The following is a listing of the events for the 2008/2009 season including presentation abstracts, speaker biographies, and additional event details. Please see the 2008/2009 Season page for the details on the theme, schedule, location and sponsor(s).
What is the purpose of Testing? What are goals and pitfalls for different types of testing? What is Test Coverage? What is Risk Based Testing?
This presentation will take a new approach to answering these questions by using Brian Marick's Agile Testing Quadrants. Michelle will review the Testing Quadrants and examine what drives quality in a software project, whether the project methodology is Agile or Traditional.
Learn how to use the Test Quadrants as a tool to understand the purpose of different Test Types, to evaluate Test Coverage, and to help mitigate Test Risk.
Michelle Dunn a QA/QC expert, has spent more than 14 years in software testing and quality assurance within numerous sectors including Oil & Gas, Telecommunications, Transportation, Financial, Government, Commercial/Product, and custom In-house software applications.
Michelle's passion is creating first-in-class Test teams. She has spent her extensive and varied career implementing quality practices from the ground up that create dynamic, successful and highly effective Test teams.
Michelle is a champion of IT process improvement and ensures that quality practices continually meet and exceed business and company needs.
Michelle has a degree in Applied Math, a Project Management Certificate, an ITIL Certificate, a Pragmatic Marketing Certificate and is a Certified Software Test Engineer (CSTE) from QAI (active since 2000).
Michelle is the current Program Director of the SQDG (Software Quality Discussion Group).
Meeting Sponsor: P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
Ever hear horror stories about how test automation never returns the investment of the thousands of dollars spent on the tool, test creation and test maintenance? How about the test automation suite that becomes "shelfware" when maintenance costs get overwhelming? In this presentation, learn how to avoid these traps, by correctly identifying the type of automation tool that fits the project by incorporating automation tool requirement analysis and automation tool evaluation techniques.
For projects without an automation budget, learn how to incorporate automation when the project's budget is minimal by evaluating and implementing "inexpensive" automation solutions such as shareware or freeware, or maybe even consider a home-grown variety of automation.
Get ideas on how to quickly hire/train automation resources, suggestions on how to implement a new automation tool and tricks on how to avoid maintenance disasters.
Janet Gregory is a Calgary-based consultant specializing building quality systems and her passion is promoting agile quality processes. Over the past ten years, she has helped to introduce development agile practices into companies as tester or coach, and has successfully transitioned traditional test teams into the agile world. She has also successfully introduced automation strategies into organizations to create maintainable regressions test suites.
Janet is a frequent speaker at software conferences, is active in the North American agile testing community, and is co-author of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Agile Testers and Teams, available January 2009. www.janetgregory.ca www.agiletesters.ca
Presentation Materials: 
Meeting Sponsors: Michelle Dunn and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
Ever see a web application and thought "How do they test that?" or "There's no way that test would be automated."
The Tynt Web Overlay uses a variety of cutting edge techniques (including ajx, vml, svg , drag and drop) to deliver a unique and original user experience. This user experience, while being great for users, produces a huge amount of testing, especially automation challenges.
Since many of these challenges aren't addressed by either commercial testing tools or open source ones, extensions to popular open source tools were written.
This presentation will demonstrate some of the innovative features in the Tynt Web Overlay, and show how they can be automated. And show some surprisingly simple techniques for developing test cases, that can lead to simper testing and better automation.
Paul Rogers was one of the original authors of the Watir open source testing tool. He has taught classes in test automation for private clients and at testing conferences. He has consulted for various organizations on software testing.
Paul has more than 10 years experience in test automation in industries as diverse as banking, media and hardware development. This varied experience gives him a unique understanding of his clients needs.
Meeting Sponsors: C G I and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
What a great opportunity to meet with fellow quality practitioners to partake of some fine vituals, hoist a few and talk about software quality, amongst other things, I'm certain.
Once again we'll be meeting our favourite watering-hole, the Auburn Saloon. The Auburn is located at 115 - 9th Avenue SE. It's on the south side of 9th Avenue, on the west side of the Palliser Square office tower, directly across from the Glenbow Museum.
As always, this is an informal affair. We can start congregating around 5:30 pm and wrap up any time we want. Appetizers/Snacks will be provided. Cost of any beverage is the responsibility of the individual.
Meeting Sponsors:
Janet Gregory, DragonFire, Inc.
Sherry Heinze, Diversity Consulting Ltd.
Kim Kelln, Io Software Consultants
Location: Auburn Saloon located at 115 - 9th Avenue SE
Time: 5:30 pm - unspecified
Additional Details: Appetizers/Snacks will be provided; the cost of any beverage is the responsibility of the individual
RSVP: N/A
As business intelligence and data warehousing applications become increasingly important to organizations, quality considerations have come to the fore alongside. While many traditional testing strategiesand techniques can be applied to data testing, there are a few pitfalls on the road to testing a successful implementation of a business intelligence solution. By avoiding some of these major hazards, solutions can be delivered sooner, more cost effectively and with better end user acceptance.
This presentation helps identify the numerous challenges inherent in the data world and provides solutions. The range of topics will include discussion around testing environments, automated and manual testing strategies, risk mitigation, and end user engagement in the testing process.
Mike Heinrich is a Quality Assurance Analyst on the Data Management team at WestJet. In his current role, he is a subject matter expert on Quality Assurance, providing process expertise to both the data management and decision support teams. Mike has provided quality assurance and testing expertise to a number of industries including financial, telecommunications, and logistics before moving to WestJet and entering the Business Intelligence world.
Meeting Sponsors: C G I and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
Given that about 94% of all vulnerabilities reported in the first half of 2008 targeted applications, rather than operating systems it appears that application development and testing needs some help and guidance to improve the security of their software products. The purpose of this presentation is to give QA Analysts some simple things that they can do to improve the overall security of their product. In this presentation we will do an exercise in 'evil thinking', a brief introduce to Threat Modeling as a means to determine where security testing is most needed, and various security testing techniques and tools, all of these should be easy to include in your existing project and will hopefully give QA Analysts the largest increase in improved security testing for the smallest investment in time and effort.
Blake McNeill is a Microsoft MVP in the Developer Security group and currently Product Development Manager for Zing Pow. Blake has almost 20 years of experience designing and building corporate and commercial software for companies ranging from successful start-ups to Fortune 500 Companies. Blake has a long history and a deep belief in the value in testing of software products which has been repeatedly reinforced with each successful product created.
Presentation Materials:
Meeting Sponsors: C G I and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
What is performance testing? Performance testing is much more than just simple load testing at the end of project to see if the software crashes.
In his presentation, James Anderson discusses the important processes of Performance planning, testing, monitoring resource usage and analyzing results. James also examines the various aspects of Performance testing including hardware, modeling techniques, tools, infrastructure and resourcing.
Learn to meet the needs of management by defining performance objectives and goals, using "Day in the Life" (DTIL) analysis and communicating results that management understands.
James Anderson has spent 15 years in Software Testing and Quality Assurance, focusing on Automation development and Performance testing. James has worked in numerous industries, including Oil and gas, Software, Industrial automation, and Banking. He has worked at Corel, GE, and Adobe to name a few. These experiences have given him varied challenges, where he has gained experience, knowledge, and understanding in applying automation development and performance testing methodologies. James has spent most of career developing automation architectures and performance testing systems to help ensure software and web applications are reliable and successful.
Meeting Sponsors: C G I and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
The testing of a single system can be difficult. But what happens when you have multiple systems all talking to one another and dependant on data transfered between each other? How does the complexity of these types of systems change the testing approach? How do you test these systems when some are vendor developed and may not be available within your test environment?
In an interactive presentation using real life examples, we will look at the complexity of integrated systems and how testing an application as an interface within a system integration is different than testing that application on its own. The presentation will look at how integrated systems work together, test environments required for a system integration project, as well as tools, tips and tricks for system integration testing of interfaces.
Nancy Kelln has worked in many roles in the IT world over the past 12 years. She has been a computer service technician, system administrator, systems analyst, computer application trainer, programmer analyst, and quality assurance analyst. She has worked for CGI, IBM, Nortel, and WestJet. She is currently the Test Lead at AESO in Calgary for the Data Exchange Project's implementation of TIBCO as part of the AESO's Energy Management System upgrade.
Nancy has a degree in Computer Science, Psychology and Religious Studies. She is an active member of AST (Association for Software Testing) and is a Certified Scrum Master (CSM) and a Certified Scrum Practitioner (CSP) from the Scrum Alliance.
Meeting Sponsors: C G I and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
Have you ever noticed that a lot of testing-related discussion revolves around quality, process and tools, but very little about what actually happens when a tester sits down at their computer and executes tests? Many testers in the trenches feel like they have little direction and support when it comes to doing their day-to-day jobs. Exploratory testers often feel they have even less direction and structure in their work since they don't rely much on pre-scripted test cases. They also struggle with how to record exploratory testing results in a way that satisfies internal processes or a regulatory body. Enter session-based testing.
Created by James and Jon Bach almost ten years ago, session-based testing is a simple management technique that provides structure to exploratory testing. Session-based testing focuses on recording and describing what you did when testing, rather than pointing to test cases and expressing coverage based on whether the tests passed or failed. Session-based testing can be a powerful management, testing guidance and knowledge-sharing tool with applications beyond exploratory testing.
In this talk, we will look at session-based testing, and different interpretations of it that can be applied to your own testing context. We won't just talk about session-based testing; we will also work together with a new session-based testing tool called Session Tester.
Jonathan Kohl is based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and is the founder and principal software consultant of Kohl Concepts, Inc. A noted software testing thinker and strategist, Jonathan is a natural investigator on software projects. In addition to assisting teams with testing, Jonathan helps companies define and implement their product vision, coaches practitioners as they develop software on teams, and works with leaders helping them define and implement their product vision. Jonathan is also a popular author and speaker. His blog on software development and testing issues is one of the most well-read testing blogs in the industry. Jonathan is a regular contributor to Better Software magazine, both as an author and technical editor. Contact Jonathan at www.kohl.ca.
Meeting Sponsors: C G I and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
Quality is in the eye of the beholder. The success of implementing Quality Best Practices is often times equated to how it can address Business Needs as well as perceived Business Value.
WHAT, HOW and WHY we attempt to bring and manage QA and QC into an organization is not a cookie-cutter approach. This presentation will explore the evolution of the Quality Lifecycle in various organizations by using Real Life Examples it will highlight different approaches for evaluating, implementing and delivering different Quality practices into various organization. Once delivered, THEN WHAT??? Maintaining Quality and Quality Practices is often times dictated by management perception and economic reality. This presentation will look at the adventure of how we (Quality Practitioners) may be able to effectively adapt to and manage the Change of Quality.
Sabina Fabbian is a QA/QC expert with over 14 years experience in software testing and quality assurance within numerous sectors including Oil and Gas, Telecommunications, Health Care, Government, Financials, Commercial/Product and custom in-house software applications.
Sabina's experience ranges from Software Testing, Test Automation, Team Lead and Management, QA/QC Process Implementation and Improvement as well as Change Management. Sabina has worked with all SDLC's; Waterfall, Iterative and Agile as well as multiple technologies, platforms and applications including Client/Server, Web-based, ERP's, Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence.
Sabina is a highly motivated advocate for quality assurance; her passion is understanding company's business practices and culture in the realm of IT and offering streamlined BEST Practices for Software QA/QC. By marring the needs of the people with those of the product, she articulates and delivers the right process/practice for the right environment.
Presentation Materials:
Meeting Sponsors: C G I and P2 Energy Solutions
Location: 2nd floor XCHANGE Conference Center, Standard Life Building at 5th Ave and 6th St S.W (accessible by +15)
Time: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, doors open at 11:30 am
Additional Details: Refreshments and light lunch are provided
RSVP: Register in advance via email to the Communications Director
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