Original Software will be giving a presentation in London this week on the challenges of using test tools in an agile development environment, and the company will be taking a hard look at the different conditions in which automated versus manual testing should be employed.

Original Software has announced its participation in the Ovum Strategy Briefing; Software Testing and Performance Management, where frequent industry speaker George Wilson, general manager of Original Software, will give a presentation on agile test automation. The event will be held September 22 at the Cavendish Conference Centre.

Wilson’s presentation titled, "Agile Test Automation: Truth, Oxymoron or Lie?" will investigate what determines the short and long-term success of test automation, what to automate, and what to test manually. Wilson will explain how you can manage the jump to automation in an agile environment and how it can be done in a seamless, painless manner.

Agile project management teams need to adopt technology that adapts to a company’s process for agile. However, many agile teams have had a limited choice of test management and automation tools, which often seem rigid and inflexible to use in such a fast moving development environment.

“The truth of the matter is that traditional test tools struggle to work in an agile environment,” says Wilson. “These kinds of tools only really suit application testing that involves long development cycles and strict change management regulations. Otherwise, they simply won’t work. This is mainly due to the fact that they were designed to work in a ‘test last’ environment, whereas the agile model is more a ‘test first, test continuously’ model,” he says.

“The agile ethos has to be one of tight communications and close-knit working groups in order for the project to be successful," Wilson says. "Typically, legacy tools require users to have specialist skills and the cost of licenses for these products is so huge that many organizations tend to only buy licenses for just a few select members of a team. This goes against agile principles,” concluded Wilson.

The Ovum Strategy Briefing is aimed at senior testing practitioners and managers, focusing on trends, futures, and the big issues in test management. It aims to encourage networking and bringing like minded executives together to discuss techniques, approaches and tools, and to disseminate good ideas within the industry.

For more information or to book a place at the strategy briefing, visit http://www.butlergroup.com/briefingIntroduction.asp?mcr=STPM220910&scr=STPM220910

About Original Software: www.origsoft.com With a world class record of innovation, Original Software offers a solution focused completely on the goal of effective quality management. By embracing the full spectrum of Application Quality Management across a wide range of applications and environments, the company partners with customers and helps make quality a business imperative. Solutions include a quality management platform, manual testing, full test automation and test data management, all delivered with the control of business risk, cost, time and resources in mind. More than 400 organizations operating in over 30 countries use Original Software solutions. Current users range from major multi-nationals to small software development shops, encompassing a wide range of industries, sectors and sizes. We are proud of our partnerships with the likes of Coca-Cola, Cargill, HSBC, FedEx, Pfizer, DHL and many others.

About Ovum: www.ovum.com Ovum is a telecoms, IT services and software company that analyses changes, threats and opportunities ahead for our clients including small companies, Fortune 500 corporations, and governments around the world. Ovum is part of the Datamonitor Group. Together, Ovum and Datamonitor provide leading European business information in the technology, information, communications and telecoms sectors.

About Ovum Strategy Briefings: http://www.butlergroup.com/briefings.asp Ovum Strategy Briefings are high-level, business-to-business events that bring leading IT suppliers and solution providers together with senior-level decision makers from end-user organizations. The format is quite unique, consisting of a keynote introduction by Ovum, followed by presentations from the primary sponsors and other participating sponsors. The day concludes with a forum debate, chaired by Ovum.