|
Sponsors
|
Click here to visit the Mercury download center
|
Click here to view the Insight Test Services
website
|
|
|  |
|
|
|
Issue 6
|
September 5, 2006
|
|
|
A very warm welcome to the September issue of STAR Tester from the chilly west coast of Ireland!
Please remember this year’s Early Bird Deadline is September 29th!
It may seem like a long time away but be aware this date is fast approching-Don't miss your chance to save €250 on conference fees.
This month we bring you a very special edition featuring articles from three of our Keynote Speakers- giving you to a sneak preview of the inspiring presentations you can expect at EuroSTAR 2006.
Manchester has a lot of surprises in store and is guaranteed to be BIG! This years Test Tool & Services Exhibition has sold out in record time and is not to be missed.
This issue also includes a letter from Jens Pas, Programme Chair, EuroSTAR 2006 outlining highlights in this year’s conference programme. 
Jens has kindly shared with us what he personally is looking forward to this December.
Kind regards,
Susan McAndrew
Editor
|
|
The Icing on the Cake! - Highlights of the Conference Programme.
|
| |
|
by Jens Pas, Programme Chair, EuroSTAR 2006
Dear Reader,
For those who already had their holidays, as I had, I hope they were relaxing and energizing. For those whose vacation is still expected, I wish you peaceful and safe days.
We are three months away from the European key-event for software testers, EuroSTAR. Time has come to evaluate the programme, the agenda and if all fits, to start planning the trip up to Manchester. As you know, earlybirds always have great benefits.- This years deadline is Friday, September 29th.
To help you evaluate this year’s programme, I’d like to highlight a couple of elements which the Programme Committee and myself were very happy to have been able to schedule for this year.
Read more »
|
|
Developing Testers: What Can We Learn From Athletes?
|
| |
by Paul Gerrard, System Evolutif, UK
 This article presents the first section of the paper that Paul is writing to accompany his keynote talk at EuroSTAR 2006.
1.1 Motivation for this Talk
This article is based on my experience of doing two things. Coaching rowers and coaching testers – two things close to my heart. There are some universal rules about coaching and I wanted to explore some of the commonalities between coaching athletes (rowers are athletes) and testers.
Read more »
|
|
Investing in The Dream Team: How to Keep The Dream Team Together
|
| |
by Filip Gydé, CTG, Belgium
 CTG is quite proud of the low staff turnover in the company. Thanks to the Competency Development system, among other things, the staff turnover at CTG was only 15.5% in 2005 and only 13.82% in 2004, percentages far below the market average.
CTG is an ICT service company. This means that we implement IT projects for customers, usually at their locations.
This also means that staff in the field often have more intensive contacts with the customer than with their own company. This is a real challenge for a company that is proud of its extraordinary high loyalty levels, both from customers and from staff.
How do you make sure that once you have the right people on board, you can also keep them on board?
How do you turn what is usually a big problem in the service world into a real differentiator in the market?
Read more »
|
|
The Captain of Your Special Teams……The Performance Test Lead!
|
| |
|
by Scott Barber, Perfectplus Inc, USA
You are familiar with the “Software Development as a Sports Team” analogy, right?
The project manager equates to the coach, lead developer to offensive team captain, test lead to the defensive team captain – where the entire team views the development process as collaborative and each member of the team is driven to produce his or her best work in order to achieve the team's common goal of delivering a “winning” application. Typically, this is as far as the model goes, but it doesn't account for some important members of the team – the specialists.
There are a variety of specialists that may be a part of your team: security experts, network engineers, configuration managers and performance testers, to name a few.
If we look to American Football, we find a structure to enhance our model to accommodate these team members.
Read more »
|
|
|
