Thursday, October 22 - 8:45am
President's Ballroom The Dangers of the Normalization of Deviance: A Lesson in Leadership for the Test & QA Profession
Colonel Mike Mullane NASA Astronaut, Retired*
Join us for a memorable opening keynote presentation with retired astronaut Colonel Mike Mullane who will discuss key aspects of leadership, including responsibility, trust, courageous self-leadership and team leadership. Colonel Mullane will focus on the importance of guarding against a "normalization of deviance," and will describe how a normalization of deviance within NASA was the root cause of the most infamous and tragic of technical errors in NASA history: the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger. Prior to joining NASA, COLONEL MIKE MULLANE completed 134 combat missions in his 20-year career with the Air Force. Colonel Mullane was selected as a Mission Specialist in 1978 in the first group of space shuttle astronauts. He completed three space missions, including the maiden voyage of the Discovery, and two missions on the Atlantis. Colonel Mullane has been inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame and is the recipient of many awards, including the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit and the NASA Space Flight Medal.
This keynote was Awesome!
It turns out I did some work on Space Shuttle and Space Station during my time at IBM Federal Systems. And I have stickers of the Mission Badges and a signed picture of the crew already!
Thursday, October 22, 10:00 - 11:00 am
Performance Testing: Cloud Computing's Killer App
Daniel Bartow
The next big wave in online application engineering is happening in the cloud. You can simulate your real world user load in a cost effective manner and create an end-to-end performance testing strategy that was unimaginable until now. Hear how Bartow's team at Intuit used more than 2,000 processor cores to generate real world user scenarios against a production environment to generate a high level of confidence for Intuit's online tax preparation software, TurboTax. Gain a new way of thinking about performance testing that doesn't settle for lab simulations. Dan Bartow is senior manager of performance engineering at Intuit, Inc.
Thursday, October 22, 11:15am - 12:15pm
Data Patterns for Performance & Robustness Testing
Ross Collard and Dan Downing
This session aims to improve your performance testing through the smarter use of live data. The scope will include Web sites, client/server systems, mainframes, telecom networks, databases, and real-time embedded devices. The session will examine test data patterns and how to use them. Ross Collard is founder of Collard & Company, He has consulted with top-level management from a diverse variety of companies. He's also a frequent contributor to Software Test & Performance magazine. Dan Downing is VP and general manager of Testing Services at Mentora. He's a subject matter expert in load testing and created the Five Steps of Load Testing methodology.
Links to docs
Data Patterns for Performance and Robustness Testing
Data Patterns Live Data Patterns Compendium
Thursday, October 22 - 1:15pm President's Ballroom
Testing Lessons Learned from the Astronauts Michael Bolton
Michael Bolton will use Colonel Mike Mullane's presentation as a point of departure for a number of testing-related topics. Michael will discuss the concept of "positive deviance" as the antidote to the normalization of deviance. He'll explore how testers can learn from problem reporting, as practiced at NASA, and he'll discuss the interaction between the technical and social aspects of testing and development. As Michael will emphasize, Colonel Mullane's inspiring stories have much to teach us about how we learn, how we overcome constraints, and how teams can profit from the power of individuality and diversity. MICHAEL BOLTON is a tester, consultant, and testing trainer and a leader in the context-driven software testing movement with more than 20 years of experience in the computer industry testing, developing, managing, and writing about software. Currently, he leads DevelopSense, a Toronto-based consultancy.
Thursday, October 22, 2:30 - 3:30 pm
The Application Performance LifeCycle: From Lab to Launch
Daniel Bartow
Performance engineering is a critical part of any QA activity, but it shouldn't stop at the end of the project or be finished in the performance lab. How you tie your test results to what happens in the real world can make or break your customer experience. Defining metrics, testing to validate them, and monitoring the real world results are critical components of end-to-end performance. In this session you'll learn how to incorporate performance engineering into all aspects of the software development lifecycle. You'll take away ideas and strategies that will help you tell a complete story about the value of the performance QA work that your organization does and how it affects the customer experience. Dan Bartow is senior manager of performance engineering at Intuit, Inc.
Thursday, October 22, 4:00 - 5:00 pm
A Model for Software Test Execution
Douglas Hoffman
A model of the elements that impact SUT behavior (such as data and system environment) helps articulate what to look at to verify test results. Understanding and identifying the elements leads to more creative test design and better validation of outcomes. This model also helps explain what causes non-reproducible test results. The presentation will explore SUT behavior based on the model and directly ties to what a test is and how to determine pass/fail verdicts. We will address questions such as: what do we control, what assumptions do we make, and where can errors manifest themselves.
Doug Hoffman has more than 30 years experience as a consultant, manager, and engineer in the computer and software industries. He provides organizational assessments, strategic quality planning, and test planning services. He is an ASQ Fellow, member of ACM and IEEE, holds ASQ Certificates in Software Quality Engineering and Manager of Quality/Organization Excellence, and has been a registered ISO Lead Auditor.