Webinar on Latest Trends in Software Testing

On 09/16/2012, I was invited to give a webinar on "Latest Trends in Software Testing" by RVS College of Engineering, Coimbatore.  Around 120 students from both final BE CS and final IT departments were participated.   The session was lasted for 2 hours until 12 midnight at CA (PST)  (Burning my midnight  lamp ?)  I spoke on "how manual testing are getting migrated to Automated testing".  Some of the main topics are
1. Test Automation on Mobile Application
       Challenges, tools, Differences with traditional testing and its frameworks
2. Test Automation in handling huge data in ERP applications (Siebel,Peoplesoft, JD Edwards, SAP,..)
3. The usage of tools in an efficient manner.
4. Agile Testing - Benefits in Scrum Project
5. Cloud Based Testing (TaaS)
6. Major scripting languages used for Automation

I also gave a short demo on Automating "RVS college of Engineering"  website using Selenium WebDriver.  In addition to that I gave a demo on Android emulator. Past that,  there was a Q&A session, Students were asking questions on Software Testing.  Questions were answered and I got good feedback from faculty members and students.

One of my senior managers  from my Organisation recognized this contribution and awarded me with "Feather in my Cap" award and  I conveyed my sincere "Thanks"  to that Senior Manager.

Mobile Test Automation using Selenium WebDriver

In my free time, I started to write a small java script which will automate mobile applications. I installed Android SDK, AVD for Android mobile emulator. The steps are as follows: 1.Install Eclipse 2.Install SDK, AVD 3.Configure Selenium Web Driver 4.Configure Android server .apk 5.Start Web Driver on Android Emulator 6.Port Forwarding (adb forward tcp:8080 tcp:8080) 7.Execute Java Script It was quite interesting and very challenging compared to web based test automation. As IT industry goes behind mobile technology, it is imperative to study mobile test automation. The challenges are -- There is no generic framework for all mobile devices -- Data Connectivity like Wifi, 3G, 4G,... -- Since mobile automation is at infancy stage, creating end-to-end testing is very challenging -- Technical Expertise. I predict, that there will be a very thin layer between Developers and testers. Obviously, tester will write code just like hard-core developers in near future. Let us wait and see.

What Scrum is and is not

I attended DFW Scrum at Addison, Dallas on 01/17/2012. It was a great gathering because the founder of Scrum Ken Schwaber was addressing the gathering via WebEx. There were 100 to 125 scrummers gathered and listened to his talk on "What Scrum is and is not". Ken started with how scrum priciples are being followed in many organisations. Then he mentioned about the following points
- Scrum Continuous improvement (scrum+1, Scrum+2, Scrum+3, Scrum+4 and Scrum+5)
- Some changes in Scrum Guide 2011 and 2012. Chicken and Pig were removed from scrum teriminology
- A well matured Scrum (Scrum+5) team creates a forecast of work and believes it will be done, but that forecast will change as more becomes known.
- Plan "Ordered" instead of Prioritized
- Past velocity into the future
- Gain a stability - past velocity but that does not equal to predicalibility
- There is no such Hybrid method "Waterfall"+"Scrum"
I posted a question, "Do we still have two teams like QA and Dev in a Scrum Team ?". He answered "No, there is only one team, it is team's responsibilities for development and testing".
He also pointed out that QA person can be a good Architecture and he can share his ideas in his own interest.
I really enjoyed that 1.5 hours session and that too from an authority of Scrum.