Abstract/Description

Regardless of whether your data warehousing (DW)/business intelligence (BI) team is dedicated to Scrum, a fan of Kanban, or focused on XP, “Agile” in any form calls for small increments of potentially deployable results – which means that QA is essential on a regular, frequent basis. As we develop these small increments, we need to not only test the new development, but also regression test what we’ve already built. Our test suite grows larger with each iteration, and manual testing quickly becomes infeasible. Agile requires that we automate our tests so that regression testing doesn’t become a development bottleneck.

Test automation is one of several key technical enablement practices that allows teams to be more successful in their agile journeys. While there are lots of test practices and automation tools out there for software development teams to leverage, very few are targeted to data-related development and testing. Agile analytics practitioner Lynn Winterboer and DW/BI architect and developer Cher Fox will share essential agile test foundations and data-focused test automation technologies to help data warehousing and business intelligence teams get a leg up on this important agile practice, including a demo of how this works!

Agenda:
* Why is test automation important for agile DW/BI teams?
* Why aren’t all DW/BI teams automating their tests today?
* What is the path to data-focused test automation?
* Where to start? What tests to automate first?
* Demo of a simple test automation tool any DW/BI team could build and use

Additional Resources

About the Speaker(s)

Ms. Fox has over 30 years of programming & 25 years of data analytics, technical writing & SW development experience, which also includes over 15 years of specializing in DW and BI development in multiple industries. She has held the corporate positions of Customer Services Manager for an international software development group, IT Manager for a national risk management company, and is currently the President/Principal DW/BI Solution Architect at Fox Consulting, a Denver based firm specializing in client self-service enablement by leveraging existing technologies, high level management & operations process re-engineering, & DW/BI development/implementation consulting & coaching. Cher is passionate about improving performance & quality in DW/BI processes, automating “spreadsheet madness” & time consuming manual processes, reverse engineering reporting challenges to improve data quality, reliability & scalability, & improving management decisioning & operations efficiency overall. She enjoys advising on & participating in the development of DW/BI/SW projects in various roles in all stages of the SDLC. As a jack of many practices/tools (master of several), Cher often consults in the early stages of projects to wear many hats while the scope of a project plan and the necessary short/long term resources are being defined. She is also a valuable liaison between the business & IT as well as a safety net on existing projects if a resource is unavailable/eliminated and the project role still requires fulfillment. Cher is a board member for the Colorado Chapter of TDWI (The Data Warehouse Institute.) She is also very active in the SQL community, collaborating at local SQL Saturdays, SQL Server users group, PASS Summits and BA conferences.

Lynn Winterboer coaches and educates DW/BI teams on how to apply agile principles and practices to their work. Ms. Winterboer’s career has focused on Agile and BI, serving in various roles within both professions. Lynn understands the unique set of challenges faced by DW/BI teams who want to benefit from the incremental, value-focused approaches of Agile and Lean development. She leverages her experience and training to help deliver practical solutions for her clients and students. Lynn is Co-Chair of Mile High Agile 2017 and 2018, a 2-day, 850-attendee event in Denver, CO. Lynn also organizes the monthly Agile Denver Data & Analytics Meetup, which offers participants insight into data-focused perspectives on topics such as agile QA/testing, user stories, slicing epics, acceptance criteria, story mapping, kanban, continuous integration, agile data modeling, evolutionary design, and scaling agile practices for large data-focused teams. Ms. Winterboer was a founding co-chair of the nation’s first post-graduate degree in business analytics, the MSBA at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Lynn has worked in a variety of industries, including high-tech manufacturing and distribution, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, banking, retail, education, and Internet security. Clients have included Cigna, Walmart, Intel, Capital One, The University of Colorado, Janus Henderson Investors, Amgen, Abbott Vascular, Bank Rate Insurance, Cobank, Wells Fargo, Dairy Farmers of America, Sports Authority, Polycom, MXLogic (now McAfee), GE Access (now Avnet), McDATA (now Brocade) , Level 3 Communications, Premera Blue Cross, SunPower, University of Denver Daniels College of Business, McKesson Health Solutions, and the State of Colorado. Ms. Winterboer is a frequent speaker at industry user groups and conferences such as Mile High Agile, Agile Denver, TDWI and DAMA chapters, and Agile 2016. She teaches throughout North America and Europe for The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) and The Cutter Consortium. Sample Publications: 1. “Why is it So Hard to Find Experienced Product Owners?” Guest Post on Lissa Adkins website, Coaching Agile Teams. http://www.coachingagileteams.com/2014/05/28/womeninagile/why-is-it-so-hard-to-find-experienced-product-owners/ 2. “BI Product Owners Love an Agile PMO!” Published by Cutter Consortium in Executive Update. http://winterboeragileanalytics.com/2014/02/agile-pmo-role/ 3. “Agile DW/BI Testing – Just Get Started” by Ken Collier and Lynn Winterboer Published by TDWI BI This Week. http://winterboeragileanalytics.com/2014/01/agile-dwbi-testing/ Website: LynnWinterboer.com