STARWEST 2024 - Career & Personal Development
Sunday, September 22
Agile Tester Certification—ISTQB/ICAgile
Software Tester Certification Foundation Level—ISTQB CTFL
ISTQB Certified Tester—Test Automation Engineer
Agile & DevOps Leadership—ICAgile Certification
Monday, September 23
The How and When of Communication
Ever struggled to communicate test progress or persuade a stakeholder on the quality improvement initiative you have? Do you struggle getting developers to appreciate the need to build testing into the lifecycle? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then this session is for you. Julie Gardiner shares key ingredients for getting your message across more effectively. She shares a communication model she has used for nearly 20 years in her career to get her message across and, more recently, how the science of timing can play a major part of how communication is received. Through...
Automation Framework Essentials
Automation is critical in today’s software delivery lifecycle, and yet many organizations struggle to keep their automation running. How can we mitigate difficulties and get consistent automation runs and results we can trust? The secret is implementing a solid automation framework, but that isn’t as easy as it seems. Chris Loder has built several automation frameworks over his career and has learned what works—and, more importantly, what doesn’t. This tutorial will cover what an automation framework is, the benefits of having one, and the keys to a successful framework, including...
Become Your Company's Quality Consultant
Companies of all sizes face difficulties in achieving higher quality standards within their organization. As quality engineering includes various roles and activities, it is also challenging to find the right people to analyze the current state from a wide perspective and provide the recommendations that will allow these organizations to mature their teams, improving their DevOps culture in the process. Join Péter Földházi as he illustrates the knowledge and skills necessary to become your company's quality consultant. Péter's goal is to involve engineers from beginner to advanced levels...
Confident Communication Drives Powerful Quality Leadership
Driving a culture of quality starts with effective communication. Join Erika Chestnut to unlock your communication superpowers! Imagine a cheat code that helps us boost productivity and team vibes by 10x. Leverage behavior self-assessments to help discover your unique strengths, communication styles, and reactions to challenges. Erika will help you learn to communicate effectively with your team, management, and cross-functional teams to build a culture of quality. You will learn to assess how others best receive and process information and how to put the best tips and techniques into...
Tuesday, September 24
Quality and Testing Measures and Metrics
To be most effective, leaders—including development and testing managers, ScrumMasters, product owners, and IT managers—need metrics to help direct their efforts and make informed recommendations about the software’s release readiness and associated risks. Because one important evaluation activity is to “measure” the quality of the software, the progress and results of both development and testing must be measured. Collecting, analyzing, and using metrics are complicated because developers and testers often are concerned that the metrics will be used against them. Join Mike Sowers as he...
Wednesday, September 25
Build Your Career and Your Worth, Not Just Your Relationship with Your Manager
Change in organizational structure, especially your direct manager, can be very stressful and life altering. After all, people leave managers, not companies right? Aprajita Mathur would disagree. Change is hard for all of us and sometimes losing the person with whom we were so closely aligned and working can be hard to successfully navigate. Aprajita has been blessed to have had over 15+ managers in her career, an average burn rate of 1.5 years or less. Though this was a challenging path at the start of her career, having this vast experience has taught her what really matters in the long...
Testing Retrospective: Lessons from the Past
We prepare for the future by learning from the lessons of the past. During this session, you will look back at some of the craziest bugs John Jenkins has run across during his career, and see what lessons can be gleaned from them to help tackle the problems of tomorrow. Bugs come in all shapes and sizes, and can exist in processes just as easily as they can exist in code. In this session, both types will be examined, including: the too much free space bug, the V1 bug, the too much test data bug, and more. The session will also explore some of the best practices John has developed in his...
Quality Is More Than Testing—How to Build a Test Team with a Customer-Centric Mindset
Testers are not part of the process; they don’t have sufficient knowledge of the client’s business to understand the big picture. This failure to understand leads to unsatisfactory outcomes that leave the client with unanswered questions. For a client to feel testing is of value, the software must work seamlessly and exceed their expectations. The solution is to shift testing left towards discovery and include testers early in the process so they have a stake in end-to-end results. Testers must understand the subject matter, ask questions, and be a valued part of the core team. Testing is...
Lightning Strikes the Keynotes
Throughout the years, Lightning Talks have been a popular part of the STAR conferences. If you’re not familiar with the concept, Lightning Talks consists of a series of five-minute talks by different speakers within one presentation period. Lightning Talks are the opportunity for speakers to deliver their single biggest bang-for-the-buck idea in a rapid-fire presentation. And now, lightning has struck the STAR keynotes. Some of the best-known experts in testing will step up to the podium and give you their best shot of lightning. Get multiple keynote presentations for the price of one—and...
Thursday, September 26
Revenge of the Nerds: How to Build a Tech Career Niche in the AI-verse
A major question so many of us have on our minds is, HOW do I shift my career to something related to AI so I can stay relevant? This has been coming from industry professionals as well as college grads/new job seekers across ALL industries. QA is no exception! Dona shifted her career to an AI niche in the past year and have hassled and helped many others do the same thing. She want to help YOU do it, too. Let's discuss. What is AI today? What are the five skill sets relevant in the AI-verse? How can you create a career niche in the AI-verse based on your industry and goals? Lastly, Dona...
Navigating the Matrix: The Struggle Is Real—Effective QA Requires More Than Just Technical Skills
Everyone involved in the SDLC knows quality is important. Absolutely. After all, who wants to push out (let alone use) software that doesn't work well? But, does your organization really embrace QA in all its glory? Do they see QA as more than ‘just’ testing? Do you see QA as more than ‘just’ testing? If your answer is 'No' to any of these questions, then this talk is for you. Yes, we test and log defects, but we also have to be diplomatic champions of quality assurance. We have to work to make sure our organizations see QA as a proactive function that spans the Software Development Life...
Escape Room—How Skills Needed in Escape Room Challenges Apply to Your Cybersecurity Team
There is tremendous IT turnover today and a lack of skilled resources for some job roles such as threat hunters in a Security Operations Center (SOC). This session will explore how escape rooms can teach IT leadership about building a cybersecurity team. An escape room is an ideal teaching tool that an organization can leverage to address the challenge of assembling a security team and navigating problems together. Success starts with the team and having the right mix of talent and skills which should reveal the clues to the game. Join James to explore the job roles in a SOC and skills...
The Art of Winning Leadership Support for Web Accessibility
Feeling unheard in your fight for web accessibility? What if you could turn this struggle into a success story? Join this candid conversation on navigating the nuanced journey of integrating accessibility, even when convincing leadership seems like an uphill battle. Together, we'll reflect on Renata's initial stumbles, identify common pitfalls, and strategize to avoid them. Anticipate leadership concerns by understanding deeper motivations behind their resistance. Master the art of speaking their language and tailor your message to resonate with decision-makers. Empower your champions,...
Effective Ways to Manage Offshore QA Teams
Were you recently promoted or are aspiring to lead or manage an overseas Quality Assurance team? Have you been asked to build/collaborate with a virtual QA team? Stressed about managing an offshore team with all the challenges and circadian rhythm being affected? Managing virtual teams can be challenging to say the least. No matter what the calling is, if your goal is to meet the company objectives and drive QA teams towards excellence at the same time, this session will guide you through the FSNP (Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing) stages for achieving a successful Quality...
Leveraging and Measuring the Use of Formal Testing Methods in Product Development
Without training in software testing that includes formal methods such as equivalence class partitioning, boundary value analysis, decision tables, state diagrams, and others, an engineer, in good faith, will test the code intuitively until reaching “qualitative confidence” that testing is sufficient. The team at Trimble, Inc. provided training to engineers in a wide variety of formal testing methods so they could gain “quantitative confidence” that code has been tested sufficiently, by using methods known to achieve concrete coverage in requirements and code. Subsequently, Trimble...
You Don't Talk about That at Work!
There are things you don't discuss with your colleagues—even less so with your boss. Mental health issues are certainly a big no-no. Sophie Küster will discuss her experiences talking about the big workplace "No-Nos" and how that led her to support herself, as well gaining support from her boss, co-workers, and mentors. Ultimately, being able to discuss these workplace taboos led to her and others becoming their most authentic selves. When Sophie started working as an agile tester, she kept her history a secret. She didn't speak openly about topics that were close to her heart: mental...