When being a part of a highly dynamic agile team where requirements are changed almost weekly, it puts a high amount of stress on the test department to keep up with testcases and keeping existing updated correctly. I found my solution in mind maps, these provide a very visible and flexible solution to the testcase challenge. I will speak about a real life example of how mind maps helped me on my current project to create a better test process in an agile team. • Initial test process on the project • Challenges in an highly dynamic agile team • Different attempt to overcome the challenges • New test process • My experiences with mind maps

1. © Martin Mussmann and PrettyGoodTesting®
By Martin Mussmann
Mind Maps as part of the
Agile Testing Process
1EuroSTAR 2011 : W4A : Mind Maps As Part Of The Agile Testing Process

2. Who am I?
Test consultant at PrettyGoodTesting
ISTQB certified Test Analyst (adv. level)
4 years of test experience from:
• Small teams
• Agile projects
• Investment Banking
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3. Agenda
• Initial test process on the project
• Challenges in an highly dynamic environment
• Different attempts to overcome the challenges
• New test process
• My experiences with mind maps
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4. Type of project
Scrum team
Very dynamic business requirements
• Sometimes even changing from week to week
Low risk to business
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5. Initial test process
Test cases made for ”Man on the street”
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Week1:
Regression
testing
Week2-3:
Test case design
Week4:
Test of new
features

6. Initial project challenges
Changing requirements
• Wasted time on test design & test cases
• Bugs incorrectly reported
Hard to get developers and business analysts
to review test designs
• This caused a lot of mis-communication
Test cases hard to maintain
• Wasted test ideas
• Outdated test cases
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7. Old test case example
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8. Attempts to overcome challenges
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9. Mind maps as test design
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10. How do we draw mind maps?
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11. Mind map as test case
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12. New test process
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Same scrum cycle as development team

13. Lesson learned
So did we improve quality?
Well hard to tell but we managed to:
• Reduce time spend on creating test
design and test cases by a lot
• Improved review ability!
• Got a lot more time for actual testing!
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14. My experiences
More creative test cases!
Test ideas aren’t lost!
Developers asking to see mind maps!
More feedback on review!
Forcing new testers to ask and explore!
Focus on WHAT and NOT HOW to test!
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15. Questions and Comments
Please feel free to contact me
Martin Mussmann
Test Consultant
Mob: (+45) 3163 0212
MAMU@PrettyGoodTesting.com
LinkedIn: mmussmann@gmail.com
© Martin Mussmann and PrettyGoodTesting®
15EuroSTAR 2011 : W4A : Mind Maps As Part Of The Agile Testing Process