Active Feedback Loops in Software Testing

While testing we miss opportunities to act. Can testing become a call to action? Can testers hold a leading role driving decisions and getting things done?
Testing can be focused on taking action.
Feedback loops can be established between testers and programmers, test leads, other testers, subject matter, scrum masters, product owners, customers, and users.
Feedback loops apply to traditional or agile methods and are particularly valuable in regulated projects.

Feedback from the testers can guide programmers to improve code quality and adjust programming methods especially when a cluster of related bugs is identified. Feedback from programmers to testers can lead to revising the scope and depth of testing and better understanding technical risk.
Feedback from product owners and customers can help testers understand business context factors which influence testing and test reporting.
Feedback from testers to product owners and customers can build confidence in product quality influencing go no go deployment decisions.
Feedback to testers from users can offer a much-needed dose of realism to the scenarios and data exercised in a session.
Testers can suggest improved tools and test design techniques.
All stakeholders can guide testers in how to make their findings more relevant Take always:
By the end of this presentation delegates will be able to:
improve product requirements early, before implementation begins
to use feedback loops to influence software design decisions
identify when and how feedback loops fit in personal and team software process
to dynamically adapt the focus, scope and depth of testing based on active feedback
to influence process, change in self-organized teams
to improve product quality find the bugs that matter sooner

Robert Sabourin, AmiBug.Com, Inc.

Robert Sabourin has more than forty years of management experience, leading teams of software development professionals. A well-respected member of the software engineering community, Robert has managed, trained, mentored, and coached thousands of top professionals in the field. He frequently speaks at conferences and writes on software engineering, SQA, testing, management, and internationalization. The author of 'I am a Bug!' the popular software testing children's book, Robert is an adjunct professor of Software Engineering at McGill University. Robert is the principal consultant (&president/janitor) of AmiBug.Com, Inc.

Chris Blain, Director of Software Engineering, AmiBug.Com, Inc.

Chris Blain has more than twenty years of experience working in software development on projects ranging from embedded systems to SaaS applications. He is a former board member of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference and a semi-regular conference speaker. His main interests are testing, distributed systems, programming languages, and debugging.