SQAUG and TAO Presents:

A Conversation With James Bach

James Bach: Author, Public Speaker on All Good Things QA and Principle Consultant for Satisfice,Inc.

James likes to explore the answer to what 'good' means in software development. Come and chat with him about what Rapid Software Testing means, to testers, companies and the definition of quality!

Both Matt and Peter are in Portland for PNSQC. Matt will be a keynote speaker at the event, as well as conducting a full day workshop. Peter will be presenting on Having User Experience Drive Testing. For our event they will be discussing the complete package of testing where they will provide pointers for:

 Explaining testing

 Setting expectations

 Risk management

 Doing more with less

Event Details:

 Onsite parking in front or on the side of Con-way. Please come into the front entrance, and sign in at the reception desk.

 Pizza and beverages will be served

 Event is FREE to the public and NO RSVP is required to attend

Matt Heusser

Software Process Naturalist, Excelon Development Matt Heusser has been developing, testing, and managing software projects for his entire adult life. A Consulting Software Tester and also contributing editor for ST&QA magazine, Matt was the initial organizer of the Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference. In 2008 Matt served as lead organizer for the Agile-Alliance Sponsored workshop on Technical Debt. Matt contributes to the STP Community Blog, and his personal blog, "Creative Chaos", is consistently highly ranked among testing blogs. After contributing a chapter to "Beautiful Testing", by O'Reilly, and finishing up a two-year stint as a part-time instructor in Information Systems at Calvin College, Matt recently served as Lead Editor for "How to Reduce the Cost of Software Testing" (Taylor and Francis, 2011). He is also a frequent presenter at software quality conferences.

Pete Walen

Quality Assurance Engineer, ACI Worldwide Peter Walen has been in software development for over 25 years. After working many years as a programmer, he moved to software testing and QA. Following a brief foray in Project Management and Business Analysis, he returned to software testing. He has worked in the fields of insurance and finance, manufacturing, higher education/universities, retail, distribution and point of sale systems. Peter is an active member of several testing associations, an active blogger on software testing, and presents at software quality conferences around the world.

For more on Matt and Pete: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mheusserhttp://www.linkedin.com/pub/peter-walen/3/55/100

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SQAUG is Portland/Vancouver area’s only Software Quality Assurance User Group! We are BRAND NEW, and would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who would like to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Quality Assurance field.

SQAUG is made up of a group of SQA professionals who have banded together in an open forum to learn from each other through a series of interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, exploring tools, and general networking and sharing of job opportunities. Our goals are to expand knowledge about Software Quality to all professionals who are passionate about their careers, and take Software Quality seriously.

SQAUG is very excited to have such great speakers for this event!

SQAUG Presents:

Murky Waters: Where Do Tests Come From? A discussion about requirements, and other sources for the development of test cases

Moderated by: Mary Torres Lead QA Engineer, Viewpoint Construction Software, Portland, OR

at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday April 17, 2013 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Where do tests come from? Pittsburg. No not really. Actually, we hope to discuss the various sources for tests in the different SDLC environments. We want everyone to share good practices for gleaning information needed for testing, including; rummaging through requirements, user stories, acceptance criteria, code commentary, etc. Do your Product Managers write up test cases, DEV’s? Business Analysts? Tech facilitators? Remember Use Cases? Much of what we used to do, has become muddled and wrapped up in terminology and processes that no longer mean the same things they used to. Let’s talk it through and see if we can help each other in this murky water.

Mary Torres; our moderator for this event currently works at Viewpoint Construction Software as Lead QA Engineer. She a degree in Computer Science, has almost 17 years working in the software industry, and has worked in QA for that entire time. Her work experience includes QA management, automated testing, and functional testing. She is also a certified scrum master. Mary has worked on projects that have utilized traditional Waterfall and Agile/Scrum SDLC’s.

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza, Networking and SQAUG Announcements 6:00-7:30PM: Scheduled Moderator: Mary Torres

Details: • Event is Free to the public • Onsite parking (directions below) • Light dinner and beverages will be served • No RSVP is required to attend

SQAUG is Portland/Vancouver area’s only Software Quality Assurance User Group! We are NEW, and would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who would like to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Quality Assurance field.

SQAUG is made up of a group of SQA professionals who have banded together in an open forum to learn from each other through a series of interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, exploring tools, and general networking and sharing of job opportunities. Our goals are to expand knowledge about Software Quality to all professionals who are passionate about their careers, and take Software Quality seriously.

For more on SQAUG: http://www.sqaug.org/ Linked in: SQAUG Meetup: SQAUGPDX

SQAUG Presents:

Getting The Job You Love Is the Grass Greener on the Other Side??? by Angela Enloe, Senior IT Manager, Conway

at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday May 14, 2014 at 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

Getting the Job You Love! Is the grass greener on the other side? We all have choices! We can choose where we work, and what we want in a job! But do we all know how to grow and change in our jobs, to create the best impact for our careers? Do we know how to hunt or interview for that "just right" company? Learn about how to make the right choices, how to take that large step up the career ladder in this talk about career development, hunting for the right job, and growing your skills for a competitive and demanding job market!

Angela Enloe, Senior IT Manager at Conway, will be presenting this don't-miss topic at our next SQAUG meeting. Are you looking to develop your career? Come learn about how best to do that! If you have found a terrific job – come share with others about how you did that! If you ARE looking currently - Angela will share some of the things you can do to make YOU the best candidate!

About Our Speaker: Angela Enloe, Sr. IT Mgr. is in a senior leadership role at Con-way, Menlo Worldwide Logistics. She is responsible for the QA Team and Technical Support groups and has been in the IT/SQA field for 18+ years. She is co-founder and past President of SQAUG, and wants to share her passion for career development, mentoring and networking. Her diverse background includes many different industries and management of a broad selection of IT teams including: QA, development, change management, release management, and technical support.

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Angela Enloe will talk about how to grow your career.

Details: • Event is Free to the public • Onsite parking (directions below) • Light Hors d'oeuvres and beverages will be served • No RSVP is required to attend

SQAUG is Portland/Vancouver area’s only Software Quality Assurance User Group! We are BRAND NEW, and would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who would like to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Quality Assurance field.

SQAUG is made up of a group of SQA professionals who have banded together in an open forum to learn from each other through a series of interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, exploring tools, and general networking and sharing of job opportunities. Our goals are to expand knowledge about Software Quality to all professionals who are passionate about their careers, and take Software Quality seriously.

For more on SQAUG: http://www.sqaug.org/ Linked in: SQAUG

To be on event notification mailing list, join the SQAUG group at MEETUP.com.

This presentation will describe barriers to superior customer service including waste, process issues, and cultural challenges in the workforce. We will also discuss the importance of the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle. Improvement methodologies covered include: Process Improvement, Problem Solving, and Daily Kata.

The team needs to build a product. The team readily recognizes the testers’ need to work with the developers but the same team often doesn’t consider that the testers also need to work with the UX staff. Often the UX staff is tucked away in a different part of the office, working with multiple teams and yet rarely working directly with the testers. Why? How can testers review a product without a good understanding of the design? Testers need closer access to UX and UX would benefit from working directly with the testers. Karen highlights specific design areas where UX and testing pair well.

About Our Speaker: Karen N. Johnson is an independent software test consultant. Her client work is often centered on helping organizations at an enterprise level. In recent years, she has helped companies transitioning to Agile software development. While focused on software testing and predominantly working with the testers throughout an organization, Karen helps teams and organizations improve quality overall. Her professional activities include speaking at conferences both in the US and internationally. Karen is a contributing author to the book, Beautiful Testing by O’Reilly publishers. She is the co-founder of the WREST workshop, the Workshop for Regulated Software Testing. She has published numerous articles; she blogs and tweets about her experiences. Find her on Twitter as @karennjohnson (note the two n’s) and her website: http://www.karennicolejohnson.com

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Karen Johnson Presents/Q&A

Details: • Event is Free to the public • Onsite parking (directions below) • Light Hors d'oeuvres and beverages will be served • No RSVP is required to attend

SQAUG Presents:

The Importance of Abstraction in Automation Projects at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday May 20, 2015 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

The majority of automation projects fail, most within the first 6-12 months. Initially it’s easy to put something together that works for a small number of test cases, but as the application evolves, the troubleshooting/maintenance needs of the tests quickly overcome the ability of the team. Eventually (around 6-12 months) a new engineer takes over and restarts the automation effort in a new direction, often with the same issues.

This presentation will be focused on how to use the OOP concept of Abstraction to reduce the maintenance costs of automation and extend the life of your frameworks. Additional benefits will be discussed, like the ability to change the Automation Technology without rebuilding all your tests.

These concepts will work with 3rd party automation products like QTP as well as homegrown frameworks. You will get the most value from abstraction when its added at the beginning of the projects, but we will discuss how they can be leverages in larger, existing frameworks. Level: Intermediate. Knowledge of automation concepts along with some basic understanding of development practices will be assumed.

All code examples will be shown in C#, but the concepts will apply to any tool or language.

Supporting Material https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS550US550&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Why+software+automation+fails

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_%28computer_science%29#Abstraction_in_object_oriented_programming

About our speaker: Michael Cowan is a Principal QA Engineer at Viewpoint Construction Software. He has over 20 years’ experience in the software industry, and has held individual and management roles in both QA and Development. His passions have always been automation, and he has been a lead engineer on several successful automation frameworks.

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Presentation/Q&A

Details: · Event is Free to the public · Onsite parking (directions below) · Light Hors d'oeuvres and beverages will be served · No RSVP is required to attend

SQAUG is Portland/Vancouver area’s only Software Quality Assurance User Group! We are in our 3rd year and would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who would like to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Quality Assurance field.

SQAUG is made up of a group of SQA professionals who have banded together in an open forum to learn from each other through a series of interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, exploring tools, and general networking and sharing of job opportunities. Our goals are to expand knowledge about Software Quality to all professionals who are passionate about their careers, and take Software Quality seriously.

For more on SQAUG: http://www.sqaug.org/ Meetup: SQAUGPDX Linked in: SQAUG

SQAUG Presents:

QA and The Role They Play in Team Dialogue at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday June 17, 2015 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

Dialogue is a contraction from the Greek words for through and words. It suggests an activity aimed at eliciting meaning…

The Greeks introduced the idea that individuals are not intelligent on their own, that it's only by reasoning together that they are able to uncover the truth for themselves. …By questioning and probing each other, carefully dissecting and analyzing ideas, finding the inconsistencies, never attacking or insulting but always searching for what they can accept between them, they can gradually attain deeper understanding and insight.

The role of QA is often seen as one that only reports negatively on the work of others: “…found a bug with your code”; “…the way you designed this isn’t good for the end user”; “…You never include requirements in your stories…and when you do, they lack sufficient details.”

The importance of True Dialogue is that it allows positive reactions and outcomes, from negative input…when done well, the benefits can be extraordinary!

About our speaker: Joe Famme is a Quality Minded individual, who’s been helping to improve the quality of his teams, and the software they work on, for over 20 years. He started in phone support with WordPerfect, in the early nineties. After about a year and a half of that…and the release of Windows 3.0…he discovered the world of QA, and has never looked back.

Besides WordPerfect, Joe’s also worked for internationally known companies Novell, Corel, Intel, and Sage.

Joe’s been working in the Portland Tech Community since 1996. He’s been part of several strong Oregon Companies and several startup companies, .com’s & .bomb’s. And, Joe’s been part of the SQAUG organization since before it became a public group.

In all of his years of being part of the Quality Assurance field, he has found that the quest for the mastery of effective communication and true dialogue has been a key element to success. And, he hopes that some of the dialogue during his presentation provides at least one insight for all attendees to take back to their teams.

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Presentation/Q&A

Details: · Event is Free to the public · Onsite parking (directions below) · Light Hors d'oeuvres and beverages will be served · No RSVP is required to attend

SQAUG is Portland/Vancouver area’s only Software Quality Assurance User Group! We are in our 3rd year and would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who would like to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Quality Assurance field.

SQAUG is made up of a group of SQA professionals who have banded together in an open forum to learn from each other through a series of interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, exploring tools, and general networking and sharing of job opportunities. Our goals are to expand knowledge about Software Quality to all professionals who are passionate about their careers, and take Software Quality seriously.

For more on SQAUG: http://www.sqaug.org/ Meetup: SQAUGPDX Linked in: SQAUG

SQAUG Presents:

QA and Poetry - how these two disciplines are surprisingly related at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday October 21, 2015 5:30pm until 7:30pm Event is FREE and Open to the Public

This month, we are excited to welcome Scott Poole for a talk on how writing a poem is similar to QA. You have to anticipate the pitfalls an audience and a user might fall into. To illustrate this, Scott will read several humorous poems that reflect on this QA type experience. He will discuss about how both disciplines have influenced each other and the benefits gained. Scott is also one of the keynote speakers for the PNSQC’s October events and will be tailoring his presentation specifically for SQAUG!

About our speaker: Scott Poole is most well known as the “House Poet” on the weekly Live Wire! public radio variety show, taped in Portland and broadcast nationally by Public Radio International. However, he is also a software developer. Currently, he’s the Senior Web Developer for Columbia United Providers in Vancouver, WA. He’s been writing code for 9 years and poetry for 25. He is the author of three books of poetry, The Cheap Seats, Hiding from Salesmen and, most recently, The Sliding Glass Door.

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Presentation/Q&A

Details: • Event is Free to the public • Onsite parking (directions below) • Light Hors d'oeuvres and beverages will be served • No RSVP is required to attend

SQAUG is Portland/Vancouver area’s only Software Quality Assurance User Group! We are in our 3rd year and would like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who would like to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Quality Assurance field.

SQAUG is made up of a group of SQA professionals who have banded together in an open forum to learn from each other through a series of interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, exploring tools, and general networking and sharing of job opportunities. Our goals are to expand knowledge about Software Quality to all professionals who are passionate about their careers, and take Software Quality seriously.

For more on SQAUG: http://www.sqaug.org

Meetup: SQAUGPDX Linked in: SQAUG