General Information
- CQAA Welcome
- Why Attend - Who Attends - Events Schedule - Sponsors - Hotel - Chicago Attractions - FAQ - Contact Us |
Registration
|
Conference
- Conference At A Glance
- Keynote Presentations Sessions: - Industry Expert - Benchmarking - Product Solutions - Workshops - Panel Discussion - Coaching Sessions |
| QUEST Magazine |
When You Arrive
|
Workshops & Panel
|
Managing Software Quality and Test Solutions Workshop Track 1: 3:00 - 4:00 The Managing Software Quality and Test Solutions Workshop focuses on the top challenges of managing a testing team in today's fast paced and demanding environment. Management Track industry expert, Steven Rakitin, President of Software Quality Consulting and author of Software Verification & Validation for Practitioners and Managers along with corporate practitioner, Julie Marzano from AT&T will work together with you to address the difficulties inherent in this area of the testing arena. About the facilitator ... Better Test Planning Solutions Workshop Track 2: 3:00- 4:00 In the Test Planning Solutions Workshop, the spotlight will fall on the difficulties of planning the testing effort to meet schedule, cost, and test coverage goals set forth within the demands of the overall project and business needs. The Test Planning Track industry expert, Ross Fraser from Deloitte Touche Tomatsu, and corporate practitioner, Brian Dodsworth from U.S. Cellular will be on hand to assist in formulating ideas that will help to meet the challenges created by the test planning cycle. About the facilitator... Building Effective Measurement Solutions Workshop Track 3: 3:00 - 4:00 Measurement track industry expert, Barbara Ainsworth, Managing Member and Principal Consultant for Process Plus International LLC, and corporate practitioner Sharon Reinhard from Aspen Marketing Services join you and your peers in developing responses to the demands of implementing effective quality and testing measurements that demonstrate the value of quality and testing activities and are useful in managing these activities. These are also the measurements that can and do drive process improvement. About the facilitator ... Challenges of Test Automation Solutions Workshop Track 4: 3:00 - 4:00 The complexities of the test automation process will be explored in the Test Automation Solutions Workshop. Test automation track industry expert Bob Crews, President of Checkpoint Technologies, Inc., and Shalla Goyal, corporate practitioner from Allstate Insurance will participate in this workshop aimed at uncovering simple and practical approaches to solving the more problematic issues associated with this intricate topic. About the facilitator... Career Development: Achieving and Retaining Your Certification Workshop Track 1: 1:30 - 3:00 In today's competitive IT industry, the ability to distinguish yourself within your profession is mandatory. Acquiring the designation of Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA) or Certified Software Tester (CSTE) indicates a professional level of competence in the principles and practices of quality assurance within the About the workshop leaders ... Andrea Warner, CSTE, has been involved with Quality Control for the past nine years, serving as a tester and team leader, and most recently as Manager of Allstate's Quality Control Center of Excellence. Andrea has been very involved in professional certifications and helps others prepare for and retain their certification. At Allstate, she conducts CSTE/CSQA kick-off meetings to help others learn more about exam preparation. She also holds Lunch-n-Learns to explain ways to obtain recertification credit and how to fill out the required paperwork for recertification. Allstate has been the host of the Chicagoland CSTE/CSQA examination for the past three years. During this time, Andrea has coordinated all hosting activities. IDEAL Six Sigma Process Improvement Planning Workshop Track 2: 1:30 - 3:00 This hands-on, practical, action planning workshop for process improvement will cover two models: IDEAL and Six-Sigma. IDEAL, developed by the SEI, is an organizational improvement model that serves as a roadmap for a usable, understandable approach to continuous improvement by outlining the steps necessary to establish a successful improvement program. It is named for the five phases it describes: initiating, diagnosing, establishing, acting, and learning. The 6σ model, developed at Motorola, is based on the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle identified by Edward Deming. It is an iterative, four-step, problem-solving process used in quality and process improvement based in data measurement. In this workshop, we will discuss how to apply these two models to address the difficulties inherent in implementing a process improvement program. Participants will create an action plan for building a process improvement process for their individual organizations. About the workshop leader... More Than a Good Idea: The Role of Influence in Quality Assurance Workshop Track 3: 1:30 - 3:00 Software quality assurance professionals are smart people, and usually very rational. The ideas we create, share, and try to implement are clearly good ideas. So, why is it so difficult to get people to act on them? It would be nice if having a good idea were enough to change the way people behave, but it is not. Research in psychology shows that there are different levels at which we must communicate to alter peoples' behavior, to influence them. This workshop presents a model of human problem-solving and describes "levels of influence." Attendees will self-assess their personal style, share influencing ideas based on these styles, and create an action plan to more effectively persuade and win over colleagues and key decision makers in their workplace. About the workshop leaders... Phil Armour has been a programmer, analyst, project manager, DBA, architect, process engineer, tester, metrics analyst, consultant, and executive coach over the past thirty four years. In the last fifteen years, Phil has personally taught software development techniques and management principles to over 20,000 engineers, managers, and executives. Phil is a contributing editor at ACM's Communications of the ACM penning a regular column entitled "The Business of Software" where he explores issues in modern software development. He is also the author of the book The Laws of Software Process He is a member of ACM, IEEE, and PMI. Improving the Value of Automated Tools Workshop Track 4: 1:30 - 3:00 Automated tools that support the software development and testing life cycle are often brought into an organization as the ‘silver bullet' to accelerate software delivery by reducing manual effort, providing structure to activities, and having a common knowledge repository for artifacts and measurements. These sometimes expensive silver bullets can become shelf-wear. Implementation activities must be planned that address both building the staff's technical skills to effectively use the tool as well as motivating the staff to adapt to new ways of performing their work. This workshop presents the components of an effective automated tool implementation plan along with a way to assess your current or past implementation of automated tools. In this workshop, you will self-assess your organization and create an action plan for addressing the gaps and shortcomings in your current use of automated tools. About the workshop leader...
|
Quality Engineered Software & Testing (QUEST) Conference - Copyright © 2008
www.qaiquest.org