Call for Participation

Software Testing in Financial Services (STiFS) #5

www.stifs.org

Dates: Sunday & Monday, December 2-3, 2007

Location: NYC

Theme: “Getting Business Knowledge into the Heads of Testers”

STiFS is supported by the Association for Software Testing  (www.associationforsoftwaretesting.org)

The Association for Software Testing (AST) is a nonprofit professional service organization dedicated to advancing the understanding and practice of software testing. The AST serves a community of scholars, students, and software development practitioners by providing forums for discussion of all aspects of software testing through conferences, publications, web sites, and other services.

As “Business” and “Technology” continue to converge in the Financial Services industry, it is becoming increasingly valuable for Test technologists to advance their understanding of the Business.   Testers who possess both strong technical skills and business acumen are at an advantage in QA/Test departments at Wall Street firms.

Join us in a discussion about learning “Business Knowledge” in a financial-software testing context.  Questions that we will likely discuss, among others, include:

• In what ways can testers learn about the business?
• What techniques and methods are most effective in teaching the business to “QA”?
• Are there specific business facts, concepts, procedures, or skills that financial testers should know?
• How much, and what kind of learning of the Business do testers need to do?
• What about the Business should testers remember or understand?
• In what ways can testers apply this knowledge? 
• How will knowing the business result in better testing?

We are interested in hearing your stories about integrating “business knowledge” into the testing process.  Topics that we envision that could be presented at STiFS5, include personal experiences about any of the bullet items listed above. 

Additionally, we want to hear about your attempts, successful or otherwise, of teaching/learning any of the following for the purpose of improved testing, particularly in a financial environment:

• Business rules & logic
• Order/Trade flow
• Financial Algorithms and Models
• Quantitative Analysis
• Asset Classes/Financial Products
• Risk (financial)
• Credit Derivatives/Fixed Income
• Funds Transfer