Twin Cities Quality Assurance Association   (TCQAA)

Located in the metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota,
TCQAA has been supporting software organizations and information technology professionals since 1986.
TCQAA's vision is to disseminate and promote quality assurance concepts, principles and practices in information technology across all industries.

TCQAA home
About Us
Events Schedule
 Membership
Job Fair
Forums
Affiliations
Archive
Contact Us
Quality Links
Downloads
Certification
Members Only
 Email List Sign-up Officers Only

           

   Program for Thursday, January 8, 2004

Speakers: Timothy D. Nelson & Michael R. Waller

Title: Successful Test Automation "Knowing your Expectations"

Audience level: 

Time:

Location:
3:15 - 3:30 PM - Registration
3:30 - 5:00 PM - General Meeting		 Clarion Hotel
8151 Bridge Rd
Bloomington, MN 55437-1133

Map to hotel 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS AND PRESENTATION:

Abstract:

Many of us have been involved in test projects where we felt that automating some portion of the test process would simplify our lives, only to jump into the automation world and find out it was more costly, time consuming, frustrating, unreliable, and less repeatable than expected.  In a nut shell, it was not what we were expecting.  So, was it the automation tool that failed?  Or were our expectations out-of-sync with our capabilities, skill set, time, money, and requirements?

This interactive presentation will involve the role playing of some common corporate scenarios which occur when companies attempt to bring automation into their test process.   While the scenarios are being played out, the audience will be asked to take notes on what (in their opinion) the expectations of each actor are.  These notes will be used during an interactive discussion on whether or not the audience feels the corporation has a chance of succeeding with test automation (why or why not).

We will cover some of the common corporate communications that surround the implementation of test automation and perhaps help people to better understand, manage and communicate expectations that surround such an endeavor.

Bios:

Tim Nelson is a Senior QA Test Automation Specialist.  He has 26 years of IT and programming experience within the test and QA industry.  He has a BS in EE from the University of Minnesota, with minors in both computer science and business.  His experience has extended across several different engineering and business development sectors.  He has engineered diagnostic and automated test systems for hardware microprocessor gate and block model simulators, robotic cartridge tape libraries to designing custom enterprise wide test automation systems for client/server and Web based technologies.  He is now a principle owner of a Software Test and QA consulting firm (STAMP Technologies, LLC) that is developing a new generation of highly qualified software test and automation specialists.  Tim can be reached at tdnelson@stampt ech.net .

Michael R. Waller is a Senior QA Consultant.  He has over 20 years of IT experience including software QA, test automation, software development, and operations.  His business sector experience spans manufacturing, financial, and software development companies.   He has an MS in Management from the Florida Institute of Technology and a BS in Math/Computer Science from Boise State University.  Mike can be reached at mwaller@stamptech.net .