Testing as a Shared Service
Carol Borowski, The Hartford Insurance Group

The Hartford Insurance Group is actively involved in transforming its IT organization into a factory-based model. Setting up testing as a Shared Service organization is critical to that transformation. With shared services, previously distributed testing functions are first consolidated and then delivered through a shared infrastructure to achieve a critical mass, serve the enterprise at lower cost, while providing higher service levels and greater responsiveness. The shared services model can provide large scale businesses with rapid access to critical specialty IT skills and demand-based resources. This demand based approach can help to ensure greater flexibility in responding to business needs, better utilization of resources, and scalability of operations without the fixed costs typically associated with large scale distributed and dedicated testing teams.

• Building a Shared Service Testing center aligned with the overall IT organization
• Factors enabling the success of a Shared Service model
• Achieving higher productivity and cost savings

Test Design for Complex System Testing
Mark Duquette, IBM

While functional testing generally focuses on specific areas of a single component, system testing focuses on multiple components and interactions within their environment. As software becomes more distributed and their topologies become more complex, these interactions require testers to apply additional skills in test design and execution. Mark Duquette offers an overview of system testing for those who are experienced in functional testing and are looking for more information about complex system testing. Mark introduces several types of system tests and explains how they differ. He explains the roles of workloads, topologies, data, and metrics as they relate to designing test cases for complex situations. Learn how to create reusable test cases for comparing quality over multiple releases. Explore using transaction profiles to ensure realistic workloads for performance tests. Take away these and other testing techniques to add to your toolkit for your next test design challenge. 

• Types of system tests for complex situations
• Components of system test cases
• Ways to use data derived from customer feedback

The Four T's of Test Automation
David Dang, Questcon Technologies

Many companies jump into test automation with visions of increased test coverage, decreased execution time, and easy maintenance. However, the reality is that test automation projects often fail due to the lack of a proven strategy and realistic planning. The keys to automation success are rooted in these four T’s—Technology, Test Cases, Talent, and Timeline. Organizations must consider the compatibility of the automation tools and the technology they want to test, the content and relevance of their test cases to automation, the skill sets needed to implement and maintain automation, and finally, the time it takes to properly implement a solid automation foundation. Join David Dang to learn the intricacies of the four T’s of test automation and find out how to leverage this information to enhance your own automation efforts.

• Key factors in test automation planning
• How to match automation tools to the system under test  
• Ways to evaluate manual test cases for potential automation

Measure Quality on the Way In—Not on the Way Out
Jan Fish, Philips Lifeline

Historically, organizations have measured the level of software quality after a system goes into production. What about measuring the level of software quality coming into testing? By measuring the number of test cases that pass or fail, and calculating the failure rate, you can forecast future failure rates and the number of test cases that will have to be executed each day during test. Then, you will have the information needed to adjust resources, timelines, and level of effort. Join Jan Fish to learn how to manage and control your testing effort rather than having it control you. By tracking the number and severity of bugs by build, you can open a whole new world of information. Combining this metric with knowledge of the content of the build lets you see immediately if newly introduced functionality is stable, if it disrupts surrounding functionality, or if your test effort should be modified. All this with just five minutes a day effort and a simple spreadsheet—what could be better?

• Spreadsheet to help forecast first run failure rates
• Areas needing process improvement identified easily
• Measures for the effectiveness of process improvement

The Hard Truth about Offshore Testing
Jim Olsen, Dell, Inc.

If you have been a test manager for longer than a week, you have probably experienced pressure from management to offshore some test activities to save money. However, most test professionals are unaware of the financial details surrounding offshoring and are only anecdotally aware of factors that should be considered before outsourcing. Jim Olsen shares his experiences and details about the total cost structures of offshoring test activities. He describes how to evaluate the maturity of your own test process and compute the true costs and potential savings of offshore testing. Learn what is needed to coordinate test practices at home with common offshore practices, how to measure and report progress, and when to escalate problems. Jim shares the practices Dell uses for staffing and retention, including assessing cultural nuances and understanding foreign educational systems.

• Practices and techniques of successful offshore testing
• How to compute the true cost and potential savings of offshore testing
• Cultural nuances of overseas organizations and their cultures

Man and Machine: Combining Automation Tools with the Human Mind
Jonathan Kohl, Kohl Concepts, Inc.

When we think of automated testing, we usually think of unattended tests that are executed by computer software. When we think of manual testing, we think of a human being executing tests without the aid of a machine. These activities need not be mutually exclusive—we can use automation tools to help us as we undertake manual testing. Instead of thinking of tests as either automated or manual, Jonathan Kohl explores areas where you can blend the activities. You might ask questions such as: "To what extent will test automation help me in my testing work?" or "What do we lose if we run these tests without human supervision?" Jonathan discusses and demonstrates a different way to think about test automation, as an intersection between automated and manual testing. He highlights techniques of this hybrid testing approach, providing examples from other disciplines and from his own experiences.