Due to the overwhelming success and positive reviews of the last STP Online Summit: Business Value of Performance Testing, we've decided to do it again -- only this time, we're going to explore Achieving Business Value with Test Automation.

Join me (while I continue practicing my radio host skills for my emergency back-up career as a sportscaster) and 7 other presenters that I consider to be elite practitioners, teachers, and thinkers in their test automation areas of specialization for 3 half days online to learn their tips and methods for achieving business value with test automation. If you or your organization are using, or thinking about using, automation to enhance or improve your testing, you're not going to want to miss this online summit. I honestly can't think of anywhere else you can get this concentration of relevant and thematically targeted information at a better price, but you be the judge:

When: Tuesday October 11 10:00AM - Thursday October 13 1:30PM PST

Cost: $195 USD before 9/26/11 $245 USD after 9/26/11

Theme: For more than 15 years organizations have been investing in the promise of better, cheaper, and faster testing through automation. While some companies have achieved demonstrable business value from their forays into test automation, many others have experienced questionable to negative returns on their investments. Join your host, Scott Barber, for this three day online summit, to hear how seven recognized leaders in test automation have achieved real business value by implementing a variety of automation flavors and styles for their employers and clients. Learn how to answer the ROI question by focusing on business value instead of testing tasks, and how to implement automation in ways that deliver that value to the business, not just to the development and/or test team.

The Centro de Ensayos de Software (CES), a non-profit software testing laboratory in Uruguay, has recently launched a program that is certain to become the new “gold standard” in professional development for software testers.  The program, endorsed by the Universidad de la Republica (Uruguay), the Universidad Castilla La Mancha (Spain), and sanctioned by the Uruguayan IT Chamber (CUTI), is the most comprehensive, affordable, and publicly available training program for software testers on the market.  Based on my market research and comprehensive review of the program, I have no reservation in rating it as market leading.

I guess it’s that time again.  What time is that, you ask?  It’s the time when discussion/debate flares up over Context-Driven. I’m not going to weigh in on the whole discussion of pros/cons, value/distraction, etc.  I am a consultant.  I am Context-Driven (and not just as a tester, it's simply the way I have operated since long before I was a tester and long before I became aware someone had coined a term and composed a set of principles around how I already operated).  The license plate on my car says “CONTEXT”. It works for me.  But my point isn’t to convince you that it’s right for you.  My point is to address a comment that I frequently hear that *feels* very sad to me.

“Where I work, I don’t have the freedom or authority to implement all this Context-Driven stuff, so I guess I don’t get to be part of the club.”

I find this sad, because I don’t agree.  It is my opinion that “Where I work, I don’t have the freedom or authority…” *is* a "driving context", making smart decisions about what you are empowered to choose, and appropriately trying to inform/educate those who are "driving your context" that there are other options qualifies as being Context-Driven... at least to me.

I was pleased to see Michael Bolton's series on Testing vs. Checking. If you haven't been following, what I consider to be the central thread of the topic (and the unfortunately inevitable fallout that seems to happen in "testerland" almost any time someone says something that makes sense).

From Michael:

• http://www.developsense.com/2009/08/testing-vs-checking.html
• http://www.developsense.com/2009/09/transpection-and-three-elements-of.html
• http://www.developsense.com/2009/09/pass-vs-fail-vs-is-there-problem-here.html
• http://www.developsense.com/2009/09/elements-of-testing-and-checking.html

From James Bach:

• http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/358

From Scott Barber:

• http://www.perftestplus.com/resources/014PeakPerf.pdf Original, ST&P Magazine, 2005
• http://www.logigear.com/newsletter/investigation_vs_validation.asp Reprinted by Logigear, 2007

While Wolfram Alpha seems to have been endowed with both a sense of humor and self, there are some curious logic bugs. Try this, enter Name kim stacy terry jan frankie. WA shows the popularity of each name in the US census. It also asks whether you meant the male or female version of each name. This is very intelligent! It also says it assumes it is a list, and offers to do a multiplication instead???!!!! Clicking the multiplication link returns the standard “dont understand” message.

My favorite (so far) relates to two movies based on books. Enter Name tom jones . WA knows this is not just any two names. It assumes “tom jones” is a book (with a movie link option as well) then says it is a title, then the result is Data not available . Mmmm, let’s understand this a little better from the WA point of view, I assume it is a book, Yep, It’s a book title that I know, Nah, forget all that, too hard, no idea at all! It does find it as a movie though.

If we try another entry name color purple we get the same problem: no book data but normal movie data. We can guess what is causing it: there is a record of a movie of the book but no details on the book itself yet. Hopefully the book data will be “made available” soon….. However, if you just type in Color purple , you get information on the color purple, with a link to the book or the movie. Clicking on the book link then show full details of the book. Huh?

OK, let’s just try Tom Jones . Now we find out he is a singer, but we also have a link to a book or a film. Clicking on the book link tells us now that there is some limited data: the author is Henry Fielding. As Alice in Wonderland said, “Curiouser and Curiouser”, I try Alice in Wonderland , and there are 5 movies, but no book!

Finally, I tell WA “Im not sure what to do with your output” to which it replies “WA is not sure what to do with your input”!

The 4th Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2009

Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 13-16, 2009

Serving Our Stakeholders

Opening Keynote by: Dr. Jonathan Koomey

Closing Keynote by: Robert Sabourin & Tim Coulter

Invited Speakers: Mike Dwyer and Kevin Brennan

The 4th Annual Conference of the Association of Software Testing (CAST) 2009

Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 13-16, 2009

Serving Our Stakeholders

Opening Keynote by: Dr. Jonathan Koomey

Closing Keynote by: Robert Sabourin & Tim Coulter

Invited Speakers: Mike Dwyer and Kevin Brennan

“How can we maximize the chance of finding such a problem in the limited time we have to test?”

“I was lucky enough in my random selection of order for retesting the fixes that the system was in a state for me to get some simple extra tests in for the previous feature.”