IT Martini 19: QA or the Highway | Presented by Janova

IT Martini is hosting its second Columbus event in 2011 - and this one is truly unique!  Thanks to the fantastic support of the QA leadership in central Ohio, IT Martini 19: QA or the Highway | Presented by Janova is the first, ever conference held by the IT Martini organization.

Some other firsts are in store as well: the event is being underwritten by title sponsor Janova, a New Albany success story that showcased its DEMO last year at IT Martini Hour 13.

And in another twist, in celebration of the rise of this New Albany start-up, both the conference and reception are taking place at the beautiful Tween Brands campus in New Albany.

Conference: Four (4) Quality Assurance Sessions worth PDU Credit for QAI & PMI Certifications

Reception: Interactive Discussion, Early Stage Company DEMOs, Charity Benefit, Refreshments, and YOUR Columbus IT Community

Presentation: Charity Beneficiary & the  IT Community Choice Award

Keynote: Moving from Quality Control to Quality Assurance

1:00-1:15pm

The IT profession of Quality Assurance is undergoing tremendous change, especially with the popularity of Agile and emerging technologies like the cloud.  Given this change, there's now an amazing opportunity to bring together the QA community and - quite possibly - completely rethink it's value to IT and the business.

Ben Blanquera

QTP vs. Open Source Tools: When to Use Which?

1:15-2:00pm

The Internet and Technology have both seemingly exploded in the world today. Information is everywhere. In order to be competitive, people and Companies want information now. The pace only continues to quicken so you had better get used to it. Technology also continues to change at an incredibly rapid pace and it can be hugely challenging to try and keep current - especially if you work in the information technology field.

Tools are an essential part of helping people use technology to achieve the desired results. Often, it can be daunting to even try to understand which tools you need and for which part of the puzzle. In order to stand a chance, you need to be able to evaluate / filter your project needs against technology (tools) available to you and your team.

This session will discuss the history of test automation and will lead up to a lively comparison of Quick Test Pro (QTP) and Open Source tools (such as Cucumber).

One of the main takeaways from this session will be that attendees will be given an evaluation framework so that each attendee can then take and use that framework for their own projects to understand which available automation tools are best suited to their project needs going forward.

Attendees will be given some test automation tips from the trenches where we share some practitioner learnings obtained as a result of some of our experiences. We will also try to provide a look ahead to what the future may hold with respect to test automation. You won't want to miss this session.

Anne Hungate

Director of Software Quality Assurance at Nationwide Insurance

Tim Geraghty

Manager of IT Analysis at Nationwide Insurance

Automation and Manual Testing Together: The Benefits of a Holistic Approach

2:15-3:00pm

Many QA organizations rely almost entirely on manual testing, while others base their approach on test automation. A balanced approach of exploratory and end-to-end testing combined with test automation can provide far greater benefits as a holistic approach. In this presentation, we will explore Grange Insurance’s journey to a whole-team quality approach with the central QA organization, with benefits in dollars and sense.

Mark Harris

Enterprise QA Manager at Grange Insurance

Acceptance Test Driven Development: Implementing in Your Workplace

3:15-4:00pm

Stephen Covey encourages us to “begin with the end in mind.” When we do, we create a blueprint for the result we want.  We are far more likely to achieve that result if we know what ‘done’ looks like.

Classic software development cycles end with ‘Acceptance Test’—the final sign-off.  Acceptance Test Driven Development brings Covey’s habit #2 into the software development process.  When coupled with Agile development, teams can drive up success rates dramatically if they begin with the end in mind and define their acceptance tests first!

In this session, Cam will share his experience establishing and institutionalizing ATDD at Nationwide, highlighting the compelling results.  Cam will articulate the steps necessary to make such a transformation and identify some potential pitfalls to avoid.  

Cameron Wolff

Director of IT at Nationwide Insurance

Testing in the Cloud: How, When, and Why

4:15-5:00pm

Any organization that does any custom application product development either for internal business support applications or customer/market facing applications understands the direct correlation of having high quality software releases, high customer satisfaction and revenue growth for external commerce applications.  However, while these product development shops do put a good amount of attention to ensure that the new functionality they are developing is working as expected when the product ships, very few organizations do a good job to ensure that functionality that existed in one or more previous revisions continues to work properly.

While there are numerous reasons for this, the primary reason for not doing this enterprise level of regression testing relates to the inability to have the infrastructure and ease of use tools to automatically perform the level of testing and verification to perform this QA step.  Given the scale elasticity of on-demand Cloud Computing, the platform exists now for organizations to easily include in their QA processes and frameworks comprehensive regression testing that exercises every piece of code of a software release to ensure a much higher quality of each software release.  In this presentation we will cover the economic model and the business case for providing this QA function in a Cloud Computing model.

Ron Savoia

Founder at Stratus Innovations Group

Interactive Discussion: What's the Business Value of Quality Assurance?

5:30-6:15pm

For many business leaders, software quality is often viewed as a luxury -- something that can be sacrificed, if necessary, for added functionality, faster development, or lower costs. In practice though, successful software development organizations have found that an organizational commitment to quality has tangible business value.

Or is the value merely intangible?  This panel discussion seeks to explore the business value of quality assurance, and if possible - quantify it.

Anne Hungate

Director of Software Quality Assurance at Nationwide Insurance

Tim Geraghty

Manager of IT Analysis at Nationwide Insurance

Mark Harris

Enterprise QA Manager at Grange Insurance

Cameron Wolff

Director of IT at Nationwide Insurance

Ron Savoia

Founder at Stratus Innovations Group

Live DEMO: Janova

6:30-7:00pm

Janova is a provider of web-based, automated software testing solutions designed to streamline the often cumbersome task of software development and implementation.  IT Martini is proud to be part of the Janova success story: from IT Community Choice Award winner at IT Martini Hour 13 to the presenting sponsor for IT Martini 19! 

DEMOs: Early Stage Companies

5:30-8:00pm

IT Martini hosts early stage companies that showcase their products in a social, approachable, DEMO format.  Is your early stage comapny ready to DEMO in front of your IT Community at IT Martini 19?  Fill out this brief survey to get started.

Charity: Supporting the New Albany Symphony Ochestra

5:30-8:00pm

The mission of the New Albany Symphony Orchestra is to enrich, educate, entertain, and inspire creativity through the arts to people of all ages and backgrounds.  IT Martini is proud to support this great organization at IT Martini 19 - and you can help as well by contributing a raffle prize at the event.

Recognition: IT Community Choice Award & Raffle Prizes

8:00pm

Thanks to your IT Community, IT Martini events have raised more than $25,000 for twelve (12) charities.  Also to date, sixteen (16) IT Community Choice Awards have been give to local IT Pros in a field of over one hundred (100) DEMOs.