Con-Way

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

Security on HCE NFC Mobile Payment smartphones has been an issue and with the use of tokenization, these issues have been minimized, although further debate and apparent limitations remain. Also some believe the TEE or even eSE could play a role in security of HCE NFC along with biometric “Touch ID” authentication. A secure payment system requires a holistic approach encompassing end-to-end encryption, tokenization and compliance with both existing and emerging standards, including PCI and EMV. The key is use of NFC SIM cards and HCE are not mutually exclusive, and you’ll see hybrid designed NFC Payment smartphones emerge. Karl will explore exactly what Host Card Emulation is, where it came from, also a discussion on Apple and Android “Pay” developments, including Samsung and Softcard.

Presenter: Karl J. Weaver is an OEM/ODM mobile device ecosystem and business development executive/rainmaker for Near Field Communications, mobile (wallet) payments and TEE embedded mobile device security ecosystems.

Please join ISSA Portland for our September 2015 monthly chapter lunch meeting presenting the topic of:

Host Card Emulation for NFC Mobile Payment in the Cloud

You can register at the link below until Tuesday – September 22, 2015 for the early registration pricing.

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/issa-portland-monthly-luncheon-host-card-emulation-for-nfc-mobile-payment-in-the-cloud-tickets-18430549269

When: Thursday – September 24, 2015 – 11:30 to 1pm (PST) – doors open at 11am. Then event will end at 1:00PM.

Lunch will be provided.

Location:
Con-Way

2055 Northwest Savier Street

Portland, OR 97209

Con-way's reception desk is located at west end (closest to 21st Ave.) of the AdTech II building, best accessed by turning into the entrance located on 21st Ave; the main entrance to the building is on Savier Street on the west side of the building. This entrance is manned by a security guard and you will be asked to sign in. Con-way has asked that guests park in the two lots to the East of NW 20th Avenue between NW Raleigh and NW Thurman. Please do not park in spaces that are marked with names other than Con-way since these spaces are leased. The best option is the lot on the NE corner of NW Raleigh and NW 20th.

Presentation Information

Host Card Emulation for NFC Mobile Payment in the Cloud

Presented by: Karl J. Weaver, Newport Technologies

Security on HCE NFC Mobile Payment smartphones has been an issue and with the use of tokenization, these issues have been minimized, although further debate and apparent limitations remain. Also some believe the TEE or even eSE could play a role in security of HCE NFC along with biometric “Touch ID” authentication. A secure payment system requires a holistic approach encompassing end-to-end encryption, tokenization and compliance with both existing and emerging standards, including PCI and EMV. The key is use of NFC SIM cards and HCE are not mutually exclusive, and you’ll see hybrid designed NFC Payment smartphones emerge. Karl will explore exactly what Host Card Emulation is, where it came from, also a discussion on Apple and Android “Pay” developments, including Samsung and Softcard.

Karl J. Weaver is an OEM/ODM mobile device ecosystem and business development executive/rainmaker for Near Field Communications, mobile (wallet) payments and TEE embedded mobile device security ecosystems. He is a globally-trained, bilingual Mandarin Chinese speaking senior mobility executive with vast experience selling wireless & mobile device technologies from both sides of the Pacific Rim to the global OEM/ODM handset/tablet PC ecosystem supply chain. He recently spent 5 years working in China for Gemalto as Rainmaker for design in of embedded Mobile NFC Payments & TEE security technologies to the OEM Smartphone/Tablet PC ecosystem.

Price:

The chapter meeting is subsidized by chapter memberships and sponsors. There is a nominal fee of $10 (member) or $25 (non-member) for preregistered attendees. Walk in attendee’s are welcome but will be charged $30 cash at the door.

If you wish to become a member, please visit http://portland.issa.org/join-issa-portland/

CPEs:

The chapter maintains proof of attendance for members but it is the member’s responsibility to ensure that these CPE's are credited to their respective accounts. This luncheon will offer 1 CPE per hour of attendance.

Chapter Sponsors

ISSA Portland would like to thank our program sponsors, who help make high quality programs like this possible.

Additional information can be found on our website at:

http://portland.issa.org/2015/chapter-meetings/september-2015-monthly-chapter-luncheon-host-card-emulation-for-nfc-mobile-payment-in-the-cloud/

SQAUG Presents:

Ask the Experts! at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday August 19, 2015 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

This month, we are hosting an open forum with software professionals from multiple disciplines. Join us and engage in group and individual dialogue on current software quality issues, trends, techniques, and experiences and get all those burning questions answered!

Meet the experts:

Alan Ark – Sr. SDET, Test Automation, EID Passport Kurt David – Data Architect, Daimler Mahesh Balachandran – Principal QA Engineer, Test Automation, Sage Kevin Ahn – Sr. Performance and Build Engineer, eBay Jet Pizarro – Sr. QA Engineer, Quality Audit and SOX Compliance, Con-way Pratima Arwey – Sr. Product Manager, Software Engineering, CDK Global

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Ask the Expert

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 extend a warm welcome to everyone who wants to participate in a user group dedicated to growing the Software Quality Assurance profession.

SQAUG is a group of SQA professionals who come together in an open forum to learn from each other through interactive discussions, engaged debates, training presentations, tool exploration, networking, and job opportunity sharing. Our goal is to expand knowledge of 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

Join us for a presentation "How to secure sensitive data with an evolving cyber perimeter" from Watchful Software. Doors open at 11:30AM. The event will end at 1:00PM. Lunch will be provided.

This luncheon will offer 1 CPE per hourof attendance

Follow the website link to register for the event!

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

Please join ISSA Portland for our monthly chapter lunch meeting presenting the topic of: Zero Days, Ghost Malware, and Other Current Trends, Presented by FireEye.

You can register at the link below until Monday April 13, 2015: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monthly-chapter-meeting-threat-intelligence-and-zero-day-malware-tickets-16218230163

When: Thursday – April 16, 2015 – 11:30 to 1pm (PST) – doors open at 11am. Then event will end at 1:00PM.
Lunch will be provided.

Presentation: Zero Days, Ghost Malware, and Other Current Trends

Tobin Sears currently leads the Western region systems engineering team at FireEye – an organization dedicated to protecting enterprises and governments against the next generation of cyber-attacks through the use of a purpose-built, virtual machine-based security platform. His expertise in the Web security space has led him to architect and consult on an extensive portfolio of secure infrastructure projects worldwide. Prior to FireEye, Tobin held various positions at F5, McAfee/Secure Computing, and NetApp. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Price:
The chapter meeting is subsidized by chapter memberships and sponsors. There is a nominal fee of $10 (member) or $25 (non-member) for preregistered attendees. Walk in attendee’s are welcome but will be charged $30 cash at the door. If you wish to become a member, please visit http://portland.issa.org/join-issa-portland/

CPEs: The chapter maintains proof of attendance for members but it is the member’s responsibility to ensure that these CPE's are credited to their respective accounts. This luncheon will offer 1 CPE per hour of attendance.

SQAUG Presents:

Non-Expert Automation Testing (NEAT)

by Loren Brown

at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday March 18, 2015 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

Non-Expert Automation Testing (NEAT) is an automation testing framework that enables non-experts to harness the power of data-driven, Selenium automation tests. The NEAT web portal simplifies and guides the creation of otherwise complex scripts through the use of an intuitive user interface that manages a web element object repository, test case input data, and test scripts. This approach is intended to enable test script automation to be completed in hours or days instead of weeks or months. The motivation behind NEAT is to equip business analysts, without automation expertise, with an intuitive tool to create and execute sophisticated, automated end-to-end testing scripts. This framework enables teams to increase automated test coverage and allows the highly skilled automation developers to focus on more complex automation testing needs of the organization.

About Our Speaker: Loren J. Brown is a Test Automation Architect and owner of Quantum Peg, Inc. He is currently teaming up with John Cvetko from TEK Associates to develop the DEAP testing tool. After obtaining a Bachelor’s in Computer Science at Portland State University, Loren worked for over two decades as a QA Engineer in various capacities. At Intel Corporation he spent a little over a dozen years in various product teams and Intel Labs as a QA Lead in various software projects including Video Conferencing, IP Telephony, TCP/IP Network Performance, and others. He spent over six years at Automatic Data Processing (ADP) as a QA Lead developing various test automation frameworks and harnesses, and multiple software lifecycle data visualization projects. When he carves out time for hobbies, Loren likes tinkering with microcontrollers and small electronics projects. 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 the Portland/Vancouver area’s leading Software Quality Assurance User Group. We are in our 3rd year and extend a warm welcome to everyone to participate in a group dedicated to growing the Software Quality Assurance profession.

SQAUG is a group of SQA professionals who come together in an open forum to learn from each other. We engage in discussions, debates, presentations, explore tools of the trade, network, and share job opportunity information. Our goals are to expand knowledge of 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:

Using Pre-mortem Meetings to Predict and Prevent Failures

by Julie Green

at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday February 18, 2015 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

Post-Mortems or Retrospective Meetings can be too little too late. Learn how to increase your ability to predict failures by 30% by holding a Pre-mortem meeting. Using the Pre-mortem strategy you can stop the failures from ever occurring.

About Our Speaker: Julie Green has been a QA Engineer for 10 years and has experience with Agile and Waterfall methodologies. In her research on Pre-mortems she has contacted the inventor, Gary Klein, and is in discussions with two of his colleagues who use Pre-mortem meetings in their work. She is currently looking for a group willing to try a Pre-mortem discussion. She can be contacted at [email protected]. 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 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/ Meetup: SQAUGPDX Linked in: SQAUG

SQAUG Presents:

QA in an Agile World

by Lloyd Bell, Quality Engineering Manager at CrowdCompass by Cvent

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

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

As more companies are moving toward agile development, there isn't a lot of knowledge on where QA fits into the development life cycle. The objective is to go over some common problems and some possible solutions that could be implemented for those riding the agile train.

About Our Speaker: Lloyd Bell is an 18 year veteran of software and hardware testing and development. Lloyd has experience in game design, voice acting, test management, has been a producer on multiple titles and has also started a 3rd party customer service and testing lab. He has recently worked with Microsoft on the Connected Experiences team and has led teams to help with the release of Microsoft’s day-one launch of the Windows 8 platform. Lloyd is currently working at CrowdCompass by Cvent as the Quality Engineering manager. CrowdCompass helps organizations make their conferences, meetings, conventions, and trade shows a lot more popular through the power of mobile event apps. They have developed thousands of apps for events of all sizes and industries each year. Lloyd has been a resident of Portland for the last 4 years.

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 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/ Meetup: SQAUGPDX Linked in: SQAUG

Presentation: “Combating the Insider Threat” Malicious attacks are up 87% over last year and insider threats still remain as the leading cause of Data Breaches and IT sabotage. The threat is real, enough so that Federal agencies and Federal systems integrators were required by Executive Order #13587 to implement an “Insider Threat Detection and Prevention Program” by the end of 2013. Yet traditional Defense-in-depth methods fall flat to address the ever-present risk inherent to unstructured data management. Come learn what industry trends as well as recent research from the FBI can teach us about securing our security “soft center”.

Mr. Terry Boedeker, CISSP Solutions Engineer, Varonis Systems

Terry Boedeker has over 15 years of experience in Information Technology ranging from software development, technical writing, managed services and data center operations, to business continuity program management, and information security. He proudly served in the United States Marines from 2003 to 2007, and graduated summe cum laude from DeVry University in 2012, earning a B.S. in Networks & Communications Management. He joined Varonis Systems in 2013, and maintains the Certified Information Systems Security Professional certification from (ISC)2. For more details, visithttps://www.linkedin.com/in/terryboedeker

CPEs: The chapter maintains proof of attendance for members but it is the member’s responsibility to ensure that these CPE's are credited to their respective accounts. This event will offer 1 CPE per hourof attendance.

Chapter Sponsors ISSA Portland would like to thank our sponsors, who help make high quality programs like this possible. Gold Sponsor: IBM Silver Sponsor: Zscaler

There are many reasons why QA roles have a hard time getting funded in start-up organizations. Most start-ups begin with small teams that adopt (read: ignore) Lean or Agile methodologies and tend to favor TDD or rapid iteration to get the products built or shipped as quickly as possible. Because every dollar counts up front, getting 'something' out the door quickly often trumps making sure quality is built in. Market pressures, competition, and limited resources often force start-ups to make difficult (read: convenient) choices in order to keep the lights on.

This session will cover how QA can become a relevant role in this challenging environment and will discuss strategies that QA professionals can use to find their way into fulfilling quality roles in start-ups.

About Our Speaker: Frank D’Andrea is an experienced listener, thinker, and doer. He likes motivating self-organizing teams, eliminating wasteful practices, and delivering digital solutions that are designed to be flexible and that are developed in a sustainable way. He believes in engaging clients as partners, demonstrating the value of iterative delivery, and bringing award-winning products and services to the marketplace. He is an Agile instigator and relentless self-critic as well as a process improvement specialist. Specialties: Internet of Things (IoT), Social, Mobile, SaaS, Cloud, Big Data, Product Management, Digital Strategy, Market Strategy, Product Requirements, Customer Implementations, and Business Development.

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 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/ Meetup: SQAUGPDX Linked in: SQAUG

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

Please join Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) Portland for our monthly chapter meeting luncheon on the topic of: Is Threat Intelligence Making Us Stupid?

Please register online using the URL below to attend the event. Online sales will end 10/14/2014 at 4pm after which you will need to pay at the door. Seating is limited, so sign up today.

http://www.eventbrite.com/e/monthly-chapter-meeting-is-threat-intelligence-making-us-stupid-tickets-13324679475?aff=issalist

When: Thursday, October 16, 2014 - Doors open at 11:30AM. The event will end at 1:00PM. Lunch will be provided.

Location:
Con-Way 2055 Northwest Savier Street Portland, OR 97209

Con-way's reception desk is located at west end (closest to 21st Ave.) of the AdTech II building, best accessed by turning into the entrance located on 21st Ave; the main entrance to the building is on Savier Street on the west side of the building. This entrance is manned by a security guard and you will be asked to sign in. Con-way has asked that guests park in the two lots to the East of NW 20th Avenue between NW Raleigh and NW Thurman. Please do not park in spaces that are marked with names other than Con-way since these spaces are leased. The best option is the lot on the NE corner of NW Raleigh and NW 20th.

Presentation: Too many threats not enough time? This is the challenge for security professionals today, as we become inundated with data generated security devices, sensors, applications and remote feeds we can easily become numb to what our data is trying to tell us and often end up ignoring critical warning signs of compromise. This presentation will attempt to put some method to our madness and explain how to apply threat intelligence tools and data so that it is more than just speeds and feeds, but a legitimate resource and ally against increasingly well-resourced and cunning adversaries.

Presenter: Ken Westin of Tripwire is a security analyst and "creative technologist" with 14 years’ experience building and breaking things through the use/misuse of technology. His technology exploits and endeavors have been featured in Forbes, Good Morning America, Dateline, New York Times, The Economist and has won awards from MIT, CTIA, Oregon Technology Awards, SXSW, Entrepreneur and named in Portland Business Journal's 2013 "40 Under 40". He has worked with law enforcement and journalists utilizing various technologies to unveil organized crime rings, recover stolen cars, even a carjacking amongst other crimes.

Price:
The chapter meeting is subsidized by chapter memberships and sponsors. There is a nominal fee of $10 (member) or $25 (non-member) for preregistered attendees. Walk in attendee’s are welcome but will be charged $30 cash at the door.

If you wish to become a member, please visit http://portland.issa.org/join-issa-portland/

CPEs: The chapter maintains proof of attendance for members but it is the member’s responsibility to ensure that these CPE's are credited to their respective accounts. This luncheon will offer 1 CPE per hour of attendance.

Chapter Sponsors ISSA Portland would like to thank our program sponsors, who help make high quality programs like this possible.

Gold Sponsor: IBM Silver Sponsor: Zscaler

Please join ISSA Portland for our monthly chapter meeting luncheon on the topic of: Breaches are inevitable – what can you do to prepare?

Please register online using the URL below to attend the event. Online sales will end 09/16/2014 at 10pm after which you will need to pay at the door. Seating is limited, so sign up today. http://www.eventbrite.com/e/chapter-meeting-breaches-are-inevitable-what-can-you-do-to-prepare-tickets-12427379627

When: Thursday, September 18, 2014 - Doors open at 11:30AM. The event will end at 1:00PM. Lunch will be provided.

Presentation:
Breaches are inevitable. You can implement strong security controls but breaches are a matter of when, not if it happens. The faster you respond to a breach of personally identifiable or sensitive information, the lower the operational, financial, or reputational impact to your organization. If your organization stores information such as social security numbers, driver’s license numbers and financial information, you need to be in a position to respond and notify because it’s sound business practice and it’s the law in the State of Oregon. The purpose of this presentation is to provide an overview of the regulatory requirements when it comes to breach notification and provide tools you can use in your own organizations to quickly respond to breaches when they occur, especially when you are required to notify your customers of such a breach.

This presentation is intended for security professionals, compliance officers, chief privacy officers and legal counsel who are or may be responsible for responding to security incidents that involves the unsecure breach of personally identifiable, protected, or sensitive information.

Presenter:
Chris Apgar, CISSP, CEO and President of Apgar & Associates, LLC, is a nationally recognized information security, privacy and electronic health information exchange expert. He has over 16 years of experience assisting health care organizations comply with HIPAA, HITECH and other privacy and security laws. Mr. Apgar has assisted healthcare, utilities and financial organizations implement privacy and security safeguards to protect against organizational harm and harm to consumers. Mr. Apgar served as a member of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange Board of Directors for eight years. He currently is a member of the Oregon Prescription Drug Monitoring Advisory Commission. Mr. Apgar has been a Certified Information Systems Security Professional since 2002 and is a senior member of the Information Systems Security Association.

Price:
The chapter meeting is subsidized by chapter memberships and sponsors. There is a nominal fee of $10 (member) or $25 (non-member) for preregistered attendees. Walk in attendee’s are welcome but will be charged $30 cash at the door. If you wish to become a member, please visit http://portland.issa.org/join-issa-portland/

CPEs: The chapter maintains proof of attendance for members but it is the member’s responsibility to ensure that these CPE's are credited to their respective accounts. This luncheon will offer 1 CPE per hour of attendance.

Chapter Sponsors ISSA Portland would like to thank our program sponsors, who help make high quality programs like this possible.

Platinum Sponsor: Rapid7 Gold Sponsor: IBM Silver Sponsor: Sword & Shield Enterprise Security Silver Sponsor: Zscaler

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.

Viral QA takes its name from the process of a virus infiltrating a host, adapting to its new environment and spreading itself throughout the system. It is an iterative approach to implementing structured QA into projects and teams that are ‘too busy to do it right’.

Viral QA is not meant to replace traditional QA, instead it enables the QA Team to continue driving structured QA forward even when the rest of the organization is struggling and overwhelmed.

About Our Speaker: Michael Cowan 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.

Join ISSA for our monthly luncheon on the topic of Application Security.

Click here to register online. Lunch for this event is complimentary, and is being funded by the generous support of our chapter sponsors. We do ask that you pre-register online, so that we can plan ahead for food.

When: Thursday, May 15, 2014 - Doors open at 11:30AM. The event will end at 1:00PM.

Lunch will be provided.

Presentation: Conrad Clark will be leading a discussion on the topic of application security, entitled: “Do you trust your software?” During this presentation we will discuss the concepts of; secure development, application testing, and security program management.

Conrad is a Security Solutions Architect with the Enterprise Security Products Group within HP. He is an expert in the area of application security testing and development. He has seventeen years of experience in IT Technical and Managerial experience. He had focused on Security and Security Services since 2004. He obtained his CISSP in March of 2005 and his CISM 2009. He has been working specifically in the area of application security since 2006. Prior to his civilian career, he served honorably on active and reserve duty in the United States Marine Corps for ten years.

Price: This luncheon is subsidized by chapter memberships and sponsors, and is complimentary. We do ask that you pre-register online, so that we can plan ahead for food.

CPEs: The chapter maintains proof of attendance for members but it is the members responsibility to ensure that these CPE's are credited to their respective accounts. This luncheon will offer 1 CPE per hour of attendance.

Chapter Elections We will be holding a vote for chapter officers at the May meeting. The roles and candidates are listed below; please contact a current chapter board member if you are interested in running or in serving as a committee chair/committee member.

Position: President

Candidate: Bowe Hoy

Position: Vice President

Candidate: James Trumper

Position: Secretary

Candidate: Amber Pham

Position: Treasurer

Candidate: Eric Dwyer

Chapter Sponsors

ISSA Portland would like to thank our 2013-2014 program year sponsors, who help make high quality programs like this possible:

Platinum Sponsor: Rapid7

Gold Sponsor: IBM

Silver Sponsor: Sword & Shield Enterprise Security

Silver Sponsor: Zscaler

Our lunch sponsor for this event is Hewlett Packard.

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.

What:

Behavioral Analytics - new approach to mitigating insider threats and compressing incident response time to answers.

Insiders account for 48% of data breaches and incident response, on average, takes 42 days to complete. Historically, data protection solutions have followed the threat: moving from the perimeter, to the network, to the server, to the application, to the user, and now to the data itself. Current efforts to secure “structured data” held in repositories such as internal file servers, databases and content management systems are very mature and fully deployed, but protecting against privileged access insider threats and understanding the magnitude of breach can be vexing. These methods do not protect changes to the threat of protecting intellectual property - unstructured file based data that is stolen for financial gain or perceived slight by privilege access users and add complexity to incident response programs. During the presentation we will discuss best practices in behavioral analytics applications and security information event management correlations to compress the time to time to answers.

Who:

Mark Bennett is the VP of Sales at FileTrek: focused on business development, partnerships, client acquisition and customer satisfaction. Mark has over 20 years of experience helping commercial and public sector clients solve complex IT and IT-Security challenges. Aligning new and creative solutions to real-world customer problems is Mark’s specialty. Mark has held management positions with foremost industry companies including Accuvant and Cisco. Most recently Mark was VP of Sales for IDMWORKS, a top ten Identity and Access Management consultancy. From 2008 until 2011, as a member of the executive team, Mark helped Accuvant grow sales from $145 million to over $350 million.

Mark graduated in 1981 from University of North Carolina with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Business Administration.

QA Expert Panel Discussion! Come on Over: Eat Pizza and Talk QA!

at Con-Way 2055 NW Savier, Portland, OR 97209 on Wednesday April 16th, 2014 at 5:30pm until 7:30pm

Event is FREE and Open to the Public

Sometimes you just want to get together and TALK!! Sometimes you have questions that you just would like SOMEONE to answer. Sometimes, you get great ideas by just listening to others talk about things that have been a thorn for you! AND sometimes you just want to tell someone else about how cool it was to solve a problem, or finish a large scale project. We know all this, mostly because we're in QA too, and have experienced it all as well.

SO - Let's do exactly that! We bribed several very knowledgeable folks with pizza - and asked them to sit up front and let us ask questions, like "What's your favorite method for starting up brand new automation?" and "How do you handle repeatability/reusability in terms of data management in testing?" and "Hey, I've got a stubborn DEV who won't talk with me, what do I do?" (Well the answer to that one IS pizza, maybe even ribs. But that's just our personal opinion.)

Come join us for Pizza and some great QA discussions with a panel of engineers who have "been there, done that"... we have some ideas about what to talk about - but bring your own questions!! Everyone can participate, we can ask all sorts of questions on any variety of topics, so don't be shy about asking! We look forward to seeing you there!!

Agenda: 5:30-6:00PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Let the discussions begin!

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

SQAUG Presents: Building Automation on Business Concepts – Michael Cowan, SQE Viewpoint Construction SW Topic: Building Automation on Business Concepts - A Real World Example

Come participate in an open discussion of advanced automation concepts using real world examples from Viewpoints massive ERP Solution. There will be an initial presentation on key concepts, followed by a code review of real tests and ending in an open discussion of how these concepts can be applied to your work

The presentation will focus on how Viewpoint has structured its automation framework to focus on common business concepts and not a single technology. We wi ll show you how a single test can be written so it runs against a WinForm UI, Web UI, REST API or even directly against a database.

This framework was implemented in C# (but I have implemented Java and Scala versions at past companies) and was executing test cases in less than 30 days. Everything we discuss will be targeted at how to get something viable up and running in less than 30 days

About Our Speaker: Michael Cowan 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 successf ul automation frameworks

Agenda: 5:30-6:00 PM: Pizza and Networking 6:00-6:15PM: SQAUG Announcements 6:15-7:30PM: Michael Cowan will discuss automating business concepts, and any questions you’ve sent.

Details: . Event is Free to the public · On site 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 discuss ions, 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

Presentation: Pitfalls of Web Session Management

Login session management in modern web applications is largely applications dominated by use of HTTP cookies. However, HTTP cookies were never designed for secure applications, which has led to a significant number of protocol security problems. In this talk, the speaker will start with a brief background on why HTTP cookies are a poorly-conceived mechanism to begin with, and continue with a discussion of how this impacts security. He will describe several lesser-known cookie-based session management problems that remain wide spread and allow for session hijacking through a variety of clever attacks.

Who:
Timothy D. Morgan
Principal Security Consultant - Blindspot Security LLC
As an application security consultant and vulnerability researcher, Tim has been taking deep technical dives in security for over a decade. In that time, he has been credited with the discovery and responsible disclosure of numerous security vulnerabilities in a variety of software products, including: IBM Tivoli Access Manager, Sun Java Runtime Environment, Google Chrome Web Browser, OpenOffice, Oracle WebLogic Application Server, and IBM Websphere Commerce. His current research interests include applied cryptanalysis, IPv6 security and XML external entities attacks. Tim develops and maintains several open source forensics tools in addition to Bletchley, an application cryptanalysis toolkit.

Tim works to secure his customers' environments through black box testing, code reviews, social engineering evaluations, security training and a variety of other services. Tim earned his computer science degrees from Harvey Mudd College and Northeastern University and currently resides in Portland Oregon where he leads the local OWASP chapter

Cost: $10 (member) / $15 (non-member) / $2 (at-the-door)

CPEs: The ISSA meetings are appropriate for CPE credit. The chapter maintains proof of attendance for members but it is the members responsibility to ensure that these CPE's are credited to their respective accounts.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking presentations that will make you more successful in your job. In July we look at Agile BI and Data Management.

Speed, flexibility and iterative development have become critical success factors in BI and Data Management as organizations realize that there is no such thing as "set in stone project plans". Now, agility shouldn't stop at the project management level, it should also be engrained in the tools, the data model designs and the processes. From reporting, to analysis, to the database all the way to data integration and master data management, teams should focus on creating agility all the way and carefully choosing solutions and partners accordingly.

What are the latest "agile" benchmarks, how to take advantage of new technologies, what are the impact on project design are among the discussion points that will be shared with the attendees.

Our Speaker, Gauthier Vasseur, is a great speaker and thought leader in BI. Although the topic is BI and Agile, you can get a lot of questions answered and learn some vital information.

The DAMA Portland Chapter is dedicated to delivering thought provoking presentations that will make you more successful in your job. In June we take an exciting step away from the hard science topics to explore how to be more effective.

How many times have you delivered solutions that were never adopted or fell short in acceptance? If you’ve been around IT and projects long enough, you will know this truth - that success depends on the adoption of new systems, applications etc. by people. The skills that enable delivery are not the same skills that promote acceptance and use. While project management tends to focus on delivery of something, Transition Management (TM) focuses on the people part of solutions. At places like Nike, transition management is taken very seriously and all major projects have a Transition Manager assigned:

• Transition Management is a structured approach, and set of tools, to transition individuals, teams, and organizations from a current start to a desired future state

• A leadership competency for enabling change within organization

• A strategic capability designed to increase change capacity and responsiveness

No matter the project or change size, Transition Management should be always a consideration. Ignore TM at your own risk.

Transition management is more than just a learning plan. Done correctly, TM is a whole lot more. Nike's Transition Methodology is an evolution of the Bridge's Change Management Model.

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

A guide for the beginner: How to start up small with automation, and build up your portfolio! How to make your testing life easier!!

GUEST SPEAKER: Alan Ark, QA Manager at Compli

Alan Ark is the QA Manager at Compli, in Portland, Oregon. Alan has gained tremendous experience working for Unircu, Switchboard.com, and Thomson Financial – First Call. Mr. Ark has previously presented ‘Euro: An Automated Solution to Currency Conversion’ at Quality Week ’99, and ‘Collaborative Quality: One Company’s Recipe for Software Success’ at PNSQC 2008 and YES! You CAN Bring Test Automation to Your Company! at PNSQC 2011. At Compli, he is using Ruby to solve problems both large and small.

His LinkedIn profile can be viewed at http://www.linkedin.com/in/arkie

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.

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 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!

The Balanced Scorecard and Strategy Map (BalSC-StratMap) combination is an increasingly popular strategic toolset that all OD practitioners should become familiar with. Not only is the BalSC-StratMap a powerful tool for turning strategies into executable realities, it is also liable to arrive in the OD practitioner's environment without warning (often by way of the CEO or a board member learning about it at a seminar and becoming enthusiastic). The prepared OD professional will be able to help make the BalSC-StratMap a success. Without significant OD assistance, BalSC-StratMap initiatives may flounder and fail.

Just as significantly, BalSC-StratMap approaches can directly assist in boosting individual productivity by providing three of the Five Preconditions of Top Performance. In this program, Tom Cox will elaborate on this relationship and lead us in creating a BalSC-StratMap for Oregon ODN. As a result of the session, participants will have an experience-based perspective on BalSC-StratMap and how it affects both organizational and individual performance. Multiple samples will be shared, along with templates and a bibliography of sources.

Cost: Free to current members in good standing of ODN, ASTD-Cascadia, PHRMA and PMI. The cost for non-members is $10. The $10 fee can be used to offset the annual membership investment of $75.00 if paid at the program.

About the Speaker

Tom Cox is a successful consultant, author and speaker. He has worked in industries ranging from retail to wholesale to manufacturing to government to business services -- for firms including IBM, Oracle, Tektronix, ODOT, Intel, Regence Blue Cross, Standard Insurance, OHSU and dozens of others.

Tom is the author of one book, countless articles, and he co-authored the chapter on Metrics and Performance Improvement for a textbook on Medical Trauma Care. A frequent writer, his column runs twice a month in Oregon Business Magazine’s online edition.

A graduate of the University of Chicago, Tom earned his four-year degree in psychology in just three years, with honors. Tom was the 2002 Libertarian candidate for Governor of Oregon.

We learn more, more quickly, and more deeply, once we redefine true learning as fluency, and play our way to getting there.


"Where are your Keys?", a language learning game system developed by Evan Gardner, is an integrated set of teaching techniques that creates fluent speakers in a language without resorting to textbooks or homework.  You can play the game anywhere, anytime, with anyone, so long as you have a single fluent speaker of the target language.


Because "Where are your Keys?" is a game, learning how to play the game also trains you to teach the game.  You can take your level of fluency and teach another person up to your level.  It is a way for a community to rapidly teach themselves a language by making every learner a new teacher.


"Where are your Keys" teaches not only language, but principles of learning that can be applied to any skill or field of knowledge.


Rather than presenting a lecture, Evan Gardner and Willem Larsen will actually run and debrief the game so everyone will have a hands-on experience (and a spankin' good time!).

For July’s meeting, Diana Larsen will run a retrospective for us. We’re going to cover the last year of XPDX activities.

This will be a good chance to see a well-run end of project retrospective. It’ll also be a chance to come weigh in and change what we do for next year.

Beer afterward will be at the Lucky Lab a few blocks from the meeting place (given our discoordination last month, we decided to figure the most important parts out ahead of time).

I hope to see several of you there.