Agile Testing Survey 2012
November 2012
Scott W. Ambler
www.scottambler.com
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
How To Use These Slides
• I have provided these slides, and the raw data behind
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• You may reuse all, or a part of, this slide deck as long as
you provide a clear reference to the source.
• The suggested reference is: Results from Scott Ambler’s
2012 Agile Testing Survey posted at
www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Some slides have notes
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
About the Survey
• Mid October to mid November 2012
• Survey link included in:
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www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ page
Tweet by @scottwambler
Posting to the Disciplined Agile Delivery discussion forum on LinkedIn
Tweets to attendees of Agile Testing Days 2012 in Potsdam (Nov 2012)
• Data, summary, and slides downloadable from
www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
• 178 respondents
– 26% were developers or modelers, 29% were agile coaches/mentors, 22%
were testers
– 67% had 2+ years of agile experience, 24% 5+ years
– 37% worked in orgs of 500+ people
– 20% North American, 69% European, 7% Asia Pacific
• Goal of the survey was to discover what approaches to testing agile
teams were taking.
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Agile Practice Adoption
Code Analysis
Cont. Deployment (CD)
Cont. Integration (CI)
TDD
ATDD/BDD
0%
20%
Not Adopted
40%
60%
Partially Adopted
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
80%
100%
Fully Adopted
Testing Strategies on Agile Teams
• 71% report that most or all of their developers test their own code
• 80% report that testers work very closely with programmers to test
throughout the project
• 48% report that team members pair on a regular basis
• 41% have an independent test team working in parallel to our
development team
• 30% have an independent test team that will be testing at the end of
the lifecycle
• 29% hold formal reviews of code or other artifacts throughout
development
• 68% hold informal reviews of code or other artifacts throughout
development
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Primary Approach to Acceptance Testing
Not doing it,
3%
End of lifecycle,
10%
Test First, 9%
Independent
parallel testing,
16%
Performed by
stakeholders,
24%
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Performed by
team during
Iteration, 38%
Primary Approach to Developer Testing
End of lifecycle,
2%
Not doing it,
3%
Test First, 25%
Testing by
Testers, 17%
Test After, 52%
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Challenges Adopting Agile Testing Approaches
Question: What has your team found to be the most difficult challenges
when adopting agile testing approaches? Choose up to three.
50%
37%
33%
33%
27%
21%
16%
13%
12%
8%
8%
Getting all testing done in the current iteration/sprint
Adopting test-driven approaches
Validating non-functional requirements
Getting stakeholders/customers involved with testing
Getting developers to test their own code
User interface testing
Learning to test throughout the lifecycle
Adopting new agile testing tools
Migrating existing testing and quality professionals to agile
Using our existing testing tools to support agile development
Remaining regulatory compliant
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
About SA+A
Scott Ambler + Associates (SAA) is a boutique consulting
firm that specializes in helping organizations adopt
disciplined agile strategies, particularly at scale. We offer
training, coaching, and transformation services.
Our website is www.ScottAmbler.com. We can help.
© 2012 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/