Bret Pettichord
updated 22 May 2008
Agile Testing
Panel, Agile Austin, February 2008
Hosted a panel discussion with Mark Anderson, Jim Matthews, Jason Darling and Brent Lavelle. Discussed common challenges for QA and testing on Agile teams.
ALT .NET Open Space Conference
Co-host, Austin, Texas, October 2007
First open-space conference for the .Net community. Focussed on agile development techniques.
Scripting
Web Tests with Watir
Tutorial, with Charley Baker, Agile 2007 Conference,
Washington D.C., August 2007
Hands-on training on how to create
automated tests for web apps. Updated with a completely rewritten set
of exercises. Download training
materials
Testing with Watir and Rspec
Demonstration, Lone Star Ruby Conference, Austin, Texas, September 2007 (see the video)
Demonstration, Austin on Rails, July 2007
Demonstration, Code Camp, Austin .Net User Group, May 2007
Using Watir to test web apps.
Presentation, Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, Dallas, April 2007
Demonstrated the Rspec testing framework and blew the socks off some of the Java programmers who hadn't yet understood all the fuss about Ruby.
Presentation, TestCo Quarterly Meeting, Austin, Texas, March 2007
Presentation, STAR West, Anaheim, November 2004
Keynote, SQUAD Conference, Denver, September, 2004
Presentation, Software Process Improvement Network, Austin, Texas, February 2004
Keynote, Software Testing Australia New Zealand, Wellington New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia, November 2003
Presentation, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, Portland, Oregon, October 2003
Presentation, Workshop on the Teaching of Software Testing, Melbourne, Florida, February 2003
How Context-Driven testing contrasts with three other schools of software testing.
The Blackout Bug
Guest Lecture, Department of Computer Science, St. Edwards University, Austin, Texas, November 2006.
Described how the failure of the GE/Harris XA/21 Energy Management Software lead to the August 2003 blackout of Northeastern North America and discussed practices that could have prevented the failure. Presented unpublished information from personal interviews with a software tester on the XA/21 project.
Test-Driven Development: New Excellence in IT Software Delivery
Panelist, Innotech, Austin, Texas, November 2005.
Panel discussion with Mary Poppendieck, Scott Bellware, Jeremy Miller and Jeff Smith.
Paper (Slides), with Kathy Iberle, Pacific NW Software Quality Conference, Portland, Oregon, October 2005.
How to use structured systems analysis to develop models for testing unfinished systems.
Workshop, with Timothy Wall, Agile 2005 Conference, Denver, July 2005
Facilitated discussion of the tools used for acceptance testing and the challenges people face.
Watir and Selenium: Open-Source Tools for Web Testing
Presentation, with Jason Huggins, Wisconsin Information Systems Quality Assurance, Madison, Wisconsin, April 2005
Demonstrated two open-source tools for in-browser testing developed by ThoughtWorkers.
Agile Methods, Testing and Quality Assurance
Presentation, Northern Ohio Software Quality Assurance Association, Cleveland, Ohio, April 2005
Keynote, Agile India, Bangalore, India, March 2005
Agile development puts testing and frequent reality
checks at the core of the process. Describes practices for agile
testing and promotes the view that agile development actually amounts
to a new philosophy of quality assurance.
White Paper, ThoughtWorks Open Source, February 2005
Describes two new open-source tools for web testing and why I've contributed to both.
Is There Any Right Way to Test Software?
Article by Grant Buckler, IT Business.ca, January 2005
Explores the debates around best practices and
context-driven testing. Quoted.
Invited Presentation, Pacific NW Software Quality Conference, Portland, Oregon, October 2004
Presentation, TCQAA,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 2004
An overview of testing practices on agile projects with common challenges and suggested solutions.
Tutorial, with Brian Marick, Agile 2005 Conference,
Denver, July 2005
Tutorial, with Brian Marick, Paul Rogers and Jonathan
Kohl, XP/Agile Universe,
Calgary, August 2004
A hands-on class teaching people how to create
automated tests for web applications using Ruby and Watir. An
accellerated variant of the Scripting for Testers class.
Tutorial, with Chris McMahon, Star West, Anaheim,
November 2005
Tutorial, with Paul Rogers, STAR East,
Orlando, May 2005
Tutorial, with Paul Rogers, STAR West,
Anaheim, November 2004
Tutorial, with Andy Tinkham, STAR East, Orlando, May 2004
Tutorial, with Daniel Knierim, Pacific NW Software
Quality Conference Spring Workshops, Beaverton, Oregon and Bellevue,
Washington, May 2004
Tutorial, with Brian Marick, STAR West,
San Jose, October 2003
Tutorial, with Brian Marick, STAR East, Orlando, May 2003
A hands-on class teaching testers how to create
automated tests for web applications, using Ruby and Watir.
Presentation, Workshop on Teaching Software Testing, Melbourne, Florida, February 2004
How our Scripting for Testers class has evolved.
Presentation, Ruby Conference, Austin, Texas, November 2003
How Ruby is used our hands-on test scripting classes.
Where Home-Brewed Testing Works
Article by Jack Vaughn, Application Development Trends, October 2003
Describes why homebrew test automation is
catching on. Quoted.
Three Paradoxes of Test Automation
Keynote, STAR East, Orlando, May 2003
How can you rely on software to test software if software is unreliable? This is the first of three paradoxes discussed.
Workshop, SQUAD Conference, Denver, September, 2004
Tutorial, TCQAA, Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 2004
Tutorial, Texas Symposium on Software Engineering, Austin, Texas, August 2004
Tutorial, SASQAG , Seattle, Washington, March 2004
Workshop, Software Testing Australia New Zealand, Wellington New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia, November 2003
Presentation, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, October 2003
Presentation, Software Test Automation Conference, Boston, August 2003
Presentation, Software Test Automation Conference, San Francisco, March 2003
Why XP teams are building their own testing frameworks and how you can too. Includes numerous references to open-source testing tools.
Agile Testing and Extreme Programming
Presentation, Santa Clara Valley Software Quality Association, California, March 2003
How the role of tester changes with XP and why test-driven development is the most important new practice in testing today.
Four Schools of Software Testing
Presentation, STAR West, Anaheim, November 2004
Keynote, SQUAD Conference, Denver, September, 2004
Presentation, Software Process Improvement Network, Austin, Texas, February 2004
Keynote, Software Testing Australia New Zealand, Wellington New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia, November 2003
Presentation, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, Portland, Oregon, October 2003
Presentation, Workshop on the Teaching of Software Testing, Melbourne, Florida, February 2003
How Context-Driven testing contrasts with three other schools of software testing.
A Unified Theory of Software Testing
Presentation, Workshop on the Teaching of Software Testing , Melbourne, Florida, February 2003
A model for describing different software testing techniques.
Column, StickyMinds.com, January 2003
How testers can provide value to a team even when programmers start to shoulder some testing responsibilities.
Deconstructing GUI Test Automation
Article, STQE Magazine, January 2003
Abstraction techniques that make GUI test automation easier -- and which may be avoided entirely when developers design software for ease of testing.
Design for Testability, Agile Testing, and Testing Processes
Interview by Sam Guckenheimer, The Rational Edge, November 2002
How testers and developers can work together more effectively, by changing attitudes on both sides.
Agile Testing — What Is It? Can It Work?
Presentation, Seattle Area Software Quality Assurance Group, Bellevue, Washington, November 2002
Invited Presentation, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, Portland, Oregon, October 2002
Presentation, Softpro Books, Burlington, Massachusetts, September 2002.
How are people really testing with XP and Agile development? What improvements can be made?
Paper, STAR West, Anaheim, California, November 2002
Paper, Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference, Portland, Oregon, October 2002
How software has been designed to improve testability, with advice for product teams.
Testers Should Embrace Agile Programming
Debate position, Quality Week, San Francisco, September 2002
Why extreme programming and agile development are good things for testers.
Don't Become the Quality Police
Column, StickyMinds.com, July 2002
Testers who decide it's their job to prevent programmers from making bugs are in for trouble.
Lessons Learned in Test Management
Presentation, Austin SPIN, April 2002
How to make testing serve the needs of the development project.
When Being Correct Isn't Enough
Column, StickyMinds.com, April 2002
Why showing concern is as important as being right when establishing authority.
Lessons Learned in Test Automation
Keynote, Test Automation Conference, San Jose, March 2002
What can you do to ensure that automation advances the mission of testing?
Reference Point: Bret Pettichord on Test Automation
Survey, STQE Magazine, January 2002
Suggested resources on test automation.
How Should You Feel When You Find a Bug?
Column, StickyMinds.com, December 2001
How your feelings can interfere with your effectiveness.
Lessons Learned in Software Testing
Book, with Cem Kaner and James Bach, John Wiley & Sons, December 2001
"A fresh, provocative look at what goes on in the 'real world' of software testing -- guarenteed to make you rethink most of your assumptions and traditional 'theories' of how testing really ought to be done." -- Ed Yourdon
Five Ways to Think About Black Box Testing
Column, StickyMinds.com, November 2001
Applies five dimensions of testing to the definitions of black box and white box testing.
Presentation, Star West, San Jose, October 2001
Eight questions to ask before deciding whether to automate.
The Problems with Vendorscripts: Why You Should Avoid Proprietary Languages
Presentation, STAR East, Orlando, May 2002
Webinar, Radview Software, September & November 2001
The problems of proprietary test tool languages and the advantages of standard scripting languages.
What You Don’t Know May Help You
Column, StickyMinds.com, July 2001
Advantages new testers have in finding bugs.
Information and Risk-Based Testing
Presentation, STAR East, Orlando, May 2001
How to use testing to understand product risks.
Testing Troubles
Letter, with Cem Kaner and Brian Marick, IEEE Software, May 2001
Why shouldn't code coverage be required for all commercial software?
Let Observation Be Your Crystal Ball
Column, StickyMinds.com, May 2001
Some testers have an an uncanny ability to hone in on defects. Is this magic or do they notice something that others miss?
Presentation, Software Test Automation Conference, San Jose, March 2001 & Boston, August 2001
How can software be designed or modified to make it easier to test?
Hey Vendors, Give Us Real Scripting Languages
Column, StickyMinds.com, February 2001
Why you'd want a standard scripting language with your test tool, instead of a vendorscript.
Quality Plus e-Talk: Testers and Developers
Radio Interview with Carol Dekkers, StickyMinds.com, February 2001
Why testers and developers think differently, and why they should think differently.
Getting a Late Start on Test Automation
Column, StickyMinds.com, January 2001
What can you do if you don't start test automation early?
Column, StickyMinds.com, December 2000
How can you get your test automation project off on the right foot?
Column, StickyMinds.com, October 2000
Is it a tester's job to take some of the heat off of developers?
Capture Replay: A Foolish Test Strategy
Presentation, STAR West, San Jose, October 2000
Describes two reasons why capture replay automation techniques often fail. Also explores why these are hard lessons to learn.
Beyond the Bug Battle
Presentation, STAR East, Orlando, May 2000
This presentation describes how common assumptions about bugs often leads to disputes and presents two ways of avoiding them.
An Exploratory Testing Workshop Report
Report, Testing Craft website, posted January 2000.
Report on a LAWST workshop reviewing exploratory testing techniques.
Testers and Developers Think Differently
Article, Software Testing and Quality Engineering, January 2000
Article describes important differences in skills between testers and developers. Based on experiences described in my "Developers Take on a System Test" presentation.
Seven Steps to Test Automation Success
Presentation, Rational User's Conference, Philadelphia, August 2000.
Presentation, PSQT conference, Austin, Texas, March 2000.
Keynote, Lucent's Automated Software Testing conference, Naperville, Illinois, November 1999.
Keynote, STAR West conference, San Jose, California, November 1999.
Important steps for planning and running a test automation project. Cites pitfalls of GUI test automation.
Developers Take on a System Test
Presentation, STAR West conference, San Diego, November 1998.
Presentation, STAR East conference, Orlando, May 1998.
What happens when the testers leave and the developers have to do their own testing?
Do Tool Criteria Tie Tester's Hands?
Letter, with Joel Maslyn, IEEE Software, November 1997.
Points out that a comprehensive article on criteria for GUI development tools failed to include any mention of testability concerns.
Survey, with Elisabeth Hendrickson, www.QualityTree.com, September 1997.
Reviews the difficulties that testers and quality assurance professionals have communicating information regarding product quality.
Paper, Quality Week, San Francisco, May 1996.
Discusses a GUI test automation project I participated at BMC Software. We built a test case engine for table-driven tests using QA Partner. It also discusses my experience building a test automation group.
A web log containing items of interest to software testers.
This frequently referenced site includes links to interesting writings on testing and test automation.