Seven Key Factors
for
Agile Testing Success
Janet Gregory, DragonFire Inc.
With material from Lisa Crispin
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
1
Takeaways
ƒ
Keys to agile testing success
ƒ Ideas
Id
ffor overcoming
i b
barriers
i
ƒ Practical steps you can take today
ƒ
Even on non-agile team
….. But, first a bit of agile so everyone is on the
same page
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
2
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
An agile
g tester collaborates with the rest of the
team to deliver the best possible product
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
4
Look at the Big Picture
Use the Whole Team Approach
Adopt an Agile Testing
Mindset
Collaborate with
Customer
Build a Foundation of
Core Agile Practices
Key
Success
Factors
Automate Regression
Testing
Provide
o de and
a d Obtain
Obta Feedback
eedbac
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
The first
Th
fi t success factor
f t is
i the
th whole
h l tteam
approach. The whole team is focused on quality.
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
The Whole Team Approach
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
Team committed to testing, quality
Daily collaboration
Testers g
get support, training
g
Anyone can do any task
Testers transfer testing knowledge
Get the right people
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
7
Who’s On Your Team?
ƒ
Separate test team?
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
How could you integrate more with
developers?
How could you collaborate more with
customers?
Does your team have all the roles
roles, skills
needed?
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
8
# 2 - Adopt
p an agile
g tester mindset
Instead of
– We’re here to break the software!
Think
– What can we do to help deliver
the software successfully?
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
9
Agile Testing Mindset
ƒ
Apply
pp y agile
g p
principles
p
and values
ƒ
Continually improve
ƒ
N t th
Not
the ‘Q
‘Quality
lit P
Police’
li ’ or gate-keepers
t k
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
10
What Can a Tester Do?
• Be Proactive – Try new things
• Don’t sit and wait for things to come to you
ƒ Take
T k responsibility
ibilit ffor your own personall
development
ƒ
ƒ
Read books
Join the yahoo testing group
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
The 3rd success factor is ‘Automate your regression
testing’. That will enable you to do more exploratory
testing
testing.
Mike Cohn
Cohn’s
s Test
Automation Pyramid
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
Regression Test Automation Issues?
ƒ
Make it a team problem to solve
ƒ Get over “hump
hump of pain”
pain
ƒ Unit tests have best ROI
ƒ GUI smoke tests option for legacy code
But choose tool carefully
Effo
ort
ƒ
Time
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
13
Regression Test Automation Issues?
• Drive development with tests
• Design for testability
• Team chooses tools
• Team effort
• Start simple
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
14
Agile Testing Quadrants
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
15
Providing and obtaining feedback is the 4th success factor.
Testers provide feedback throughout their testing efforts
efforts.
They collaborate with customers to obtain information.
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
Feedback
ƒ
Core agile value
ƒ Team uses feedback to improve
p
ƒ Testers are expert feedback providers
ƒ Feedback lets team make course
corrections
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
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Focusing on Feedback
ƒ
Big Visible Charts
ƒ
Retrospectives
ƒ
Email test results from build process
ƒ
Take advantage of short iterations
ƒ
Discoveries during exploratory testing
ƒ
Collaboration with users, customers
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
18
Make information
visible
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
Building a foundation of core agile practices
is success factor 5.
• Continuous integration
• Test environments
• Manage technical debt
• Working incrementally
• Make coding & testing part of one process
• Synergy between practices
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
Another core value is simplicity. Ask what is
th simplest
the
i l t thi
thing that
th t can possibly
ibl work?
k?
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
21
Implementing Core Practices
ƒ
Self-organizing team
ƒ Plan stories/tasks to build infrastructure
ƒ “Refactoring iterations”
ƒ Baby steps – address one thing at a time
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
22
Number 6 is Customer Collaboration.
• Set priorities
• Elicit examples
• Power of 3
• Ask what problem are they trying to solve?
• Work with the customer to understand their true need
y risks so customer can make best decision
• Identify
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
Getting Customers on Board
ƒ
Build trust
ƒ Learn their jobs
ƒ Ask for concrete examples
examples, scenarios
‰
‰
ƒ
“How will you use this?”
“Wh t’ th
“What’s
the worstt th
thatt can happen?”
h
?”
Facilitate developer-customer communication
‰
But don’t get in the way
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
24
Last, but not least
g at the
is ‘Looking
Big Picture’.
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
Look at the Big Picture
ƒ
Use business-facing tests and examples
‰
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
ƒ
to drive development
Not only stories, but features, and workflow
Use real world test data
Think about impacts on other areas
Use exploratory testing
Use the Agile Testing Quadrants
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
26
Whole
Team
Mindset Change
Core Agile
g
Practices
Automate
Regression Tests
Customer
Collaboration
Provide
Feedback
Big Picture View
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
27
A an agile
As
il ttester,
t stretch
t t h
yourself and expect
changes
g in yyour new
agile life.
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
Now Available
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide
for Testers and Agile Teams
By Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
www.agiletester.ca
My contact info
www.janetgregory.ca
j
t
http://janetgregory.blogspot.com/
[email protected]
@ g
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
29
Agile Testing Resources
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
www.lisacrispin.com
[email protected]
http://www.exampler.com - Brian Marick’s web site
www.testobsessed.com
www.testingreflections.com
t ti
fl ti
www.mountaingoatsoftware.com – Mike Cohn’s web site
((and all his books))
Agile Manifesto: http://agilemanifesto.org/
Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck, Lean Software
D
Development,
l
t 2003 Addi
Addison-Wesley
W l
Jean Tabaka, Collaboration Explained, 2006 Addison-Wesley
Lisa Crispin and Tip House
House, Testing Extreme Programming
Programming,
2002 Addison-Wesley
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire
A more questions
Any
ti
?
Copyright 2009 Janet Gregory, DragonFire