STRATEGY FOR SUCCESSFUL
COMPLETION OF TEST
AUTOMATION DEBT USING
AGILE PROCESS
Michael Burnside
Tw itter : @ SQ AE vangel ist
B l og: http:/ / sqaevangel ist.bl ogspot.c o m /
Softw are Qu ali ty A ssu rance, Qu ali ty Engi neeri ng, and Web and
Mob i le Test A u tomati on Exp ert
22 May 2013
Strategy for successful completion of Test
Automation Debt using Agile process
Table of Contents:
1. Definition of Test Automation Debt
2. Decision of automation debt strategy
3. How to build the teams
4. What the teams should focus on
Strategy for successful completion of Test
Automation Debt using Agile process
What is the correct test automation debt elimination strategy for
my organization?
• Answer: it depends on a few factors:
• 1) Is the effort of automating test cases only going to be done on
current test cases and not new ones identified during Agile
sprints?
• 2) Will the effort focus on only new test cases identified during
Agile sprints?
• 3) Will it be a combination of 1 and 2? This is almost entirely 100%
of what will be decided to do.
Strategy for successful completion of Test
Automation Debt using Agile process
So, assuming that your organization will be automating some
previously existing test cases and new ones identified during Agile
sprints, a good strategy is to:
1.
First make sure any test automation is using a strong testing
framework with adequate reporting capabilities and can be run
on a Continuous Integration server
2. Create a team to focus on previously identified test cases
3. Create a team to focus on current Agile stories
Strategy for successful completion of Test
Automation Debt using Agile process
Other recommendations:
1.
Don’t put too much emphasis on making sure the 2 teams (the
one automating previous test cases and the one focusing on
automating current sprint stories) have constant communication
between the teams.
2. Allow them to focus on the task at hand, and allow each member
to focus and become an expert on one particular area of the app
and become fast and efficient at it.
3. Don’t worry about test automation test case duplication –
probably will not happen a lot.
4. The main focus is to allow each team to focus on their product
area and automate as fast as possible while still maintaining high
quality of test code.
Strategy for successful completion of Test
Automation Debt using Agile process
Other recommendations (continued):
1.
Create wiki page support with instructions on how to run the
tests for each group of tests (assuming using TestNG).
2. Think of the manual QA team as a ‘customer’ to the test
automation team as ultimately, the tests are mainly to benefit the
manual QA team extend code coverage testing.
3. Have manual QA team constantly verify what is being tested and
acceptance criteria is being met for all test cases.
4. For the team that is automating the previously created test case
backlog, DO NOT put a time limit or set deadlines for work to be
finished – allow the team to work at a pace that allows for the
creation high quality and very supportable test code.
Strategy for successful completion of Test
Automation Debt using Agile process
Thanks!
I sincerely hope this presentation was useful to you and that your
company or organization implement the information and process in
this presentation to the fullest extent.
If you have any feedback, please feel free to get in touch with me
(via Twitter) at @SQAEvangelist. I would love to hear very
constructive comments on how to improve this presentation and
make it more effective.