Every year companies around the world spend vast sums of money testing software, yet many have no idea of the effectiveness of this effort. Some use flawed metrics, while others find the measurement problems too hard to even attempt. Rick Craig dissects some of the more commonly used measures of test effectiveness and discusses their pros and cons. From this list of measures, including defect removal efficiency, code coverage, and functional coverage, learn a practical and usable (if still imperfect) set of metrics that every organization needs to quantify its test effectiveness.

A recent survey shows that load testing is the top testing priority for Internet companies, surpassing functionality and regression testing as well as other forms of performance testing. In this presentation, Alberto Savoia discusses the core principles and techniques necessary for highly realistic and revealing Web site load tests, and shows you how to avoid the most common load testing mistakes. Learn how Web site load testing differs from the more traditional enterprise load testing, and discover ways to create efficient Internet load scenarios. Listen to several case studies that illustrate how load testing data is used in making important business and technical decisions.

In many projects, finding defects is easy but getting them fixed quickly and correctly can be a big problem. As a test professional armed with test plans and automated tools, you can detect and report reams of bugs. But in the end, product quality is not judged by the problems found, but by the problems fixed. Until a time when robots fix defects, testers must convince programmers to research and fix problems. How do you make certain that the important defects you find are corrected properly? How do you get and keep the attention of management to sell them on the fixes you think are essential? In this presentation, Margaret Ramsey discusses the people issues in reporting and selling your defects to both management and developers.

This presentation takes a look at the real-world experiences of an "old salt" who spent eight months working as an e-commerce tester. Discover how this seasoned tester successfully infiltrated the domain of a new generation of developers and test engineers—and lived to tell about it! Gregory Pope explores the major differences between eBusiness testing and traditional testing of software applications, and identifies the processes that hold up well in the "do it right now" world. Discover what works—and what doesn’t—as he contrasts traditional mission-critical methods and metrics with e-testing.

As one of the nation’s largest financial services firms, Charles Schwab is under intense pressure to meet customer needs, handle high and extremely volatile volumes, and respond to competitive pressures. Hugh Westermeyer describes the processes and tools currently being used in the Electronic Brokerage organization and the history behind them. Learn why testing is not enough to meet this company’s customer demands—and why testing, tools, and processes are all required for an Internet-driven business to succeed. Trace the evolution of a start-up organization as it goes from an unstructured one to a well-organized and predictable operation.

Time-consuming and marginally effective test processes are unacceptable in today’s marketplace. The high demands of eBusiness applications combined with the more challenging quality requirements on security, usability, and performance require adequate and more mature test solutions. Dedicated, practice-based process improvement models provide the frame of reference for continuous improvement of test processes. This is obvious to quality and testing professionals—but how do you convince management? Martin Pol discusses ways to obtain management buy-in for test process improvement, and provides case data from his experiences in improvement projects.

Martin Pol has played a significant role in helping to raise the awareness and improve the performance of testing in Europe. In his function as R&D manager of IQUIP Informatica B.V. he developed together with his colleagues the TMap® method, that has become a standard approach for structured testing, and the Test Process Improvement (TPI®) model. As a senior consultant of POLTEQ IT Services B.V. he is providing international testing services.
TPI® and TMap® are registered trademarks of IQUIP Informatica B.V.