STPCon Spring 2008
TUESDAY FULL-DAY TUTORIALS
Quick links
Conference program home page
Tuesday full-day tutorials
Wednesday Opening Keynote
Wednesday AM: 100/200 classes
Wednesday PM: 300/400 classes
Thursday AM: 500/600-classes
Thursday PM: 700/800/900 classes
Conference faculty
Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-1 Intro to Rapid Software Testing
By Michael Bolton
Rapid Software Testing is a testing skill-set and mind-set developed by James Bach. This approach allows testers to do excellent work in conditions of uncertainty, insufficient information and extreme time pressure, in a way that will stand up to scrutiny. Rapid Testing finds important bugs quickly, emphasizes thinking, eliminates unnecessary work, right-sizes test documentation, and constantly asks how testers can help to speed the development process by providing timely, valuable information to management.
In this interactive tutorial, Michael Bolton (who co-authors the Rapid Software Testing course with James Bach, the senior author) provides a rapid introduction to Rapid Testing. He’ll highlight the central skills and practices of the approach; present exercises, puzzles and games that reinforce the lessons; and welcome challenge, discussion and debate. You’ll get the most of out this tutorial if you work through the exercises using tools on your own laptop during the class. Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-2 Delivering Test Automation Success Through People, Methods and Tools
By Hans Buwalda
Successful test automation is vital to increasing the efficiency of QA efforts. If they’re done correctly, it’s possible to develop tests earlier, run them faster and repeat them more reliably when the software under test becomes available. Many organizations now recognize that it’s critical to make the right choices in organizing the work, developing the tests and architecting the automation, whether scripted or non-scripted.
This tutorial presents state-of-the-art techniques — including data-driven testing, keyword-driven testing, and scripted and non-scripted automation — that can help deliver test automation success. As a framework, the class will use Action Based Testing, which has been proven effective and efficient for many testing organizations around the world. An important focus for the day is the managerial perspective, such as how to set up the right team and how to gain commitment from managers and other stakeholders.
You’ll learn:
• Effective integration, fine tuning and management of testing and test automation
• How to apply good test design techniques, such as Soap Opera Testing
• How to use frameworks like Action Based Testing to ensure visibility, maintainability and scalability
• How to incorporate an automation framework along with your existing process
• How to optimize the use of your testing staff’s diverse skill sets Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-3 Test Case Development in a Quasi-Agile Environment
By Timothy Korson
“Pure” agile development uses story cards to capture requirements. Each story is described in a sentence or two with details filled in by verbal conversations. Because the written requirements don’t contain enough information for independent test teams to create comprehensive test suites, testers must capture these verbal conversations as test cases. In effect, the test cases become the detailed requirements, and testers take on the role of system analysts.
In addition to discussing the development of system test cases from stories, this tutorial will teach you how to develop unit and component tests as part of a comprehensive testing process in an agile development environment. Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-4 Testing Techniques: Theory and Application
By Bj Rollison
This tutorial presents the formal theory and practical application of functional (behavioral) and structural (coverage) testing techniques. You’ll learn functional testing techniques, like exploratory testing, boundary value analysis, equivalence class partitioning and combinatorial analysis. Structural testing techniques covered include statement coverage, decision/branch coverage, and condition and basis path coverage.
You’ll learn how to use functional testing techniques to establish a solid foundation and minimum baseline for test cases. You’ll also understand how structural testing techniques can be used to design additional tests from a white-box approach to complement the test effort, to ensure that critical paths in the code have been exercised and to achieve higher code-coverage results. You’ll also learn how to apply both black-box and white-box test design approaches to test more effectively.
To get the most out of this class, bring a laptop. Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-5 Visual Models for Test Design
By Robert Sabourin
Designing test cases is a fundamental skill all testers master over time. This workshop teaches fun visual techniques to help design powerful test cases and choose test data that will surface important bugs fast. These skills can be used in exploratory, agile or engineered contexts — any time you need to design a test.
Learn about visual tools and techniques for creating powerful test cases. In this tutorial, you’ll:
• Explore many different visual modeling techniques
• Improve communication among project team members and project stakeholders
You’ll also learn:
• Requirement analysis
• Mind mapping
• Decision tables
• Business rules
• State modeling
• Storyboards
• Usage scenarios
• Blending techniques
• Reusable test design artifacts
Mind maps are powerful graphical tools used to help visualize complex paths and relationships among concepts. This workshop shows how mind maps can be used to visualize test designs and help understand variables being tested, alone and in complex combinations with other variables and conditions.
If you’re new to testing, these techniques will remove some of the mystery of good test-case design. If you’re a veteran tester, these techniques will sharpen your skills and give you some new test design approaches.
This course is for anyone charged with designing and implementing software tests in any development environment, including business analysts, test engineers, test managers, developers, QA engineers and all software development professionals. Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-6 Automated Database Testing: Using Stored Procedures
By Mary Sweeney
Today’s heterogeneous data environments place an increasingly heavy burden on test engineers. Applications, whether Web-based or client/server, must be tested for seamless interface with the back-end databases; this typically goes far beyond what the popular test automation tools can provide. The intricate mix of client/server and Web-enabled database applications is extremely difficult to test productively. As a result, you’re increasingly expected to know how to create and use SQL queries, stored procedures and other relational database objects to effectively test data-driven environments.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn about testing at the database layer as an important adjunct to current tests. Using demonstrations and code examples, the instructor will present tips and techniques for creating efficient automated tests of the critical database back end using SQL, scripting languages and relational database objects. You’ll learn why testing of database objects and stored procedures is necessary; how simple and effective automated tests for the back end can be created using various programming languages, including Perl and VBScript; and how to successfully test database objects, such as stored procedures and views, with many examples and code. Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-7 SQL for Testers
By Karen Johnson
There are application defects that can be found once a tester gains knowledge of a database schema and develops the ability to write and execute SQL queries. By learning about SQL and relational databases, both manual and automated testing can be improved.
With knowledge of the underlying data structure of an application, business analysts can draft more technically precise requirements. Analysts will learn about data volume as a factor to consider as an application ages through production use.
In this tutorial, you’ll establish a sound foundation in basic SQL knowledge and understand how both analysts and testers can apply that knowledge to their systems and projects.
Topics:
• Schemas
• Primary and foreign keys
• Data types
• SQL Query writing
• Volume data
• Concurrency/Deadlocks
Approach:
Through a combination of lecture and hands-on activities, students will leave with a portable, stand-alone relational database that they can continue experimenting with. Other take-aways include course material designed to move them from beginner to intermediate knowledge and references to advanced materials. Tuesday, April 15, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
T-8 Early Bug Detection for Software Analysis and Design
By Vladimir Pavlov
For large software development projects, the most important decisions and the most expensive mistakes are made at the beginning. At the same time, the initial amount of quality control is minimal and then grows as development moves forward. This results in costly rework (often hidden) in the late stages of the project.
• Learn how to reduce delays between bug insertions and bug fixes.
• Distribute quality control activities over the entire project proportionally to the importance of (possible) errors.
• Learn practical techniques to discover and fix critical analysis and design mistakes when introduced — not in the late phases when they’re most expensive to resolve.
• Three hours of the tutorial will be organized as a “speechless” design session.
Participants should have at least one year of experience using UML for analysis and design. Participants will be required to collaborate and produce a UML design model without speaking. Only UML will be used for communication. |
