functional tests can be traced to a few common issues—dealing with dynamic page content, understanding the differences between explicit and implicit waits, choosing a proper element locator strategy, and understanding how to deal with...

Jim Holmes, Telerik
Specification-by-Example: A Cucumber Implementation
Slideshow

We've all been there. You work incredibly hard to develop a feature and design tests based on written requirements. You build a detailed test plan that aligns the tests with the software and the documented business needs. When you put the tests to the software, it all falls apart because the requirements were updated without informing everyone. But help is at hand. Enter business-driven development and Cucumber, a tool for running automated acceptance tests. Join Mary Thorn as she explores the nuances of Cucumber and shows you how to implement specification-by-example, behavior-driven development, and agile acceptance testing. By fostering collaboration for implementing active requirements via a common language and format, Cucumber bridges the communication gap between business stakeholders and implementation teams.

Mary Thorn, Deutsche Bank
Test Automation on Large Agile Projects: It's Not a Cakewalk

Automating regression testing on large-scale agile projects with multiple independent Scrum teams is not a cake walk. Because there is no single "test team" that performs all the testing-each Scrum team develops and runs independent tests, gaps arise as different automation implementations spring up. One team adds a new function which breaks automated tests, setting back the progress of other teams. Scott Schnier reviews one organization's journey developing a "test community of practice" to coordinate test development and maintenance across Scrum teams. Scott shares the lessons they learned, particularly selecting tools compatible with other developer and tester needs. Learn how Scott extended the JUnit framework to support automated functional testing and how his teams keep the standard that a user story is not really done until all its tests are "green" in the continuous integration, regression test pipeline.

Scott Schnier, Agilex Technologies
Tune Agile Test Strategies to Project and Product Maturity
Slideshow

For optimum results, you need to tune agile project's test strategies to fit the different stages of project and product maturity. Testing tasks and activities should be lean enough to avoid unnecessary bottlenecks and robust enough to meet your testing goals. Exploring what "quality" means for various stakeholder groups, Anna Royzman describes testing methods and styles that fit best along the maturity continuum. Anna shares her insights on strategic ways to use test automation, when and how to leverage exploratory testing as a team activity, ways to prepare for live pilots and demos of the real product, approaches to refine test coverage based on customer feedback, and techniques for designing a production "safety net" suite of automated tests. Leave with a better understanding of how to satisfy your stakeholders’ needs for quality-and a roadmap for tuning your agile test strategies.

Anna Royzman, Liquidnet Holdings, Inc.
Better Test Designs to Drive Test Automation Excellence
Slideshow

Test execution automation is often seen as a technical challenge-a matter of applying the right technology, tools, and smart programming talent. However, such efforts and projects often fail to meet expectations with results that are difficult to manage and maintain-especially for large and complex systems. Hans Buwalda describes how the choices you make for designing tests can make-or break-a test automation project. Join Hans to discover why good automated tests are not the same as the automation of good manual tests and how to break down tests into modules-building blocks-in which each has a clear scope and purpose. See how to design test cases within each module to reflect that module's scope and nothing more. Hans explains how to tie modules together with a keyword-based test automation framework that separates the automation details from the test itself to enhance maintainability and improve ROI.

Hans Buwalda, LogiGear Corporation

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