STANZ 2011 - Timetable Melbourne

9:00-10:10
Thursday 1 September

Am I Creating Value With My Testing?
Keynote, Jonathan Kohl, Kohl Concepts (Canada)

Determine whether your tools and processes are helping you create value or if they are distracting you.

In this thought-provoking talk, Jonathan challenges all of us to look beyond the form, tools and techniques of our testing to examine how they are helping us create value in software, on projects and within teams -

I am often asked how to transform a good testing team into a great testing team. Individual testers want to know what skills or tools they should learn so they can improve. Managers want to know how to spot great testers during interviews as they hire and build teams. What is it that makes certain testers top performers?

After working with and observing hundreds of testers over the past decade, I've noticed that it is more than knowing the right tools, techniques and memorizing buzzwords - great testers understand value.

They see the value in their contributions to their teams, and in the software that they help produce. They also apply that standard to their own work.

In this thought-provoking talk, Jonathan challenges all of us to look beyond the form, tools and techniques of our testing to examine how they are helping us create value in software, on projects and within teams.

Jonathan focuses on understanding why we are developing software, for whom, and what our end users and team members value.

It's easy to get caught up with the newest trends and tools and measure our success based on their adoption, while forgetting about the basics. Jonathan helps you determine whether your tools and processes are helping you create value or if they are distracting you.

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10:30-11:30 Thursday 1 September

 :

What Does A CEO Want From Testing
Keynote, Mark Feldman, IV&V Australia (AU)

As waves of technology change wash over us, it is all too easy to be consumed by trying to make sense of our own internal testing world. We frantically develop new processes, models, methodologies, certifications, standards, buzzwords and so on, to try and agree on a common understanding of “the way things should be”.

Instead of perfecting the world in isolation, though, shouldn't we be contributing to it now, in collaboration?

Our profession exists only because of demand from other areas, external to testing. Our salaries are paid by other people. Perhaps we should also be taking into account the needs and views from our “clients”, and trying to understand and serve them better, as opposed to ignoring them or dictating to them what our industry “experts” are spruiking. It could be asserted that, for whatever reason, there is still a significant level of dissatisfaction, or unawareness of testing, within corporate leadership areas. This needs to be addressed. It is no longer sufficient for testing leaders to be focused only on testing techniques and abilities - testing needs to be tailored to align interactively with organisational objectives and add value to them.

How will your CEO determine if you did good a job in testing? Is your “good” his/her “good”? As a testing leader or decision maker, how should you be thinking about this?

This presentation examines the roles of the CEO, and some of the expectations and concerns they have for their organisations, and how testing affects, or is affected by them. It identifies the need for a common language through which CEOs may understand better what happens in the testing space, and what the elements in this language might be. Some current examples are covered, including cloud computing, open source, and ERP systems, and how understanding how the CEO thinks can affect testing decisions in these three areas.

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11:30-12:30 Thursday 1 September

Working with Remote and Distributed Teams
Keynote, Karen N. Johnson, Software Test Management (USA)

It would be great to be sitting together; having a chance to talk face to face might make our work easier, smoother, clarify some communications and maybe even speed up the work we're trying to complete. But our professional lives are just not that simple sometimes.

Frequently many of us work with other team members in various locations across our own country and even across the globe. Sometimes we work with small inconvenient time zone differences and other times, the time discrepancy is so significant we're perpetually catching each other only at the start or the end of each other's day.

Webcams, Skype sessions and instant messenger chats replace face to face conversations we would prefer to have. Getting “good” at communication skills can be difficult enough when we can see the other person and have a better chance to build a rapport, now add a large time zone gap and never having a chance to meet in person and we've really added a challenge to the project mix and overall project communications.

And as the time zone gaps get larger, we've likely introduced cultural and language differences to the conversation as well. It can be challenging enough to stay awake or get up early for a call but add a language difference and now we've made “good” communication a true challenge.

Using the Agile development methodology, co-location is the preference but even if your company or project moves to Agile, you can't move an office and you can't readily move people just because the development life cycle is switching from waterfall (or something else) to Agile.

Let's look at the time zone difference challenges and talk about solutions and ways to cope. Let's look at language barriers and find ways to improve how we communicate with each other.
Let's talk about how to get good at communication skills when we cannot see the other person.

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1:20-2:05 Thursday 1 September

Heaven or Hell? A Critical Examination Of Software Testing Certification
Stream Session, Martyn Jones, Software Education (AU)

Has ISTQB certification helped the software testing profession? The co-founder of ANZTB will discuss the good, the bad and the ugly of software testing certification, from both the perspective of the individual tester and that of the employer.

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1:20-2:05 Thursday 1 September

From Jaded to Jubilant: Invigorating Your Test Team
Stream Session, Anne-Marie Charrett, Testing Times (AU/IRE) 

This case study is of a test team that turned themselves into a group of passionate and effective testers.

A tester's life can often be a hard one. Sometimes, working in an undervalued and little appreciated role can have detrimental affects on a tester's ability to perform their work well. It can also impact test team morale.  

Testers can become jaded, and quickly loose the passion they perhaps once felt when they first started their career as testers. 

In this talk I will explain my approach and how I helped the team restore their passion in testing. I will discuss the approach I took, the goals I had and the steps taken to achieve these goals.

Some of the areas that I discuss are:

• Why it's so important to have passionate testers on your team. What is a passionate tester and how do you tap into that passion?
• Some approaches and goals to the testing transformation. What did I want my legacy to be? What philosophies did I use when approaching this task?
• Some practical ways of implementing change.  

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2:10-5:00 Thursday 1 September

(includes break)

Test Planning for Mobile Application Projects
Workshop Stream Session (2.5hrs), Jonathan Kohl, Kohl Concepts (Canada)

Why mobile?

• The post-PC era is here; the smart phone and tablet market is exploding, and people are rushing to support these devices with software. "Developers now start with mobile apps because that's where the growth is." - Google CEO, Eric Schmidt (Mobile World Congress, February 2011).
• If your company isn't supporting or creating mobile applications yet, they will be soon.
• It's different for mobile: Although some concepts transfer directly from desktop to mobile, testing mobile applications presents special challenges you must consider.

Start your mobile testing project with confidence! Learn his tricks of the trade for planning testing of mobile applications.

How many times have you created a test plan by filling in a template, changing some project details and adding in the new features? More times than you care to admit?

If you are starting out testing mobile applications, you might be tempted to approach testing as you always have.

But beware; testing mobile applications isn't just a copy/paste of how you have planned for testing desktop applications. There are important differences. Jonathan shares his experiences with testing mobile apps and how they affect planning.

Although some concepts transfer directly from desktop to mobile, testing mobile applications presents special challenges you must consider:

• Smaller screens and unique input methods that can cause physical strain on testers and slow down the testing effort.
• Less memory and processing power in the device mean tests often interfere with the application's normal operation.
• And, these smaller, transportable devices need to be taken care of differently. Network and communication plans need to be taken into account, as do location-based services such as geo-location capabilities and communication services.
• The portable nature of the devices is important in how they are used, and how they function.
• With the combinatorial explosion of device offerings becoming available all the time, how do you choose what platforms to test on?

Join Jonathan to learn his tricks of the trade for planning testing of mobile applications. Start your mobile testing project with confidence!

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2:10-5:00 Thursday 1 September

(includes break)

The Strategy Part of a Test Strategy
Workshop Stream Session (2.5hrs), Karen N. Johnson, Software Test Management (USA)

Are you a test manager or test lead that needs to develop a test strategy? This session is about strategy - business strategy and test strategy. Strategy is about having a systematic plan of action. This workshop is not about writing a test plan. This workshop is about mapping out a tactical strategy for getting testing done.

Instead of focusing on testing or technical challenges we may have to address - this session focuses on tactical planning, as well as addressing the political obstacles for getting testing accomplished. We'll look at ways to work with what you have ‐ ways to work with the reality of what you face versus what you might wish you were working with - so that planning is effective.

Experiences on building test strategies, assessing ongoing changes and adjusting throughout a project will be shared and explored.

We'll review different ways to gain input from other team members. And different ways to build acceptance (and buy in) throughout your organisation and project team for the plans your team has built. And since strategy is about ongoing assessments and adjustments, we'll look at ways to continue to assess and monitor your teams testing efforts.

If you need to build a test strategy for a project, this workshop will offer you ideas on how to get started and how to think and plan strategically throughout a project.

Strategic planning is an indispensable skill for test leads and testers alike. Regardless of the technology you work with - strategic planning is necessary.

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6:30-8:00 Thursday 1 September

10th Anniversary Conference Dinner with Guest Speaker

Anders Sorman-Nilsson , Founder/Creative Director,Thinque (AU)

Dinner. It's included in your conference booking!

Are Your Ready For The Scrap Heap? 
Keynote, Anders Sorman-Nilsson, Thinque (AU) 

Knackering, isn't it? Keeping up to date with all the latest trends.

Just when you figured out how to monitor how much milk you have left with your in-fridge camera synched up to your iPhone you find yourself trying to open your front door with your office swipe-pass.

If you're being honest life is much easier when you can just spend each day doing the same thing you did the day before. After all, you already know how to do what you've already done.

Unfortunately for you, change is attacking your peaceful utopia, marching on regardless, ignorant of your feelings. Change doesn't care. Change leaves you behind, cracked and dusty, boxed up and stuck in the attic alongside your Commodore 64 and Atari 2800.

But it's not all doom and gloom; just as you upgrade your hardware you can also upgrade your thinking and Anders Sorman-Nilsson is here to help you do just that. He believes that "the current rapid pace of change in every industry means that we need to be constantly upgrading our personal, organisational and leadership software" and spends his time advising clients like Apple, MTV, Johnson and Johnson and SAP on 'next practice'.

He constantly watches the world around him, analysing what is going on and providing organisations with the tools they'll need for the future. In fact he's so good at guiding people you almost believe he's been programmed with an internal GPS.

Come along to the STANZ Conference Dinner to hear Anders speak and benefit from his 'Thinque Funky' approach. In the words of Scott Barber, "developers are creators. Testers are explorers. Their job, their whole mind-set, is to find the stuff that others don't" so rediscover the joy of exploration and avoid the testing rubbish bin. 

9:00-10:00 Friday 2 September

The Future of Quality
Keynote, Goranka Bjedov, Facebook (USA)

This talk addresses the impact of changes such as Cloud, Open Source and Software Complexity on testing professionals and looks to assess where the future will take us. It summarises two years of research on this topic, discussions with hundreds of software testing professionals, and provides suggestions on possible solutions.

The world has changed.
I see it in the water.
I feel it in the Earth.
I smell it in the air.
Much that once was is lost,
For none now live who remember it.
- J.R.R. Tolkien

If you feel lost and confused, and even ready to give up - do not despair. First - you are not alone. There are many testing professionals struggling with the same issues. Second - change is constant. While you are trying to figure out what you (and your teams) should be doing today, the rate of change is increasing exponentially. Third - things will get worse (before they get better). Even if you are currently offering a product that does not rely on cloud services or is based on open sourced code, there is a start-up somewhere, working out a cheaper solution to your offering. Cloud and open source are here to stay because they provide cheaper and faster way to deploy products and reach customers.

Software services have entered the infinite complexity era - where it is impossible to understand what any single layer does. At the same time, customer expectations have aligned with what is available - while they certainly would not object to higher quality, they are unwilling to pay for it (in numbers large enough to matter), and would strongly object to any delay in shipping or deploying new features. Coincidentally, this change can be seen outside of our field as well.

Think of this talk as a courtesy invitation to the wake of IEEE 829 (829 Standard for Software Test Documentation) - long has it lived and restricted how we did our work. May all the test cases, specifications, plans and procedures rest in peace.

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10:20-11:20 Friday 2 September

Test Process Improvement: Testers Get Out of Your Cave!
Keynote, Jan Jaap Cannegieter, SYSQA (Netherlands)

Only by involving stakeholders outside of test processes will an improvement in the test processes be accomplished. The process areas we as testers can fully control are pretty mature. The process areas where we need other stakeholders like project management and general management are less mature. Consider results of Test Maturity Model (TMMi) Assessments and learn that if we want to make testing more mature, we have to get out of our cave.

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Why Model-Driven Testing is of Great Relevance to Test Managers and Test Analysts
Keynote, Thomas Hadorn and Dominik Weissboeck

Thomas Murphy (TMUR11), Gartner analyst and author of the Magic Quadrant for Integrated Quality Suites, believes that model-driven testing approaches will become the dominant format in five years. Modern 3rd Generation test automation technologies elevate test automation to a business discipline resulting in no need for programming. Thus, Test Analysts can create automated test cases and Test Managers can increase the test coverage by executing more test cases in the same time.

Cem Kaner (CKAN01) pointed out that test automation by capture/replay does not work and requires appropriate frameworks to be set up in order to minimize the maintenance problem. Mark Fewster (MFEW01) and others (EHEN02), (LDIM01), confirmed and further refined Cem Kaner's approach. Therefore, the ultimate goal in test automation is how to eliminate unnecessary maintenance effort and to minimize unavoidable maintenance cost.

Getting testing automation to work has been a great challenge. Often, current technologies will demo well, but in daily use they fall flat in the ability to create test automation that keeps up with software changes. This leads to very low test automation rates and high costs to create and maintain tests.

A new concept, called Business Dynamic Steering, has broken the mold to enable improved productivity in the creation of tests and in the ability to maintain these tests. Dynamic Steering accomplishes this by building a model of the application. Dynamic Steering uses a very direct test case methodology based on concrete values and a distinct execution path. In short, the basic workflow is to build the application model (proxies of the application's graphical and non-graphical interfaces for test automation), use the components to assemble test cases, and enter validation values and actions. This model-oriented view of test case development, separating the application model from the creation of test cases, significantly simplifies maintenance of tests. Update the model, and all test cases that utilize the components will be updated.

Who Should Care: Testing organisations that have been struggling to get the desired return on investment (ROI) from existing technologies should investigate in emerging technologies that take model driven approaches.

References:

(CKAN01) Cem Kaner, 1997, Improving the Maintainability of Automated Test Suites
(MFEW01) Mark Fewster & Groce Consultants, 2001, Common Mistakes in Test Automation
(EHEN02) Elisabeth Hendrickson, 2001, Bang for the Buck Test Automation
(LDIM01) Len DiMaggio, 2001, Bringing Your Test Data to Life
(TMUR11) Thomas Murphy, 2010, GARTNER: Cool Vendors in Application Development (21 April 2010)

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12:05-12:50 Friday 2 September

The Future Tester At Suncorp: A Journey of Building Quality In Through Agile
Stream Session, Craig Smith, Suncorp (AU) and Adrian Smith, Ennova (AU) 

When Suncorp started down the path of rolling out its agile program over four years ago, it was viewed by many internally and the industry with much scepticism and angst, yet now it is approaching mainstream adoption in the industry.

One of the key challenges of becoming agile was improving our approach to testing and quality.

In this talk we will talk about why we had to change, why we had to improve the “speed to cool” in relation to testing, our challenges and approach and our blueprint for the “future tester” at Suncorp.

Like our agile journey, our vision for testing has been regarded as ambitious, so join us to hear why we believe raising the profile, empowerment and skillset of testing is critical to our (and your) future success. 

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12:05-12:50 Friday 2 September

Cultivating an Organically Grown Test Approach 
Stream Session, Trish Khoo, Test Manager, Campaign Monitor (AU)

This is a story of a tester who was given a complex system to test, almost zero documented requirements and complete control over the test approach.

Equipped with a background in automated testing and test management, this is a talk about my experiences in cultivating a constantly evolving test approach to fit a constantly evolving development process.

I will talk about the unique challenges I faced in each release cycle, the lessons I learned and how I used those lessons to grow my test approach. As the test process grew, I slowly discovered what my company really needed from testing and how I could deliver it to them.

In particular, I will relate the following examples:

• The different ways we experimented with trying to report test results to a team that rarely used meetings or emails. This includes utilizing the product under test to send professional email campaigns, using a chat room for bug reporting and numerous experiments in hand-written dashboards.
• The tools we wrote to assist us in simulating large amounts of user activity over extended periods of time, as well as the issues faced in creating long-running automated tests and how we addressed them.
• How GUI automation was used in performance testing, and how involving the development team had unintended positive side-effects.
• The legacy automation suite - how we improved it and how we extended it to assist us with manual tasks.
• How mind-mapping was used to gather requirements when documentation was scarce.

This talk will suit anybody with an interest in customizing their test approach to fit their client's needs.

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1:40-4:25 Friday 2 September

(includes break)

Testing Skills: How to Find and Develop Skilled Testers
Workshop Stream Session (2.5hrs), Goranka Bjedov, Facebook (USA)

Joel Spolsky of JoelOnSoftware wrote on April 30th 2000: “With testers, like programmers, the best ones are an order of magnitude better than the average ones.” I could not agree more with that statement. But, over the years, I have seen organisations failing to hire good testers or failing to help them develop to their full potential. I have seen good testers leave companies en masse, and move to different jobs.

This workshop will address the following questions:

• What are the characteristics and skills of good software testers?
• How do you check/interview a person for testing position?
• What types of people make bad testers?
• How do you develop potential, if you do not have experienced team?

This workshop is a result of industry observations and experiences. Additionally, it will introduce some simple methods of checking if a person has a developer or a tester mindset. And, finally, it will provide you with a list of topics, games and exercises to sharpen the skills and increase effectiveness of your current team.

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1:40-4:25 Friday 2 September

(includes break)

TMMi (Test Maturity Model integrated): Valuable Practice with Quick Scans
Workshop Stream Session (2.5 hrs), Jan Jaap Cannegieter, SYSQA (Netherlands)

We all aim at improving our test processes. Learn how you can easily run Quick Scans from the TMMi across a number of key areas to gauge your levels, benchmark and discover where to focus your efforts.

During the workshop you'll have an introduction to the basics of TMMi, the history and structure, a comparison between TMMi and other test process improvement models. Most importantly you'll learn how to execute TMMi-based Quick Scans with an easy-to-use tool.

This is a hands-on, interactive session covering the tool and technique. You'll look at key aspects the scans cover, discussing the outcomes and how to get the most out of Quick Scans to benefit your improvement programme.

This session is applicable to all organisations and test groups. The Quick Scan tool is independent and provides visibility into improving your test processes.

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4:30-4:50 Tuesday 30 August

The Panel
Closing Conference Session

Join us for a lively and interactive panel discussion on software testing issues. This is a chance to ask the experts your questions, as well as to pick up last minute testing tips.

OPTIONAL PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP
(note: additional fee applies - $990 or $770 when you also attend the conference)

Exploratory Testing Applied
Full day workshop, Jonathan Kohl, Kohl Concepts (Canada)

What you will learn:

• Exploratory testing contrasted with other approaches.
• The underlying structure of skilled exploratory testing.
• How to guide testing with strategy.
• Modeling and other mind hacks to help frame testing.
• How to use guidance to focus testing and describe coverage.
• Test execution styles and strategies.
• How documentation and reporting fits.
• To bring it all together we'll test a real mobile application. (If you have a smart phone, bring it with you.)

The content builds on itself to help provide you with a complete picture of exploratory testing, with enough examples and comparisons to make applying it to your projects easier. Gain confidence with the approach, and start using some of these concepts on your projects when you get back to your office.

This workshop will focus on two areas:

• Structuring exploratory testing and
• Testing mobile applications

Structuring your exploratory testing helps you apply it successfully to real, live projects, and we will look at testing mobile applications to help make some of those concepts more tangible.

Why mobile?
The post-PC era is here; the smart phone and tablet market is exploding, and people are rushing to support these devices with software. If your company isn't supporting or creating mobile applications yet, they will be soon. "Developers now start with mobile apps because that's where the growth is." - Google CEO, Eric Schmidt (Mobile World Congress, February 2011).

Exploratory software testing is a popular approach. The adaptability, speed and effectiveness of this approach appeals to those of us who work on projects that have aggressive deadlines, changing requirements and technology. However, applying the concepts to your own project can be challenging.

Effective testing is critical to a project's success, but the effective application of exploratory testing hinges on implementing concrete tasks and techniques.

Jonathan Kohl, internationally recognised expert in the areas of exploratory testing and mobile application testing, will share experience in the following areas:

• His thought processes when testing.
• How he structures and manages exploratory testing projects.
• The tools, techniques and skills he uses when doing actual testing work.
• How he records, documents and reports on testing.

Join Jonathan as he shares his expertise and experience on how he applies exploratory testing to testing projects. Jonathan has been using an exploratory testing approach to lead testing projects for over a decade. He has used exploratory testing on a wide variety of projects, including critical, regulated industries such as medical, financial and aviation.

(this full day workshop can be booked in conjunction with your conference participation or seperately. An additional fee applies - $990 or $770 when yo9u also attend the conference)