Janet Gregory's presentation at Knowit's Agile testing challenges -seminar 22.5.2014

1. Janet Gregory, DragonFire Inc.
Copyright 2014
Knowit, Helsinki
2014

2. Copyright 2014
DragonFire Inc.
First agile team – 2000
Currently – coaching, testing
Agile Testing; January 2009
Working on 2nd book: Fall 2014
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DragonFire Inc.
• Testing and agile
• Challenges and suggestions
• Importance of collaboration
• Wrap-up
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DragonFire Inc.
• have short feedback loops
• active customer participation
• demand whole team collaboration
• test features as they are coded
• deliver business value at regular intervals
• adapt their processes based on feedback
…and so on………….

5. Agile teams:
produce a continuous stream of value at
a sustainable pace, while adapting to the
changing needs of the business.
http://testobsessed.com/blog/2010/12/14/the-agile-acid-test/

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DragonFire Inc.
• more than “just” testing code
• an activity; not a phase
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Potentially shippable
product
Potentially shippable
product

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DragonFire Inc.
1. Testing doesn’t keep up with coding
2. Forgetting the big picture
3. Testers aren’t really part of the team
4. Trying to test everything manually
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DragonFire Inc. 8

9. Risk: The Mini-Waterfall

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• Stories aren’t tested completely
• Testers lose credibility
• Technical debt increases
• Team changes meaning of ‘DONE’

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DragonFire Inc.
• Include testing tasks in the velocity
• Involve whole team in story creation
◦ ensure stories are small and testable
• Get your developers used to immediate
feedback
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DragonFire Inc.
• Know your build pipeline
• Provide adequate test infrastructure
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DragonFire Inc.
Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… about not testing stories
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DragonFire Inc.
The red flags
• Testing only individual stories
• Finding integration bugs late
• Testing is based on what developers code
• Testing finds requirements type bugs
• Developers add extra code after they are
finished
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DragonFire Inc.
We only see the tip of the Iceberg
We don’t think of big systems
We only looking at our own team.
The Risks
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DragonFire Inc.
• Think system impacts
• Test data to reflect real world
◦ Examples, exploratory tests
• Draw pictures / workflows
• Understand the story before coding starts
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DragonFire Inc.
• Define “Release DONE”
◦ What needs to be in place?
• Define “Feature DONE”
◦ Acceptance tests for bigger picture
• Define “story DONE”
◦ Acceptance tests – expected behaviour,
misbehaviours
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20. Understand the business value !

21. ATDD (Acceptance Test Driven Development)

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DragonFire Inc.
Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… Remembering the Big Pic?
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DragonFire Inc.
• Testers aren’t in iteration planning sessions
• Testers test what the developers code
• Testers don’t understand the stories
Testers don’t
actively
participate
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24. • Wrong assumptions are made
• Impacts to the system are found too late
• Everyone’s skills are not utilized
• The team becomes divided
• Testers don’t know what is going on

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DragonFire Inc.
• Communication is through the
defect tracking system
• Developers use testers as a
safety net
• The team never ‘gels’
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• Project team doesn’t buy the ‘build quality in’
concept

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Tips for Tester Involvement

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DragonFire Inc. Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire 27
The Agile Testing Quadrants (adapted from Brian Marick)

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DragonFire Inc.
Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions about whole team?
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DragonFire Inc.
• Spending time retesting features already tested
• Not testing new features
• Not contributing to implementation / design
discussions
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• Testers miss meetings – too busy
• Regression suite not run regularly

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DragonFire Inc.
• Testing cannot keep up with new stories
• Features that used to work, are broken and
not noticed
• Testers don’t learn new technology
• Testers get stuck in a rut
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DragonFire Inc.
• Automate as you go
• Include automation time in your estimates
• Design for testability
• Chose tools that encourage collaboration
• Understand the power & risks of automation
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32. Common automation model
Automation
through the
GUI
Unit Tests

33. push
the
tests
lower

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“Living
Documentation”
David Evans, Gojko Adzic

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DragonFire Inc. 35
**Automation does not
exclude the need for
exploratory testing*

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DragonFire Inc.
Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… Automation?
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DragonFire Inc.
• Can’t “test quality in”
• Whole team thinks testing
• Team is committed to quality
• Whole team solves problems
• Everyone collaborates
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DragonFire Inc.
Agile testing is full of challenges
• Problems happen faster, so impact is felt faster
• Be courageous – be a change agent
• Adapt, Learn
Mostly, have fun
and enjoy the
challenge!
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DragonFire Inc.
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for
Testers and Agile Teams
By Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
www.agiletester.ca
Contact info
www.janetgregory.ca
Email: janet@agiletester.ca
Twitter: janetgregoryca
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DragonFire Inc.
• www.lisacrispin.com
• agile-testing@yahoogroups.com
• www.testobsessed.com (heuristics cheat sheet)
• Gojko Adzic, Specification by Example, 2011, Bridging the Communication
Gap, 2009, Impact Mapping 2013
• www.stickyminds.com/ Pragmatic Personas - Jeff Patton’s weekly
column 1/25/2010
• www.mountaingoatsoftware.com – Mike Cohn’s web site
• http://www.exampler.com - Brian Marick’s web site
• Ester Derby and Dianne Larsen, Agile Retrospectives
• Agile Manifesto: http://agilemanifesto.org/
• Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck, Lean Software Development,
Addison-Wesley (series of 3)
• Photos – Janet’s vacations or Microsoft office
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