Tutorials: Series H
Thursday, April 5th, 2001

Six concurrent tutorials taught by nationally recognized quality experts. Each tutorial is a one full day of an in-depth instruction in a specific software quality topic.

You must specify which tutorial you wish to attend (H1 through H6)

Tutorials marked with (CSTP) count towards the Certification of Software Test Professionals and cover the Body of Knowledge areas as indicated.

   Series M - Monday, April 2, 2001

   Series T - Tuesday, April 3, 2001

   Series W - Wednesday, April 4, 2001

   Series F - Friday, April 6, 2001   

Tutorial #H1 (Thursday 8:30 - 4:30 p.m.)

H1: Object-Oriented Testing for System Testers (Intermediate) (CSTP, Elective)

Dr. John McGregor

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

The course takes a broad view of testing, including quality-related issues such as inspections and reviews in addition to dynamic testing of systems.  A number of specific techniques are presented that exploit object-oriented design principles to reduce the amount of work required in the testing process.  The goal is to generate the minimal number of test cases while not sacrificing test coverage.

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Tutorial #H2 (Thursday 8:30 - 4:30 p.m.)

H2: Improving Your Testing Process Through Measurements

Ed Weller

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

Improving Your Testing Process Through Measurements

Although testing accounts for up to 50% or more of product development costs, few organizations have measures of their test effectiveness or efficiency. Using the Measurement Framework for Software Test, this introductory tutorial will cover defect tracking, test effort, Test effectiveness and efficiency measures, test progress, measuring testware design, and other elements that give insight to the costs and results of test activities. The tutorial will approach these issues from a large development organization perspective and include legacy and software maintenance issues. Learn how to accurately evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your test activities s a basis for improvement. 

Introductions and Tutorial Objectives

·        Identify the major concerns with testing

·        Examine test metrics that help us do a better job of managing test

·        Keep a “real world” perspective - What’s useful, and more importantly, what’s useable?

Setting the Stage

·        What are your biggest problems with test?

·        How can Measurement help?

·        What should we measure?

·        Definitions

Test Metrics

·        Effort Metrics

·        Testware Metrics

·        Test Execution Metrics

·        Test Evaluation Metrics

·        Evaluation and Planning Metrics

·        Product Metrics

Effort

·        Definitions

·        Who provides it

·        How it is used

·        Test planning and tracking

Testware

·        Test development metrics

·        Test Objective Inventory

·         Combining Effort and Task Measures

Execution

·        Who provides it

·        What should be collected

·         How is it used?

• How good are the tests
• Problem Priority/Severity
• Regression Testing
• Cautions

Evaluation

·        Effectiveness

·         Efficiency

·        How are these used?

• The “defective fix” problem
• How good is the product
• Cautions

We Can’t Do Everything, So What’s First?

·        Inventory

·        Plan, Check, Do, and Act

·        Grow Incrementally

Summary and Wrap-up

·        Where are you?

·        Keep it Simple!

·         Where are you going?

·         Communicate!

Edward F. Weller is a Fellow at Bull HN Information Systems in Phoenix, AZ, where he is responsible for the software processes used their mainframe operating systems group. Prior to joining Bull HN, he was a Technical Staff Engineer and manager of the Systems and Software Engineering Process Group at Motorola’s Satellite Communications Division, where he was responsible for developing systems and software processes for the IRIDIUM^® project.  He is an authorized Lead Assessor in the SEI Appraiser Program for CMM-Based Appraisals for Internal Process Improvement. He is also affiliated with Software Technology Transition, providing SEI appraisal and inspections and metrics consulting.

He received the IEEE Software  “Best Article of the Year” award for his September, 1993, “Lessons From Three Years of Inspection Data”, and was awarded the Best Track Presentation at the 1994 Applications of Software Measurement conference for “Using Metrics to Manage Software Projects”. He is a member of the SEI’s Software Measurements Steering Committee, the DoD Software Best Practices Initiative Steering Committee, and was the first Co-Chair of the Software Inspection and Review Organization, a special interest group promoting the use of inspection process. Mr. Weller has 30 years experience in hardware, test, software, and systems engineering of large scale hardware and software projects and is a Senior Member of IEEE.  Mr. Weller received his BSE in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and MSEE from the Florida Institute of Technology.

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Tutorial #H3 (Thursday 8:30 - 4:30 p.m.)

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

This course will cover the test design phase of the testing lifecycle.   It starts with coverage of test case design techniques both for black and glass box testing.  This includes Equivalence Class partitioning, Boundary Value Analysis, Cause-Effect Diagram, and Decision Tables.  The second part of the course will cover test design activities and writing Test Design Specification including documenting test conditions, test cases, test scripts and procedures, and expected results.

Presentation Outline:

1. Test Case Design Techniques

Strategies for generating test cases

Black Box testing

Equivalence Class Partitioning

                Boundary Value Analysis

                Cause-Effect Diagram

                Decision Tables 

Glass Box testing

Statement/decision/condition coverage

                Path coverage

                Program complexity and basis path coverage

2.   System Test Planning

Why plan

Developing a test strategy

Components of a test plan

A test plan template

Creating a systems test plan

3.   Systems Test Design

Test design basics

Test design activities

Deliverables of the test design phase

Conditions and test cases

Procedures and expected results

Major areas of system testing

Business requirement testing

Preparing the Test Design Specification

                Defining test conditions

                Testing for missing business requirements

                Defining test cases

                Identifying data needed to execute tests

                Defining baseline data

                Determining expected results

                Defining test cycles

A Systems Test Specification template

Biography:

Dr. Magdy Hanna is a recognized educator, speaker and consultant in several related areas of software engineering.  Dr. Hanna brings over 20 years of experience with building and maintaining software systems.  As a consultant, he helped many organizations define and improve their software processes using disciplined software engineering approaches.  As an associate professor at the University of St. Thomas, he teaches graduate courses on several software engineering topics with emphasis on practical software quality techniques.  His distinguished seminars on various topics have been highly rated by software professionals. 

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Tutorial #H4 (Thursday 8:30 - 4:30 p.m.)

Jamie Mitchell

This tutorial counts as one day of training towards the Certified Software Test Professional requirements.

This one day course investigates what does and does not work in establishing a corporate test automation program.  Various examples of failed automation projects will be presented with a 20-20 viewpoint as to why they failed. Lessons learned will then be presented with recommendations for structuring a successful, scalable automation program.  Throughout the tutorial, the emphasis will be placed on ensuring that long-term return on investment (ROI) is maximized.

Some of the topics which will be presented are managing sponsor expectations, gathering requirements, setting standards and guidelines, piloting a first effort, scaling up the effort, and how to ensure the best chances for long term success.  Several different models of automation architecture will be presented.  Real world examples of enhancing the automation program through innovative design and development are included.

Biography: