Driving an agile peg in a CMMI hole

Transcription

1 Driving an agile peg in a CMMI hole Many agile development teams are forced to operate within an organization that has many policies and procedures that are derived from a CMMI, process heavy, mindset. This presentation focuses on how an agile team can survive in this context. How to use the barely sufficient concept How to pick your battles How agile teams can effectively collaborate with the PMO, the Process Definition Group, the QA department, and other groups within a large software development organization - and still stay agile. How can a tester cope with a fast paced incremental, agile, delivery cycle Testers thrown into an agile project often wonder how they can keep up with the fast paced incremental delivery cycle inherent in agile projects. As long as testers treat an agile process as a series of small waterfalls, they are likely fail. This presentation shows how to properly integrate the test process into an agile development process. The negative consequences of treating the agile process as a series of small waterfalls How to properly integrate the test process into an agile development process When to plan, design, and execute test cases in an agile environment

2 Workflows are not Phases Everyone knows that to build software involves analysis, design, implementation, and testing. For years we called these the phases in the software development lifecycle. With the introduction of modern iterative/incremental software processes we have come to realize that there are no longer phases, but rather workflows. Phases now have titles such as inception, elaboration, construction, transition; or increment 1, increment 2, increment 3. The presentation will examine the difference between a phase and a workflow from the perspective of a modern iterative/incremental software engineering process. The attendee will learn The difference between a phase and a workflow How iterative/incremental development works Why we don't want to think of, or refer to, design as a phase anymore. How a code coverage tool can help system testers identify and reduce risk System testers usually rely on black box techniques to test applications. In today's complex technical and legal environment, exclusive reliance on black box techniques is no longer sufficient. This presentation shows how a code coverage tool can help even non-technical, system testers to identify and reduce risk. The proper use of a code coverage tool in the system test process How to read and use the output of a code coverage tool How to interpret and use the complexity metric that the tools produce

3 Tester or QA Engineer? Your Career is at Stake! If you are looking for job security and career advancement, then youwant to listen to this webinar on our QA Engineer certificate. The industry is changing. New trends and technologies include: Agile development processes Web services Sophisticated test automation techniques Don't be threatened by change. Embrace change. Learning new skills gives you an opportunity for career growth and a way to increase your value to your company. Using outer joins to find orphan records in your database As a part of their job, test professionals test applications one at a time. This is good, but not sufficient. Because a corporate database spans applications, it should be directly tested for internal integrity and adherence to corporate business rules. This presentation shows the test professional to use SQL to directly test a RDBMS for dangling references and orphan records. To use outer joins to find orphan records To use foreign key definitions to prevent quality problems To use the appropriate cascade and delete clauses in create table statements How null values are used in where clauses to help find dangling references

4 From use scenario to test scenario Uses cases are a powerful technique for elaborating requirements in a format that is especially useful to testers. Each use case contains a number of use scenarios. If these use scenarios are written at a sufficiently detailed level, they can serve directly as test scenarios. If not, then the tester may derive multiple test scenarios from each use scenario. This webinar describes the proper format for documenting use cases and describes industry best practices as well as common pitfalls. Attendees will learn: The proper format for documenting use cases To systematically identify all the alternate use scenarios for a use case How to systematically derive test cases from use cases How to avoid the most common pitfalls when using use cases Use case format How to identify use scenarios How to derive test cases How to avoid pitfalls Test Scenario Design techniques Story: A customer can use cash to purchase a product at the vending machine Notes from conversation with the client: If product not in stock, display out of stock message, otherwise if product in stock and sufficient cash deposited then dispense product and change. Otherwise if insufficient cash deposited display add money message. How many test cases? Come join our session and together we ll work through a set of practical techniques for systematically clarifying requirements and identifying a comprehensive set of test scenarios from written requirements. We ll do a few examples together and then let you try your hand at it. We ll go beyond standard binary decision tables and consider higher order tables and orthogonal arrays. You ll walk away with a link to a free tool you can use.

5 Creating an Optimal Test Process My experience leads me to believe that an optimal test process includes a strategic blend of test techniques including: Manual Scripted testing Exploratory testing Automated through the interface testing Automated under the interface testing Direct testing of corporate data By analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each technique, and matching those characteristics to your project profile, an optimal mix of techniques can be planned. The Goals, Activities, and Organization of a Testing Center of Excellence A testing center of excellence is an official organizational entity with its own funding, director, staff, and mission statement involving bringing excellence in testing to the organization. This lecture will discuss how to justify, create, and operate a testing center of excellence. Lessons learned from prior industry experience will be discussed.