Webinars

Five Hard-won Lessons in Performance, Load and Reliability Testing

Performance, load, and reliability tests are hard to design, hard to run, and essential in today’s complex IT environments. You need to apply lots of smarts, the right tools, and a pinch of rigour to make it work.  In this Webinar, Rex Black will explain:

• Why realistic performance, load, and reliability test environments matter--and how to build them. 
• What to do -- and what not to do -- to generate realistic loads and valid test results.
• How models and simulations can validate your performance testing--and vice versa.
• Where to find the right building-blocks for your tests (hint: expensive commercial tools aren't the only answer).
• When to start performance, load, and reliability testing.

This Webinar will be illustrated by real-world examples drawing on Rex’s twenty years of experience with performance, load, and reliability testing.

1:30 PM  Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC +10)

3:30 PM New Zealand Standard Time (UTC +13)

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 Risk-based Testing: What It Is and How You Can Benefit

Over the last fifteen years, leading professionals working in software and system testing have learned how to apply the powerful techniques of risk analysis and risk management to their projects. Rex Black’s pioneering Managing the Testing Process was both the first test management book and the first to discuss risk-based testing. In this Webinar, Rex will explain:

• The benefits of risk-based testing.
• Why adding risk analysis to the test team’s responsibilities actually reduces their workload. 
• The importance of stakeholder participation. 
• Common mistakes that can occur in risk-based testing.

Rex will illustrate these points, not through hypothetical discussion, but by examining a case study where RBCS helped a client launch risk-based testing. In this Webinar, you’ll learn how to analyse risks to quality, and use that analysis to be a smarter test professional.

1:30 PM  Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC +10)

03:30 PM New Zealand Standard Time (UTC +13)

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Code Coverage Metrics and How to Use Them

More and more testers and programmers are using tools that provide code coverage metrics. These metrics tell the tester or programmer how much of the code has been covered by a given set of tests, and, more importantly, what important conditions might not be covered. In addition, some tools can evaluate the coverage of data flows.  Some tools can also provide insight into the complexity, and thus the likely difficulty level of future refactoring, of the code. In this practical Webinar, Rex will explain the following code coverage metrics and how you can use them to write better code or tests:

• Statement, branch, condition, and loop coverage metrics.
• McCabe Cyclomatic complexity and basis path coverage.
• Data-flow coverage via set-use pairs.
• Checklist-based test requirements.

To make the material easier to understand and practical, Rex will illustrate each metric using a real program, with tests developed and run to achieve given levels of coverage.

1:30 PM  Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC +10)

03:30 PM New Zealand Standard Time (UTC +13)

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Achieving Realistic, Truthful, Actionable Schedules

Some software professionals have defined project failure as not just outright cancellation, but even a completed project that ends twenty-five percent or more past the scheduled end date. All too often, though, originally estimated project end dates are based on schedules that are impractical, dishonest, or unclear. When writing schedules, we need to go beyond merely thinking about activities performed by teams of people over periods of days or weeks, and instead consider the constituent tasks, the underlying dependencies between them, and the risks to the completion of those tasks. We should abandon the paternalistic management technique of using outlandish schedules as “stretch goals” for our teams and instead focus on working with our individual contributors to understand what can actually be accomplished.  And we should set aside the all-too-common practice of worshiping an obscure Gantt chart and instead strive to encapsulate the knowledge we gain by penetrating the scheduling complexities in clear, readable project plans. In this Webinar, Rex discusses some common problems encountered when scheduling test efforts on various system development projects.  For each of these problems, he explains practical techniques that every manager can apply right away to resolve these problems. Realistic, truthful, actionable schedules are your capabilities right now -attend this Webinar to learn how.

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Test Reporting for Impact

Testing is about producing information, and effective testing is about communicating that information to the various test stakeholders in a way that makes an impact on their thinking, their understanding, and their choices for how the project moves forward. Testers, test leads, and test managers frequently have to report on test status and on test analysis, answering questions including: 

How many bugs have we found - and how many have we fixed? 
Is the testing going according to plan? 
Have we covered what we should? 
What do the results tell us about system performance, security, functionality, etc.? 
What is going on “behind the scenes” that causes the observed results? 
In this Webinar, Rex Black  will give examples of test status and analysis graphs and charts that have helped him achieve test reporting for impact.

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The Future of Test Management

As Yogi Berra said, it's hard to make predictions, especially about the future, but in this Webinar, Rex will take a chance at predicting the future of test management. Rex sees ten systemic, long-term challenges that confront current and future test managers. The successful test manager will enter the future ready to handle these challenges, while other test managers will become former test managers due to their failure to handle them. In this Webinar, Rex Black  will class talk about these challenges and possible solutions to them. What role do test tools and test automation play? What skills do we need as test managers, and what skills do our testers need? What test process implications exist? In this presentation, Rex will illustrate the points with anecdotes and case studies from current and past RBCS clients. You will leave this talk better able to survive and thrive in the coming twenty-teen decade.

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Five Testing Best Practices and How These Can Help You

A best practice is an approach to doing something that generally gives good results when applied appropriately and thoughtfully. In other words, a best practice is like a good habit. For testing, best practices include analytical risk-based testing strategies, clear test objectives, continuous test process improvement, trained and certified test teams, and intelligently distributed testing work.  Based on 25 years of industry experience, Rex Black will talk about what has worked for him, his RBCS associates, and for RBCS clients, over and over again, around the world and across many different types of projects. Come prepared to pick up some new good habits.

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ISTQB Advanced Certification: Guiding the Way to Better Software Testing

The International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB) has already effected profound change in the software testing field, with over 110,000 people having attained Foundation certification. But a Foundation certification is just that: only a Foundation. With the release of the new Advanced syllabus in October 2007, the ISTQB expanded and improved the next rung on the ladder of test professionalism. In this Webinar, Rex Black  former President of the ISTQB, explains how the ISTQB Advanced syllabus can guide you, your testing colleagues, and your organisation toward better testing, reduced risk, and higher quality.

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Six Surprises from Test Assessments

RBCS consultants, led by Rex Black travel the globe performing services for various clients, including assessments of test teams, test processes, and organisational quality outcomes. Often, their assessment findings surprise the assessed organisation - and sometimes assed organisations even surprise RBCS! In this eye-opening Webinar, filled with case studies backed by data, not just opinions, Rex Black will class sample six surprising test assessment findings that span the critical testing processes, from organisations around the world.

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Ten Worst Things for Testing

Lots of people give top 10 lists, but only the very brave will give a bottom 10 list! Let’s face it though: Smart people sometimes do dumb things. Smart testers and test managers are no exception. In this talk, Rex Black will discuss things he’s done and things he’s seen other smart test professionals do that, upon close reflection, turn out to be big mistakes. That way, you can go back to work the next day and not do them.

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Stranger in a Strange Land: Testing on Outsourced Project

More and more test professionals work on projects where some or all of the development or testing is done by third-parties, often overseas. While cost savings make such arrangements attractive to executives, individual contributors and managers on such projects face some significant challenges. What does outsourcing mean for testers? In this Webinar, Rex Black offers insights from two decades of involvement in outsource projects - both successful and not-so-successful. Rex will illustrate his points with case studies and share humorous and scary anecdotes along the way.

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Testing Challenges of Agile Projects

Is your company going Agile? What does that mean for testing? What should you expect? Are you curious?  Are you excited?

In this Webinar, Rex Black discusses the key Agile testing challenges, so that you can recognise and resolve these challenges if your company adopts an Agile approach. 

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