Gerard's Presentations

My most widely-known work is my book, "xUnit Test Patterns - Refactoring Test Code" which you can learn more about by clicking on the "Home" link at the top of this page.

I have a number of presentations that I can give at your company's site or to a user group. These talks have beenpreviously presented at various conferences and user group meetings so I can present them at relatively short notice. The presentation include:

Improving the ROI of Automated Unit Testing. (1 hour)
Abstract: Automated test code is only an asset if it helps you build high-quality software faster. Without the appropriate attenstion and skills, the test code will inevitably slow you down. This presentation illustrates on techniques you can use to make test code very easy to read, write and understand as well as techniques to avoid having to make changes to the test code.
Concept to Backlog - How to get to Iteration Zero (90 Minutes)
Abstract: Most agile methodologies assume the product owner (or equivalent) shows up with a stack of story cards and a wad of cash and says "Let's go build some software!". But what really needs to happen to get us to this point? This presentation describes commonly used techniques that will help you define the product to be built, learn just enough about the architecture to hire the right people and estimate the cost and benefits, and to define an initial set of stories for development in the first few iterations.
Test Automation Architecture for the less technical (90 Minutes)
Agile leaders need to understand the critical role test automation plays in achieving agility. Do we really need automated unit tests? Why? And how about system / functional / story tests? What role do they play? Who should write them, and when? How do we earn back the cost of all this test automation? And how do we do it if we have a lot of legacy code? This presentation answers these questions in terminology the typical non-coding manager, architect or tester can understand. It also lays out several common test automation strategies and points out their strengths and weaknesses.
Right-sizing User Stories using Story-O-Types. (1 Hour)
User stories are a common way of communicating what should be built on an agile project. But what are user stories and how are they used? This presentation introduces the concept of user stories as a work planning mechanism. It describes the three key components of a user story: the (Story) Card, the Communication (discussion of the meaning of the card), and the Confirmation (the acceptance tests.) It also also describes techniques for right-sizing user stories to make sure they aren't too big to build in a single iteration or too small to provide valuable, testable functionality.
For Success, Build Test Automation into Your Application (1 Hour)
Most approaches to test automation involve testing the application through it's user interface. This approach is fraught with many problems including fragile, hard-to-understand tests and high test maintenance costs. There is an alternative: Build the test recording and replay capabilities right into the application. This presentation describes how and when you should do this.

Feel free to suggest other topics if you don't see something that piques your interest here.

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