Model-Based Testing for ALM Octane: Better tests, built faster

Editor's Notes

• #2: Thank you all for joining today’s webinar. This session is presented by Vivit, your independent Micro Focus Software User Community. I’m your moderator, Tom Pryce. Today, James Walker will be presenting on “Model-Based Testing for ALM Octane”.
• #3: This webinar is presented by the UK and Ireland Local User Groups of Vivit, in conjunction with Curiosity Software Ireland. The slides will be shared after the webinar - I encourage you to click through to check out both Local User Groups and see all the great events they run.
• #4: Both the UK and Ireland User Groups focus on Application Delivery Management, IT Service Management and Security. They organise in-person meetings, in Dublin and London, as well as virtual events. Both groups focus on organisational, methodological and technical questions. They specialise in technologies like ALM, Octane, and UFT. Joining these groups is a great way to share ideas and learn from each other. It’s also a great opportunity to communicate feedback to Micro Focus.
• #5: If you’re already a member of Vivit, you’ll know about all the amazing work they do. It’s a fantastic community, offering both education and career development. It also does great advocacy work on behalf of its membership.
• #6: So onto today’s speaker. It’s my pleasure to introduce my friend and colleague at Curiosity Software Ireland, James Walker. James is Director of Technology at Curiosity, specializing in model-based testing and test automation. He holds a PhD in visual analytics and today applies this expertise to crafting effect QA solutions. You can contact James via email or LinkedIn and can also use the link on screen to book a meeting via Calendly.
• #7: Before we start, a quick bit of house keeping: Today’s live session is intended for all Vivit members. The on-demand recording, slide deck and questions will be posted on the Vivit website, visible for all members. They will also be made available to you directly – we’ll send links via email. If you have questions as we go along, please type and send them in using the Questions Pane in the webinar control panel. We’ll have a live Q&A at the end. 
• #8: Here’s where you can find the Questions Pane. Open your GoToWebinar control pane, typically found in the top-right, and type your question in the Question Pane. Then hit send. Okay, with no further ado, over to you James.
• #18: “Continuous Testing with Models: Eradicating barriers to rigorous testing”. This title already raises the question of how we are define “Continuous Testing”, as numerous definitions exist. I will not provide a concise definition now, but will offer some preliminary premises for the rest of the session: Firstly, ‘continuous’ implies that QA activity is happening all the time. Across QA, this means teams must be able to work in parallel, free from cross-team constraints. In the context of the whole delivery pipeline, that means that QA must start from day one – it must “shift left”, as opposed to a siloed approach where testing begins only after design and development have passed on a system to test. Secondly, to test ”continuously”, I need to work seamlessly from the efforts of previous iterations. If I am having to spend time checking and manually maintaining test artifacts from previous sprints, this is preventing me from testing the new functionality. Furthermore, the amount of time required for maintenance will grow with each sprint, as the complexity of the system grows. I am then faced with the choice of focusing on new functionality, or allowing invalid tests and technical debt to grow. In neither instance am I testing rigorously, and nor is testing therefore properly “continuous” – I am testing all the time, but only because I am leaving large chunks of the system untested. Lastly, testing “continuously” for most organizations will not mean merely testing all the time and indefinitely. Testing will usually have a formal ‘end point’, defined by the length of a sprint or iteration. Continuously instead means being able to test at every stage throughout this iteration, and ideally we should be aiming to test all new functionality introduced to a system within the iteration it was introduced. Meanwhile, we need to regression test all existing functionality impacted by any changes made during an iteration, as otherwise a system is being left exposed to defects. Rigorous testing of ever-complex systems within ever-shorter sprints in turn demands a greater degree of automation, being able to take software from design to testing seamlessly within six weeks, for instance. This preliminary remarks have therefore introduced a few principles of Continuous Testing that will run throughout this session. Namely parallelism, an unsiloed approach, shift left testing, the Don’t Repeat Yourself” or “DRY” Principle, and a fully automated pipeline.
• #23: Brilliant, thank you for the interesting presentation and demo James! We’ll now have a live Q&A – if you have any questions, please do type them in the Question Pane of the Go To Webinar Control Panel.
• #24: Please do keep an eye on the Community Calendar for future events. The UK and Ireland Local User Group are ourselves working towards a virtual Octane roundtable and in-person user groups. So please keep an eye on the Vivit website for more information! Here are two upcoming evens that might be of interest to you – First a German speaking virtual event on the 29th, brought to you by the Testing, Quality and Application Lifecycle Management Special Interest Group. That one will focus on Agile Development and testing with ALM/Octane. Secondly, the New England User Group and Micro Focus are presenting an event on June 9th. That will focus on “Smarter Testing. Superior outcomes.”
• #25: We’d love to hear from you if you have any feedback about today’s session or would like to help steer the direction of future events. If you are in the UK and Ireland, you will receive a survey specifically about the future events held by these Local User Groups. Please do take the time to fill it out and we’ll create the events you want! Everyone will receive a short survey after the webinar ends – we’d love to hear your feedback! Thank you for attending today’s Vivit TQA SIG webinar! Just a reminder that the on-demand recordings and slide deck will be posted to the Vivit website. In the next few days, you will receive an email with those links.
• #26: Thank you James and thank you everyone for joining!