12th INTERNATIONAL SOFTWARE QUALITY WEEK (QW'99) 24-28 May 1999, San Jose / Silicon Valley, California USA GUIDED CONFERENCE TOUR

TUTORIALS [Back to Top]

QW'99's fifteen full and half-day tutorials cover all of the main stops in the software quality technical landscape.

Because software quality almost always deals with some kind of testing, it's important to have a good foundation in this important software quality area. As a general technical introduction to the software testing field, be sure not to miss this world-renowned presentation: Dr. Boris Beizer (Independent Consultant) An Overview of Testing: Unit, Integration, System.

More advanced technological aspects are addressed by: Ms. Karen Bishop-Stone, CSTE, CSQA (Testware Associates, Inc.) Practical Software Test Case Design, Dr. John D. McGregor (Software Architects and Clemson University) Testing Distributed Object Systems, Mr. Edward Kit & Mr. Hans Buwalda (Software Development Technologies / CMG Finance) Integrated, Effective Test Design and Automation, Dr. Norman Schneidewind (Naval Postgraduate School) Development and Maintenance Process Assessment Using Reliability, Risk, and Test Metrics.

The important emerging area of reliability methods coupled with sophisticated requirements analysis is addressed by these three tutorials: Dr. John D. Musa (Independent Consultant) Software Reliability Engineering: More Reliable Software, Faster, Mr. Michael Deck (Cleanroom Software Engineering, Inc.) Requirements Analysis Using Formal Methods, and, Dr. Linda H. Rosenberg (Software Assurance Technology Center, NASA) Writing High Quality Requirement Specifications,

Picking up current trends in OO technology, including the newer approaches for measuring thoroughness, we have these three tutorials: Mr. Robert Binder (RBSC Corporation) Modal Testing Strategies for Object-Oriented Software, Mr. Thomas A. Drake (Coastal Research & Technology Consultant) Measuring Object-Oriented Software Quality for C++ and Java, and, Mr. William Bently (mu_Research) How to Test an Object: The Information Flow Approach,

A complete program of software quality cannot leave out issues of process improvement. QW'99 offers these three tutorials that address important quality aspects, with particular emphasis on inspection based methods: Dr. Magdy Hanna (International Institute for Software Testing) Establishing a Software Inspection Process, Mr. Tom Gilb (Result Planning Limited) Advanced Inspection (G2), and, Mr. Leonard Verhoef (Human Efficiency) Improving Software Quality for Users,

Lastly, in keeping with the "Facing the Future" theme of QW'99, we bring you a tutorial on what promises to be the next great challenge of software quality, the Web: Ms. Sally Drew (Tescom UK SST) E-Commerce Testing -- The Clash of the Titans (J2),

TECHNICAL PROGRAM

KEYNOTE TALKS [Back to Top]

QW'99's theme is "Facing the Future" -- chosen to emphasize the coming end of the year 1999 and the beginning of the year 2000 and all that means, but also to focus attention on "what happens after Y2K?"

We begin with the most important areas in regard to software quality: E-Commerce and the Internet. Dr. Cem Kaner (Attorney at Law) Facing the Future: The Law (1P1), addresses the legal issues, and Mr. Jeff Schuster (Rational Software Corporation) Facing the Future: E-Commerce Quality and YOU! (1P2), addresses how the growth of E-Commerce will affect us all.

Process issues are sure to dominate the field in the coming years, and we have two view on this. First, we have the award-winning Mr. Martin Pol (IQUIP Informatica B.V.) with Facing the Future Means Facing Test Maturity (5P1), arguing that Future Quality will be obtained only through mature testing organizations. Following up is former Microsoft test manager Mr. Roger Sherman (Independent Consultant) with his talk Facing the Future: Commercial Product Testing (5P2),

How we think about Quality is as important as how we achieve it, and these two keynotes attempt to outline the future from the user's point of view. First, world renowned Dr. Jakob Nielsen (Nielsen Norman Group) will present Facing the Future: Usability Aspects of Quality (10P1), He'll be followed by the equally renowned Mr. Brian Marick (Reliable Software Technologies Corp.) who in his talk Facing the Future: New Models for Test Development (10P2), will raise questions about whether there are intrinsic limits to our quality process models.

On a lighter note, and to close the QW'99 event, we have invited the well-known sage Dr. Boris Beizer (Independent Consultant) to deliver a poetic tribute to The Mavin (10P3),

QUICKSTART [Back to Top]

Our QuickStart 90-minute sessions give newcomers to the software quality field a rapid introduction to the main topics and issues facing us all.

The Y2K issue is addressed in: Mr. Rainer Pirker and Mr. Andreas Rudolf (IBM) Millennium is Getting Closer -- The Quickstart to Y2K Testing (2Q),

Different aspects of testing, risk management, and test automation are addressed in these three talks: Ms. Elfriede Dustin & John Paul (CSC / Freddie Mac) Moving From Conventional Testing to Object Oriented Testing (9Q), Mr. Doug Hoffman and Dr. Cem Kaner (Independent Consultant) Thoughts on Oracles and Software Test Automation (6Q), and, Mr. Ted Hammer (NASA GSFC SATC) Continuous Risk Management at NASA (7Q),

Ever the innovators, we are pleased to have: Mr. Tom Gilb (Result Planning Limited) Evolutionary Project Management (`Evo') (3Q), and, Mr. William J. Deibler II (SSQC) Making the CMM Work: Streamlining the CMM for Small Projects and Organizations (4Q),

Finally, a topic of concern to almost all organizations is addressed by Dr. Cem Kaner (Independent Consultant) Interviewing Software Testing Job Candidates (8Q),

BOFS [Back to Top]

QW'99 introduces for the first time a Birds-of-a-Feather Track -- an all-conference time slot set aside specifically for unstructured discussions. Organized by QW"99 Keynoter Brian Marick and HP's Danny Faught (keeper of the C.S.T. FAQ's), these sessions focus on important contemporary topics of interest.

While ranging over a wide area, the BOFS topics form some natural groups. One group, aimed at exposing the details of how quality control and test technology are applied in the field, includes these sessions: Ms. Peggy Fouts (Compuware Corporation ) Medical and Safety Critical Application Testing (3B1), Mr. Larry Apfelbaum (Teradyne Software & Systems Test) Testing Telecommunications Software (4B1), Mr. Jon Hagar (Lockheed Martin Astronautics Company) Testing for Military and Government Software (4B2), and, Mr. Richard Denney (Landmark Graphics) Blue Collar Formal Methods (7B2),

We all know that the larger "software universe" is becoming more important in the public sense, so we put in these two sessions: Dr. Cem Kaner (Independent Consultant) Status Report On U.S. Software Quality Laws (7B1), and, Ms. Elisabeth Hendrickson (Aveo, Inc.) Mass Market Software Testing (2B),

Testing and quality control are human activities, and these three BOFSs address various aspects: Ms. Johanna Rothman (Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.) Life as a New Test Manager (6B), Mr. Rodney Wilson (KLA-Tencor) Care and Feeding of a Testing Career (8B1), and, Mr. Mark Johnson (OrCAD) Productivity In Small Integrated Teams (8B2),

Lastly, the continuing (and important) interest in effective test methods leads to these three sessions: Mr. Mark D. Anderson (Discerning Software Corporation) Client/Server Load Testing (9B1), Ms. Carla Oexmann (ATI Research) Running a Nightly Test (9B2), and, Mr. Mark S. Wiley (nCUBE) OS and Embedded System Testing Techniques (3B2),

TECHNOLOGY TRACK [Back to Top]

Innovative software tools are always of interest, and we have in QW'99 four papers that point out some very good concepts: Dr. Selim Aissi and Ms. Wendi Hummel (Applied Dynamics International) Automating Syntax Testing: The Case of a Real-Time Simulation Tool (2T1), Mr. Kenneth Nagin & Dr. Alan Hartman (IBM Research Laboratory in Haifa) TCBeans Software Test Tool Kit (2T2), Mr. Steven Toeppe & Mr. Scott Ranville (Ford Motor Company) An Automated Inspection Tool For A Graphical Specification and Programming Language (8T1), and, Mr. John Kent (CISS Ltd.) Advanced Automated Testing Architectures (8T2),

Tools are meant to be applied, and these two papers deal with automated testing of high assurance systems: Mr. Brian Miller (Teradyne) Automated Test Generation for Computer Telephony Systems (3T1), and, Dr. Bettina Buth, Prof. Dr. Jan Peleska & Dr. Hui Shi (FB3 Informatik) Combining Methods for the Analysis of a Fault-Tolerant System (3T2),

Systems, once built, sometimes continue to change, and it's important to assure quality through maintenance testing, as these two papers point out: Mr. Ira D. Baxter, Mr. Andrew Yahin, Mr. Srinivas Nedunuri, and Mr. Leonardo Moura (Semantic Designs) Lowering Maintenance Costs by Code Clone Removal (4T1), and, Mr. Christopher Agruss (Autodesk, Inc.) Automating Software Installation Testing (4T2),

Embedded systems present particular problems, and we have two papers that deal specifically with Windows CE issues: Mr. Patrick Copeland (Microsoft) Approaches to Testing Componentization in the Windows CE Operating System (7T1), and, Mr. Sergio Cherskov (Microsoft) Testing Windows CE 3.0 Real-Time Kernel (7T2),

Web testing is a hot topic (see the sessions on E-Commerce below) and we have four papers (two in Technology and two in Applications) that face the question of testing WebSites: Ms. Fan Yang, Mr. Trung Nguyen & Mr. Anant Adiga (Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.) A Web-based System Testing Repository Model (6T1), Ms. Frances I. Medina (AT&T Operational Technology Center) Test Automation of a GUI WEB Based Application: An Experience Developing Reusable Automated Testing (6T2), Mr. Leon Slota (Neoglyphics Media Corporation) Developing Load and Performance Requirements for Web Sites (7A1), and, Mr. Sam Guckenheimer (Rational Software Corporation) Effective Testing for Java-Based Web Software (7A2),

While still a relatively new technology, data flow approaches deserve serious consideration, to wit: Mr. Bor-Yuan Tsai, Dr. Simon Stobart, Mr. Norman Parrington & Dr. Ian Mitchell (University of Sunderland) A State-Based Testing Approach Providing Data Flow Coverage in Object-Oriented Class Testing (9T1), and, Ms. Martina Marre, Ms. Monica Bobrowski & Dr. Daniel Yankelevich (Universidad de Buenos Aires) A Software Engineering View of Data Quality (QWE'98 Best Paper) (9T2),

APPLICATIONS TRACK [Back to Top]

Fault density methods promise clarity and accurate emphasis, as these two papers describe: Mr. Graham Thompson (InCert Software) Minimizing Testing While Maximizing Failure Detection (2A1), and, Dr. Frank Ackerman & Ms. Cherie McKinney (Institute for Zero Defect Software) Measuring Fault Density in the Real World (2A2),

Technology injection in critical complex systems always has been difficult, but these six papers (two from the Tools and Solutions Track) address this critical area from varying perspectives: Mr. Ron Silacci (Lucent Technologies, Inc.) A Testers' Top 10 List (3A1), Mr. Lorenzo Lattanzi & Mr. Mario Musmeci (Alenia Aerospazio) Safety Critical S/W Development for a Satellite Based Navigation System (8A1), Mr. Rob Oshana (Raytheon Systems Company) An Automated Testing Environment to support Operational Profiles of Software Intensive Systems (3S1), Ms. Lisa Boden & Mr. Jon Hagar (Lockheed Martin Astronautics Company) How to Build a 20 Year Successful Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program for the Next Millennium (3A2), Mr. David Carman (Bellcore) Event-Based Test Generation for Distributed Systems (3S2), and, Mr. Matias Vierimaa, Ms. Minna Makarainen & Mr. Atte Kinnula (VTT Electronics) Improving DSP Software Engineering Processes from the Testing Viewpoint (8A2),

eCommerce draws continued attention, and some of the practicalities are addressed in these two papers: Dr. Steven Rabin (Interworld Corporation) eCommerce Performance Benchmarking -- Methodology and Criteria (4A1), and, Mr. Federico Pacquing, Jr. (Techwave Inc.) Usability Testing in eCommerce Applications (4A2),

OO methods and model-based testing are important applications areas, as illustrated in these four papers: Ms. Mei-Hwa Chen and Mr. Ming-Hung H. Kao (SUNY Albany) Investigating Test Effectiveness on Object-Oriented Software -- A Case Study (6A1), Mr. Glen Xia (Deloitte Consulting) An Industrial Case Study of Quantitative Management for Object Oriented Software Testing (6A2), Mr. Jon Hagar (Lockheed Martin Astronautics Company) Industrial Experiences in Establishing Laboratories and Software Models to Effectively Execute Software Test (9A1), and, Ms. Johanna Rothman (Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.) Using Quality to Drive Product Development Processes (9A2),

TOOLS & SOLUTIONS TRACK [Back to Top]

The tools and solutions track tries to focus attention to cases where specific kinds of tools are put to effective use. Both generally, and specifically to client/server applications, we have these four papers: Mr. Alan Ark and Sarah Ackroyd (Thomson Financial Services) Euro: An Automated Solution to Currency Conversion (2S2), Mr. Douglas Hoffman (Software Quality Methods, LLC) Test Automation Architectures; Planning for Test Automation (2S1), Dr. Heesun Park (SAS Institute Inc.) Optimum Level of Test Automation for Client/Server Software (4S1), and, Dr. Huey-Der Joseph Chu (National Defense Management College) Automating Client/Server Testing in the Real World (4S2),

Requirements based testing -- always an important technology area -- is addressed with these four papers: Mr. Hanania T. Salzer (RTS Software Ltd.) ATRs (Atomic Requirements) Used Throughout Development Lifecycle (6S1), Mr. Larry Apfelbaum and Mr. Steve Meyer (Teradyne, AT&T) Use Cases are Not Requirements (6S2), Requirements II... Mr. Mark Charles (Vector Research, Inc.) Testing a System With Dynamic Requirements (8S1), and, Mr. Yuri Chernak (Valley Forge Consulting, Inc.) In-Process Validation and Improvement of Test-Case Effectiveness (8S2),

Real-world testing continues to grow in importance, as indicated in these selections: Mr. Jim Williams (CableData, Inc.) Testing for Y2K Compliance: A Case Study (7S1), Mr. E.L. (Ed) Safford III (Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft System) Development of an Integrated Real-Time Avionics Software Testbed (9S2), Mr. Alain Kerbrat & Mr. Iulian Ober (Verilog) Automated Test Generation from SDL/UML Specifications (9S1), and, Mr. Gunther Chrobok-Diening, Dr. Andreas Ulrich & Mr. Peter Zimmerer (Siemens AG) Test Architectures for Testing Distributed Systems (7S2),

MANAGEMENT TRACK [Back to Top]

Careers and the software quality culture must go hand in hand for things really to work well: These four papers address differing aspects of this important topic: Mr. Tom Wissink (Lockheed Martin Mission Systems) Test Engineering -- A "Value Add" Career Path (9M1), Mr. Roger M. Records (Boeing Commercial Airplanes) Deploying SQA in Very Small Projects (2M1), Mr. Mike Ross (Quantitative Software Management, Inc.) Size Does Matter: Continuous Size Estimating and Tracking (2M2), and, Mr. Keith Stobie (BEA Systems, Inc.) Creating a Testing Culture (9M2),

Software process issues are key to success in building CMM and similar organizations, as pointed out by these papers: Mr. Herb Krasner (Krasner Consulting) Using the Cost of Quality Approach for Software (4M1), Mr. Michael Deck (Cleanroom Software Engineering, Inc.) Process Diversity: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Chaos (4M2), Mr. Philip Lones (Lucent Technologies) Revolutionary? A Development Method That Works (7M1). and, Mr. Nick Borelli (Microsoft Corporation) Seizing Control of the Development Lifecycle (7M2). At the same time, it is good to focus specifically on CMM specifics, as is done here with: Mr. John N. Romanak (Bellcore) Life as a CMM Level 5 Test Organization (3M1). and, Dr. Ilene Burnstein, Ms. Ariya Homyen, Dr. Taratip Suwannasart, Mr. Robert Grom & Mr. Gary Saxena (Illinois Institute of Technology) Using the Testing Maturity Model (TMM) to Assess and Improve Your Software Testing Process (3M2).

Risk management is a management approach that is growing in importance, and these two talks are not to be missed: Mr. Stale Amland (Avenir (UK) Ltd.) Risk Based Testing and Metrics (6M1). and, the ever popular and dynamic Mr. Tom Gilb (Result Planning Limited) Risk Management Technology: A Toolkit for Identifying, Documenting, Analyzing and Coping with Project Risks (6M2).

Finally, we have to learn from our experience, as illustrated in these two talks: Mr. James Bindas (Intel Corporation) Tactical Improvement Projects: Real-Life Lessons in Leading Change (8M1). and, Mr. Scott Young (Perot System Corporation) Them and Us: Communication between Development and Test (8M2).

[Back to Top]