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Testing: Software Development Catalyst

Testing is not an isolated activity. It interacts with and influences other disciplines in software development such as design, coding, release management, and deployment. As testers, our skills and experiences add value far beyond the immediate context of verifying functionality. Threats to value other than software errors exist.

Yet our discussions are often constrained to the testing space, omitting the connections to, and dependencies on, other roles and activities. Testing is an integral discipline of software development, and often plays an active and important role in bridging gaps between technical and business-focused roles, between leaders and engineers, and between makers and users.

How does the testing piece fit into the software development puzzle? How does – and how should – testing interact with other disciplines in software development? How can we most effectively add value to the software development projects we participate in?

Please join us for our 11th annual conference at the Simon Fraser University Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver, Canada, August 8-10 2016.

 


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Keynote [clear filter]
Tuesday, August 9
 

09:00 PDT

Keynote - Nicholas Carr
*This session will be livestreamed only, no recording will be made for later viewing.

Speakers
avatar for Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr

Nicholas Carr writes about technology and culture. He is the author of the acclaimed book The Glass Cage: How Our Computers Are Changing Us, which examines the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers, robots, and apps. His previous work... Read More →


Tuesday August 9, 2016 09:00 - 10:40 PDT
Fletcher Challenge Theatre (1900) Simon Fraser University Vancouver 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3

13:15 PDT

Test Management Revisited

Cross-functional teams with a tester embedded into a small agile team is a popular and on-trend approach to distributing the testing effort across software development. Ebay, Google, Microsoft are some of the more well-known names to have adopted this approach.

How does test management fit into this? Does it even have a place in organisations wanting flatter hierarchical models? Should all testers report to delivery leads? 

At Tyro Payments, we’ve built a team from 5 to 23 testers in one year. The emphasis has been on training and coaching so each tester is the expert within their team able to continuously improve the testing process. However, as we grew, the approach had to be constantly revised. We experimented with many ideas, pivoted a few times and constantly evolved our ideas about what it meant to lead testing in a high growth organisation.

This keynote will describe that journey ending with some thoughts on test management and how it might fit (or not) into a future where the only certainty we have is that testing will look very different to what we do today.


Speakers
avatar for Anne-Marie Charrett

Anne-Marie Charrett

Test Consultant, Testing Times
Anne-Marie Charrett is a testing coach and trainer with a passion for helping testers discover their testing strengths and become the testers they aspire to be. Anne-Marie offers free IM Coaching to testers and developers on Skype (id charretts) and is is working on a book with James... Read More →


Tuesday August 9, 2016 13:15 - 14:15 PDT
Fletcher Challenge Theatre (1900) Simon Fraser University Vancouver 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3
 
Wednesday, August 10
 

09:00 PDT

Neuro-Diversity and Software Development: Why the Tech Industry Needs all Kinds of Minds and How We Can Support Them
Even if you are unaware of it, it’s likely that there is someone on your team (or has been in the past) with a non-typical neurology. It even seems there is a higher propensity towards autism and aspergers in STEM careers. Turns out that is actually a good thing.
We will begin by looking at the research on diversity and success.
We will then consider what is known about the autistic / aspergers mind with a particular view towards how that lend itself to developing software and how we might better support autists at work.
What about other forms of neurodiversity? We will look at depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD and consider why you might want such diversity on your team and how you can best support it.

Speakers
avatar for Sallyann Freudenberg

Sallyann Freudenberg

@salFreudenberg
Dr. Sallyann Freudenberg is an agile coach, consultant and trainer with a keen focus on psychology and collaboration. She holds a PhD in the Psychology of Collaborative Software Development, performs ethnographic research, publishes and speaks about the ways that experienced agile... Read More →


Wednesday August 10, 2016 09:00 - 10:40 PDT
Fletcher Challenge Theatre (1900) Simon Fraser University Vancouver 515 West Hastings Street Vancouver, BC V6B 5K3
 
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