Targeting Quality 2018

As mobile devices, tools, operating systems, and web technologies rapidly evolve, testers must quickly adapt their thinking in this changing domain. Testers often struggle to find important vulnerabilities and bugs in mobile applications due to lack of guidance, experience, and the right resources. I was one such tester. During my career in the mobile testing field, I’ve come across numerous bugs related to mobile applications. Looking at these bugs, I started categorizing them, and started finding patterns in them in terms of how different types of testing approaches helped me to find different type of defects. I also started realizing that, anyone could start doing mobile testing if they understand some basic concepts involved in it. Mobile Testing is NOT complicated.

Also, I have often heard testers say mobile testing entails a totally different thought process from other types of testing, and they believe they have to take extra courses and get certifications to be proficient in it. There are even testers who think they are not qualified to do mobile testing, although they have been testing other applications for more than a decade and have gained a lot of experience during those years. This workshop will help to re-assure testers that, the concepts, approaches and strategies testers use when testing other applications can be applied to mobile as well.
 
Attendees who attend my workshop will be able to immediately use all the testing knowledge gained through the workshop in their daily testing activities.
 
Learning Objectives

• Basics of the mobile eco system
• How to set up a mobile testing process quickly?
• Different testing approaches to get quick feedback on the mobile application
• Different types of testing to do with your mobile applications
• How you can make your mobile applications smarter?
• What are the cool things happening in mobile and how it is relevant to our testing?
• Session based exploratory testing in mobile
• Why mobile testing is not that different from testing other applications?

The workshop will have multiple hands on exercises, live demos and screenshots for the attendees to better relate to the above topics
 
Pre-requisites for the workshop

• Need to have one mobile device (iOS/Android)
• Need to have iOS/Android charging USB cable to connect to the laptop
• Need to install Xcode if using mac
• Need to install Android Studio, IntelliJ or Eclipse for non-macs
• Install SDK Platform Tools from this link – https://developer.android.com/studio/releases/platform-tools.html

 
NOTE: If you face any problem while doing any of the above pre-requisites, do not worry. We will fix it during the workshop

You can also personally e-mail me at raj@rajsubra.com or talk with me on skype to see if this workshop would be the right fit for you, before you and your team register. You can also contact me at – http://www.rajsubra.com/contact/

In this talk I will share my experiences working in two very different environments, attempting to lead the testing effort of two very different organizations, with two very different results. In contrasting these two very different experiences, I will share where each effort started, where they ended up, what steps were taken to improve things, and the roadblocks I encountered.

Attendees can expect to take away:
- Details of two very different ways managing a testing program can turn out
- Some tactics they can consider if they are now, or hope to take on the program manager role
- Advice on how to handle tough situations (from my hindsight)

This room is available to continue conversations, start new ones or meet someone new.

As someone who’s spent most of my career in software test-focused roles, I used to feel that if only we could allocate more time for testing, we’d eventually find all the bugs and be able to consistently release top quality software. However, I started noticing that most escaped defects I could remember were things that had been hiding in the areas I didn’t even know to ask about, in the small differences between our test and production environments, and in the things we depend on but don’t have full control over. So lately, while I still value doing good testing, it doesn’t feel as useful to strive for truly excellent coverage. Instead, I prefer to invest in planning for phased roll outs, and gaining confidence in our ability to quickly detect and resolve problems in production. To help illustrate what I’ve learned, I’ll share stories about defects I missed that I wouldn’t have found with all the time in the world, and about times I have been saved by solid monitoring and roll-back strategies. I’ll also provide a list of questions that can be used to plan for failure detection and resolution, and heuristics to help differentiate between what I mean by “good” and “excellent” testing.

My talk is looking at the parallels faced by women and visible minorities in both the beer and tech industries.

I'll be bringing up things like:
- how we market to specific groups of people
- what jobs/roles are filled by women/minorities - and how we view those jobs
- how things are changing 
- how things haven't changed all that much over time

Though these industries seem worlds apart (I'm sure some would argue that tech leads one to beer), I'll chat about issues that are universal to these industries and what we can do - together- to start a dialogue and make changes for the better. 

Receiving feedback can be tough. It can be hard to remember that it is meant to help improve work going forward, not to point out current flaws. It can be incredibly easy to take feedback or comments personally in the workplace, but what is the impact when we do so?

When we personalize situations we tend to lose sight of the bigger picture. It becomes easier to focus in on minute details and not look at the overall context in which the feedback is being given. The impacts of this lower level of focus can result in wasted time from; chasing the wrong issues, laying blame, making up excuses, refusing to ask for help, and ultimately avoiding discussions around the root cause and ways to improve.

This talk will draw on experiences and examples of situations such as; testing debriefs (tester to tester interactions), bug discovery (tester to developer interactions), and inter team projects (team to team interactions) and discuss tactics for each on staying objective and productive. When we look at feedback for what it truly is - a way to improve - we can build better relationships between communities and teams to make them stronger as a result.

By the end of this talk, attendees will know: - How to better identify situations where you may be personalizing - Ways to reorient thinking back to objectified view vs personalized view - How to improve communication to avoid negatively received feedback