The Program Committee continues to put a lot of energy and enthusiasm into the tracks this year. Having more speakers and shorter breaks was a popular change for the past 2 years that will be carried forward this year in combination with bringing back the ‘poster papers’. We’ve simplified the tracks to 3 main areas to include a wide range of topics targeted for managers, developers, testers, and other software engineering professionals dedicated to software quality. Thinking in terms of these tracks may help focus topics for proposals.

Process and Tools

In practice, developing quality software involves applying a combination of good engineering processes and methods, tools and technologies, implementation techniques, and infrastructure support. Quality is multidisciplinary and weaves throughout a product, service, and organization. Whether you are an experienced technology professional or just starting your career, PNSQC believes that by sharing your experiences and interests our quality community becomes stronger and more dynamic. Topic examples in this track include:

Management, Leadership, and People

Behind every great product there is a great management team. To create a quality organization, growing and attracting quality managers and leaders is essential. This track is focused on exploring management concepts, techniques, and case studies that aspiring or experienced leaders can share and learn from.   Management topic examples:

• Growing and managing highly motivated teams
• Project and product management
• Leadership development and people management skills
• Collaboration and communication techniques and methods
• Managing Agile teams and projects
• Scaling Agile across an enterprise
• Leveraging diversity, inclusion, and culture in the organization
• Mentoring and skill-sharing
• Managing risk in a fast-paced organization
• Maintaining product quality while increasing delivery velocity
• Applying transformational leadership to an organization
• Quality process management examples:
  • Software Development
  • Product Ownership and Change Management

Emerging Technologies and Concepts

One thing all new technologies have in common is the need for quality engineering, testing, operations, and management. Novel technologies and processes can create new industries that require a fundamentally different way of thinking about quality.  Understanding emerging technologies stimulate new ideas, imagination, and opportunities for learning new strategies. By sharing your challenges and solutions or if you just have a passionate interest that you are following, PNSQC would encourage you to share your knowledge.   Emerging Technology topic examples:

• Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
• Autonomous Things (AuT) – Software, Drones, Home devices, Vehicles 
• Artificial Intelligence/ Machine Learning 
• Cybersecurity – Supply chain and GPS hacking, Deep fake detection, facial recognition
• Big data – Data lakes, Data mining, Security
• Blockchain – Security, Hybrid networks, Swarming, Real-world applications
• Internet of Things (IoT) – Scaling, Management, Analytics, Low-power networks
• Chaos networks and testing