MindMapping is a general technique of organizing your thoughts, aligning your ideas, and breaking things down. It’s uses are, in fact, mind blowing. But in this session, join Bob Galen, as he takes you on a visual tour of mindmapping as applied in the software testing space. We’ll be using a free tool and be creating maps to illustrate test case design, test idea generation, sprint-level test planning, and release-level test planning using mindmaps. Along the way, you’ll also gain some new insights into risk-based testing with an agile twist, as we explore the 3-Amigos metaphor. You’ll leave this session with a rudimentary library of maps and another, quite powerful tool, to add to your toolbox. Bring your laptop or other device, as we’ll be using MindMup to create a few simple mindmaps.

Ken Johnston sees today’s software ecosystem in the light of Everything as a Service (EaaS). Operating systems like Windows, Android, and Chrome OS all ship regularly like a service. Browsers automatically update every few weeks, and apps are constantly updating through all the app stores. Although getting a test to pass once and signing off has gone by the wayside for software testing, still we run test cases over and over again. Ken shares how Microsoft took millions of test cases—yes, actually millions—and turned the important ones into measures based on real world telemetry. Massive amounts of data coming in from real devices and real users measure product quality and tie it to key customer satisfaction metrics.

Are you looking for new ways to invigorate your teams? Do retrospectives seem stale? Do story breakdown meetings feel flat? On the other hand, maybe your teams are humming and you’re looking for additional variety. The research is clear—movement matters, and play stimulates creativity. 

Most popular GUI test tools are based on an object recognition architecture. They recognize and manipulate screen objects by communicating with the underlying GUI subsystem. A new breed of tools has been introduced in the past few years that implements an image recognition architecture.