EuroSTAR Software Testing Conference 2012 presentation on Evolving Agile Testing by Fran O'Hara. See more at: http://conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/past-presentations/

1. Evolving Agile Testing
Fran O’Hara, Inspire Quality Services
www.eurostarconferences.com
@esconfs
#esconfs

2. We provide Agile, Quality and Process Improvement Services such as
 Consulting/Coaching:
– Strategic advice and hands-on Coaching/mentoring in areas such as agile, testing, process
improvement, etc.
 Training public/inhouse:
– Lean/Agile: Certified/Advanced ScrumMaster, Succeeding with Agile/Scrum, Agile project
management, Agile Testing, Product Owner training, Lean/Kanban, etc.
– Testing (ISTQB Foundation and Advanced Test Manager/Analyst, Risk-based testing, Test design
techniques, Testing for developers, TMap®, Peer Reviews, UAT, etc.)
– Requirements/Business analysis
– Software project management
 Assessments
– Agile practices
– Industry standards and models such as CMMI®, TPI®, TMMi®, etc.

3. Agenda
 Setting the scene
 Requirements and Testing
 Agile Test Strategy
 Tester role

4. The Major Agile/Lean Methods
• Scrum (1995) – PM Oriented
– Timeboxing
– Prioritized backlog
– Daily standup meetings
– Demo after each iteration
– Correct the process through
lessons learned
XP (1999) – Engineering Oriented
• (A)TDD, refactoring, pair programming,
continuous integration, simplicity, whole
team, planning game, …
Kanban(2010) – Continuous Improvement
Visualize
Reduce WIP
Manage Flow
Make process Policies Explicit
Nurture effective feedback loops
Improve Collaboratively (using scientific method) 4

5. Some Underlying Shifts…

6. 6
How agile changes things
• Whole Team Approach - collaboration
• Coding and testing are integrated rather than distinct
phases
• Early and frequent feedback
• TDD/ATDD practices
• Test-infected developers, better automation strategies,
better designed tests
Always working software

7. Agenda
 Setting the scene
 Requirements and Testing
 Agile Test Strategy
 Tester role

8. User stories - CCC
As a <role>
I need <action>
so that <result>
Card
As a customer I search for
users so that I can view their
details
Value: Med
Risk: Low
Estimate: 3 pts
INVEST
Conversation
Confirmation
•I can find users
•I can use any search
criteria I need
•Once found I can view
details
•….
 Independent
 Negotiable
 Valuable
 Estimable
 Small
 Testable
BDD:
In order to <benefit>
As a <role>
I want <functionality>

9. Purpose of confirmation/acceptance
criteria
define the boundaries for a user story/feature
help the product owner answer what she needs in order for this feature to
provide value (typically these are the minimum functional requirements)
help the team gain a shared understanding of the story/feature
help developers and testers to derive tests
help developers know when to stop adding more functionality to a story
9

10. Level of detail in
confirmation/acceptance criteria
Try to keep relatively high level
Detail goes into
• Memory or internal team documentation (notes) – can include
wireframes and screen mockups, validation rules, etc.
• Automated acceptance tests (ideally defined to be understood
by all)
Note: examples make excellent acceptance criteria
(see Specification by example by Gojko Adzic)
10

11. Agenda
 Setting the scene
 Requirements and Testing
 Agile Test Strategy
 Tester role

12. Agile Testing Quadrants

13. The Automation Pyramid
Manual Tests
e.g. exploratory
GUI layer
e.g. Selenium
API/Service layer
Acceptance Tests
e.g. Fitnesse, Cucumber
Unit/Component layer
Developer Tests
e.g. JUnit
Automate at
feature/workflow level
Automate at
story level
Automate at
design level
Based on Mike Cohn

14. Maintaining Context
PRIORITY
GRANULARITY
14

15. Sprints and Testing Strategy
Sprint 1
Dev + Test*
Sprint 2
Dev + Test*
Sprint 3
Dev + Test*
Additional testing Additional Testing
*Sprint test = Automated Unit & Acceptance, Manual Exploratory
Within a Sprint may need to perform additional testing as part of a defined but adaptive testing
strategy e.g.:
– Feature/’epic’ or workflow level testing
– Combination/feature interaction testing
– Business cycle & end-to-end scenario testing – exercising multiple stories, end of month
processing, etc.
– Performance testing
– Usability testing
– Security testing
– System integration testing
 Note: Ideally any testing needed should be included within the Sprint rather than being
deferred….otherwise are we defining one ‘Done’ for Sprints and another for Release…?
Evolve to fully Working Software!!
Additional testing
…

16. Agenda
 Setting the scene
 Requirements and Testing
 Agile Test Strategy
 Tester role

17. Role of tester
• Involved continuously from start…e.g.
– Facilitate communication between the
technical & business stakeholders
– Support early validation of requirements
– Help the customer/business stakeholders define
acceptance criteria
– Support creation of automated acceptance tests
• Or define for developers to script
– Expand scope of ‘acceptance’ tests
• see agile testing strategy
– Advise the team about overall risks and trends
– Perform manual/exploratory tests
• Needs ‘technical awareness’

18. Role of developer in relation to testing
• Perform code reviews
• Use static analysis tools
• Perform effective unit testing
– Automated ideally using TDD achieving structural
coverage
• Perform component/component integration
testing
– Again ideally automated, API/Service level
• Support testers in Acceptance/System testing
– Frameworks for automated API/Service level testing
– GUI based automation
18

19. From: Lisa Crispin, 2011 19

20. Evolving from sequential to iterative/incremental
Sprint 1 Sprint 2
Code Code
Code &
Bug Fix
Test
Sprint 1 Sprint 2
Code
Code &
Bug Fix
Test
Code
Code &
Bug Fix
Test
Sprint 1 Sprint 2
Code & Bug Fix
Test
Code & Bug Fix
Test
A
B
C

21. Key Opportunities to Innovate & Renovate
21
Backlog
grooming

22. Fran O’Hara
InspireQS
www.inspireqs.ie
fran.ohara@inspireqs.ie
Q&A