STPCon Spring 2008
WEDNESDAY MORNING CLASSES
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
Wednesday, April 16, 8:45 am - 9:45 am
 Opening Keynote: Out of the frying pan and into the fire! What is so different about testing in SCRUM?
Robert Sabourin
Scrum is a framework for managing agile software development that delivers working code in time-boxed sprints. Many communities find Scrum to be a wonderful balance between discipline and agility. While Scrum has been known to tame turbulence and focus teams, the practice also requires some dramatic rethinking of the traditional role of the tester as part of a development project.
Do we really need testers in a Scrum project? How can we confidently deliver shippable working code after a short iteration? How can Scrum address tough testing challenges such as failure modes, quality factors, security, performance, reliability, scalability and usability? What exactly are User Stories and Story Tests? How do testers and developers collaborate in Scrum? Do we really need a bug list? Just who are the chickens and the pigs?
This keynote highlights significant challenges and critical thinking required to get things done and transition organizations to Scrum. Robert Sabourin has helped several important organizations adapt their development life cycle models to this system. This talk is based on the three Rs — real, recent and relevant experience — that describe his many examples and case studies in this chronicle of his experiences in moving companies to Scrum.
Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
101 Models for Security Testing in the Software Development Life Cycle
By Ryan Berg
Improving software security is a valuable endeavor — but implementing programs that generate positive, measurable results has eluded many companies. Often there’s a lack of security expertise among development teams or a lack of development expertise among security teams. There’s also a misconception that security reviews extend development schedules.
At the same time, centralized decisions must be made to define security policies, determine what constitutes a vulnerability, and prioritize remediation efforts according to available resources. Organizations need a concrete model for security evaluation and a comprehensive task list detailing the roles and responsibilities for each group involved. And that’s what this class is all about.
You’ll learn practical models that give testing responsibility to developers, QA staff or security teams, explaining the specific requirements for each approach as well as expected outcomes. Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
102 Charting Performance Results, Part 1: Graphical Analysis
By Karen Johnson
Performance testing generates massive volumes of test results data. Charting information is a practical way to analyze information as well as a means of graphically communicating final tabulated information. This class addresses charting to detect information and charting to present that information to your project owners.
You’ll learn how to chart your way through test results. Graphical data analysis can help you uncover application performance concerns, illustrate patterns and ultimately consolidate your analysis to the most essential performance information quickly, simply and more effectively than any other method. This survey of charting styles offers practical information you can apply to your performance test analysis.
This class answers questions about chart styles: what chart types are available, when to use each type, what are the advantages, disadvantages and what type of information is best shown by what type of chart. A series of examples illustrates options you can apply to your test data results. Once you’ve built your charts and discovered information, you’ll have the graphical data necessary to communicate that information.
This class is designed for technical performance testers and performance test managers. This class will benefit anyone who wants to understand how to graphically interpret performance test data. Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
103 Surviving the Quality Metrics Minefield
By Michael Bolton
In many organizations, management demands quality metrics to help assess the quality of software products and projects. Are those metrics meaningful? How do we make sure that our metrics are measuring what they're supposed to measure? What are the risks designing and gathering metrics, and what can we do to address them? Are there other ways to improve the quality of the information that we're gathering?
In this class, you’ll learn about common and pernicious problems with software metrics, offer an exercise to help demonstrate some of the pitfalls associated with common approaches to metrics, and present an example of an alternative approach to assessing quality. Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
104 Agile Test Development
By Hans Buwalda
Agile methods have become standard in the software development world. The emphasis on short, iterative cycles, constant feedback and a team-based approach to quality has proven effective for delivering software on time and on budget. The same approach can be applied to developing your tests and test automation, even if your development project is using a traditional “waterfall” life cycle. Good test design, especially good automated test design, requires constant feedback from project stakeholders outside the QA team, including the development team, management and customers. The tests should go through several iterations of review before being put into “production” against the system under test.
This class will teach you an agile approach to building tests and test automation, so that the QA team can ensure that the system is tested early and often, thereby taking testing off the critical path to releasing the product. This class will present a methodology and case study to illustrate how agile test development can be implemented in real-world projects. Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
105 Evolution, Revolution and Test Automation
By Matt Heusser
How do we know what works in software testing? And how do we prove it?
In this class, you’ll hear a brief discussion of the evolution of scientific knowledge, which leads into the evolution of software testing and test automation. We’ll discuss the different way to evaluate statements about software testing, and then apply those to common testing challenges. Starting with the “test triangle analogy,” Matt will discuss how the concept of testing has changed over the years, moving quickly from system testing to unit, acceptance, performance, and even mock-based testing, the pros and cons of each, and how to identify them.
Finally, Matt will make some predictions about where testing is going. Not magical, visionary predictions, but instead practical suggestions to take your organization to the next level.
You may not agree with what Matt has to say, but he offers three guarantees:
• You will leave the room thinking
• You will be armed with tangible techniques to evaluate the myriad of “best practices”
• You will not be bored Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
106 Database Locking: What It Is, Why it Matters and What to Do About It
By Justin Callison
“Know your enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Database locking is a varied, evolving, complicated and technical issue. As testers, we often think that it belongs in the realm of the developer and the DBA (i.e., not my problem). But to functional and performance testers, it is the enemy and has led to many disasters (to which the presenter can personally attest).
However, there is hope. This class will shed light on the nature of database locking, how it varies between different platforms and the types of application issues that can arise as a result. We will then look at ways to ferret out these issues and resolve them before they sneak out the door with your finished product. Armed with this understanding of the enemy and how it relates to your application, you’ll be much better able to avoid such disasters. Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
107 Quality Throughout the Software Life Cycle
By Jeff Feldstein
Software quality is everybody’s job. Quality cannot be tested into the product; it must be emphasized, monitored and measured from the beginning of the project. Each team involved in the project, including product marketing managers, program managers, development engineering, documentation and test engineering plays a key role in ensuring software quality. A carefully planned application development life cycle is a key requirement to successful delivery of on-time, quality software.
This class will explore each broad phase of development — requirements, development, testing and deployment — from a software quality perspective. You’ll learn the activities required at each step, the precise role of the tester or QA engineer, common mistakes and how to catch bugs earlier in the life cycle. Wednesday, April 16, 10:00 am - 11:00 am
108 Developing a Culture of Analysis in Your Organization
By Poonam Chitale
Stop wondering why customers still report problems even after your team has done adequate testing. By building a culture of analysis, a testing lead or manager can avoid seeing testers bored out of their minds with functional testing and maintaining large test harnesses. It could it be that there are deeper problems in the application that simply cannot be found by inspection and functional testing.
This class will discuss and show through examples:
• Take away the boredom of repetitive testing without knowing what goes on underneath
• How to revitalize your testing team by developing a culture of analysis
• How to divide tasks and develop a synergy between developers and testers
• How to benefit from static and dynamic analysis techniques and avoid pitfalls
• A process of deploying any analysis tool and when it is most feasible
• Why analysis can help develop a deep understanding of the software under test and iron out problems
Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
201 User Acceptance Testing: A Context-Driven Perspective
By Michael Bolton
Hang around a software development project long enough and you’ll eventually hear these two phrases: “We need to keep the customer satisfied” and “The customer doesn’t know what he wants.” User acceptance testing is a part of most test plans, yet few really know what it means, and even fewer know what it requires.
A thoughtful approach begins by asking the question: “Who is the customer of the testing effort?”
In this class, you’ll see that there’s far more to that question than many testing groups realize. You’ll learn that “user acceptance testing” is meaningless without establishing a contextual framework, and you’ll truly understand the individual meanings of user, acceptance and testing. You’ll discover the challenges posed by user acceptance testing, and hear some remedies that testers can use to help to clarify user requirements — and meet them successfully. Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
202 Charting Performance Results, Part 2: Storytelling Techniques
By Karen Johnson
In a fast-paced world with volumes of data thrown at us each day, it’s hard to find meaning, the relevancy of what is tossed in front of us. Our project stakeholders face the same challenge of trying to sift through information in order to find meaning. Storytelling techniques can help us to take facts important and small from our testing experiences and weave together information in one format that brings data to life: the story.
Students will learn how to use compare and contrast techniques to offset information so that data points stand out and yet we don’t lose the context. Students will learn how to take one element of test information to represent a broader picture. A technique of twining facts both small and large to keep information together and coherent will be explained. In all cases, thorough examples of presenting test information will be used. Specifically, the stories and techniques will be centered on reporting performance test results.
Storytelling done well pauses the speed button, restoring our mental peace well enough to not just listen but digest, to resonate with the information we have at hand. We might think of storytelling from our childhood days and envision our time-starved impatient stakeholders as being unreceptive to a story when what they demand is hard, cold facts. But there are techniques of building information in such a way that we can resolve questions and illuminate meaning without building long-winded tales.
This unique class is designed for testers and test managers who frequently need to communicate information up, up to their bosses, executives, project managers and other stakeholders. Students will learn how to communicate performance test results in an effective style. Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
203 So You’re Doomed: How to Deliver a Six-Week Project in Two
By Matt Heusser
If you've been in software development for long, you’ve probably seen this scenario: The development team needs six more weeks, the project is due in two, and the unhappy customer “needs” three more features before he’ll sign off.
This is not a presentation on what you should have done six months ago, or how agile techniques would un-doom you if you were only doing all of them right now. This is a directed discussion of practical things to do now to revive the project, de-stress your life, and please even your management.
Leave with specific techniques to use for:
• Understanding — and Enforcing — Risk Management
• Overall Project Schedules
• Defeating Test Estimation Games
• Communicating and Clarifying Project Requirements
• Setting Reasonable Boundaries Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
204 Metrics: How to Track Things That Matter
By Clyneice Chaney
Metrics programs have often been a dirty word, misused and poorly implemented. This class discusses ways to provide metrics that really matter to organizations and provide visibility into their or their customers’ organizations.
You’ll learn why metrics programs fail and then work on the keys to successful metrics programs, developing quality metrics that matter and ways to implement and maintain these metrics over time.
Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
205 The 5% Challenges of Test Automation
By Hans Buwalda
A common problem with software test automation projects is that too much effort is spent on developing test scripts, while the percentage of tests that are actually automated is usually no more than 30 percent. Scripts require too much maintenance!
This problem led Hans Buwalda to develop the 5 percent challenges of test automation: No more than 5 percent of tests should be executed manually and no more than 5 percent of the test effort should be spent creating automation. You’ll learn the keys to meeting the 5 percent challenges and see them at work through a case study of a successful project that maximized test automation while minimizing the time spent automating tests. Whether you already automate your testing or plan to in the future, don’t miss this class! Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
206 Model-Based Testing for Java and Web-Based GUI Applications
By Jeff Feldstein
Classic test automation simply repeats the same tests (with optionally varying data) until it stops failing or the application ships. The problem with this approach is that customers rarely flow through the application in the same sequence as the automation, and thus they’re likely to find bugs that the automation missed. Model-based testing is a form of automated testing that brings random and flexible behavior to your automated test cases.
You’ll learn how to implement model-based testing specifically as applied to Java and Web applications. Part of the course includes a demonstration of model-based testing — the XDE Tester — and source code will be available for download containing all of the data structures, concepts and program flow for implementing a large-scale, industrial-strength, model-based test system. Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
207 SOA Life Cycle Quality: The Tipping Point of SOA Governance
By John Michelsen
Whether software testing professionals are ready to change or not, the age of applications delivered using a service-oriented architecture approach is here. As organizations rapidly develop the capability to create services-based applications, they seek SOA governance to ensure that applications are aligned with the needs of the business and operate predictably.
However, the challenge of ensuring trust in a complex, constantly evolving application also presents new opportunities for testing to contribute value. Many companies’ ability to design and develop SOA apps has outpaced their ability to properly govern them, so testers ready to adopt continuous testing methodologies at design, build and runtime are ideally positioned to champion quality for the enterprise.
In this class, we’ll discuss how testers and developers can collaborate on a continuous basis to improve quality in these complex, heterogeneous environments. Real-world SOA testing examples from leading financial and manufacturing enterprises will be examined and discussed from an architectural and business-process point of view. Attendees should already have a good understanding of SOA.
Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
208 Maximizing SQL Server 2005 Performance
By Mary Sweeney
Now that SQL Server 2005 is out, the truth about its performance abilities can be told. Many companies are just now upgrading or planning to do so. Is this the right time? The answer is: Yes, but only if you’re aware of the issues. Find out the real scoop on what happens when you upgrade and how to deal with bottlenecks and performance problems on mid-range to large databases.
What you’ll learn:
• The quirks that can hold up large queries and how to troubleshoot them
• The real benefits and liabilities with your SQL Server 2005 installation
• How existing jobs and packages really transfer over
• The five important techniques you need to know to get the best performance from SQL Server 2005 Wednesday, April 16, 11:15 am - 12:15 pm
209 An In-Depth Look at SQL Injection
By Matthew Fisher
Despite being remarkably simple to defend, an astonishing number of Web-connected production systems are vulnerable to exploitation by SQL injection. Developers and quality assurance professionals who design, build and test business-enabling applications generally lack the security knowledge necessary to avoid creating common defects that are so easily exploited by hackers.
You’ll learn about input validation and other simple techniques that can be used to protect Web applications from the SQL injection attack. This class addresses proper and improper input-validation mechanisms and related issues. |
