WOPR14 Call for Proposals (CFP)   

The content owner, James Bach, along with the WOPR organizers, invites you to submit your proposal(s) for our next WOPR meeting. WOPRs are invitation-only mini-conferences, with attendance limited to 25.

Theme: Reliability Heuristics  

Conference Location and Dates

• CRIM, Montreal Canada 

• WOPR14: Thursday-Saturday, April 22 - 24, 2010

• Pre-WOPR Dinner: Wednesday, April 21, 2010

• Selections will be Completed By: March 7, 2010

• Deadline for Proposals: February 21, 2010

WOPR14 Theme Description  

A heuristic is a fallible method of solving a problem or making a decision. Testing, indeed all engineering, relies on heuristics. Since heuristics are fallible we must examine them to learn the conditions under which they are useful and in which they may fail. The immediate corollary of heuristic use is that you must gain the skill, knowledge, and judgment in order to apply them wisely.

One kind of heuristic is a "rule of thumb", which is a fast and frugal method that lets us quickly guess the solution to an otherwise difficult situation. Another kind of heuristic is a mnemonic, which helps us remember things under pressure. Indeed, any tool used by a practitioner that does not guarantee a complete and correct solution (for example a hammer, power saw, or regression test suite) is a heuristic.

We encounter familiar situations in our work every day, repeatedly deploying pre-determined solutions without thinking much about them. Our biases (often unrecognized) and our experiences drive our actions. Since these rules seem to be correct, or at least rarely proven wrong, we maintain them as valuable artifacts.

At WOPR13, we discussed performance testing heuristics. WOPR14 will be focused on heuristics for reliability testing. What are the reliability testing heuristics by which you work? How do you develop them? How well do your heuristics work for you? How do you assure that you are using them properly? Equally important, where have you been surprised?

For instance, how do you decide that you have done enough testing? How do you know your coverage and oracles were adequate to justify your analysis of reliability?

At WOPR14, we will discuss these questions. We will review specific first-person experiences, compare findings and share intuitions.

We hope to learn more about how to conduct effective, credible and timely reliability testing. We encourage insightful, talented people of varied experience levels and backgrounds to apply. Even if you do not believe you have a relevant experience, we welcome people who work in performance and reliability testing disciplines to contribute to the discussion.

Please bring us your first-person experience report that addresses one or more of these questions:

1.     What heuristics do you use to plan and conduct reliability testing?

2.     How reliable are your heuristics, and what are the exception cases?

3.     How do they help predict how systems scale - or fail?

4.     What happens if we apply them incorrectly?

5.     What are the characteristics of situations you have encountered where you have seen them before and neatly step ahead to plan, diagnose, an/or solve?

6.     Are there a certain characteristic ways failure rate and other measurements change as load increases?

7.     What do you know before you start?

8.     What rules are you developing right now?

9.     What rules have you recently abandoned?

Depending on what emerges during the workshop, WOPR may publish content developed for and during the workshop on the WOPR website, as part of an ongoing effort to support and grow the community of performance and reliability testing.

About WOPR

In the view of knowledgeable observers, WOPR attracts the best and the brightest performance testers and managers as participants. In fact, many participants have world-class reputations.

WOPR conferences are invitation-only, and generally are heavily over-subscribed. We have sometimes had to turn away two or more applicants for every one we invite.

Submitting a proposal to present at WOPR increases your chances of being invited.

We strive to make every conference an exquisite opportunity for learning and professional growth. They are intimate; we restrict attendance to less than 25 people per conference.

One of the important goals of WOPR is community building among performance and reliability test professionals.

WOPR conferences and tutorials are priced as close to free as we can make them, as we are a self-funded not-for-profit organization.

Read more on the about WOPR page. If you have questions, please contact the organizers.

Our Objectives

WOPR14 is seeking experience reports (ERs) of your relevant experiences and innovations from past projects and from your current initiatives (as-yet unfinished and unproven projects). For a description and samples of ERs, see the Paper Guidance and Case Studies & Papers pages on the WOPR web site.

We are more interested in effective presentations and enlightening exchanges than in formal papers. A detailed paper is welcome though not required. For your presentation, an organized outline is enough.

We are looking for informative, in-depth storytelling by experienced practitioners. Your proposal to present should contain enough substance for us to understand and evaluate it. Content is more important than format. Your presentation should omit any confidential data (anything that requires an NDA).

Reports and presentations are welcome over a broad range of topics related to performance testing. The test domain is broad and may include real-time embedded devices, web sites, and international telecom networks.

Dates and Requirements

WOPR invitations are chosen by the WOPR organizers from the applications submitted on the WOPR Web Site.

·         Call For Proposals Issued By:                           February 1, 2010

·         Deadline for Submitting Proposals:                February 21, 2010

·         Selections will be Completed By:                    March 7, 2010

·         Pre-WOPR Dinner: Wednesday                       April 21, 2010

·         WOPR14: Thursday-Saturday                           April 22 - 24, 2010

Costs

WOPR is a not-for-profit, low cost workshop, however we do have expenses and we ask the WOPR participants to help us offset these expenses. Thanks to the generosity of CRIM, our host, the expense-sharing amount for WOPR14 has set at $300. If you are invited to the workshop, you will be asked to pay the expense-sharing fee to accept your invitation.