1. Mob Testing
Lessons from a Year of #MobTesting
Maaret Pyhäjärvi (@maaretp)

2. Maaret Pyhäjärvi
• Empirical Technologist
• Tester
• Programmer
• Catalyst for improvement
• Organizer
• Speaker
• Blogger at visible-quality.blogspot.com
• Author on Mob Programming Guidebook (LeanPub)
Mob Testing
Who am I?

3. What is Mob Testing (and Programming)
Defining the Basics

4. "All the brilliant people working on the
same thing, at the same time, in the
same space, on the same computer."
-- Woody Zuill (the discoverer of Mob Programming)
Mob Testing
Defining Mobbing

5. Mob Testing
It’s Not This!

6. Mob Testing
Mobbing Setup

7. For an idea to go from your head to
the computer it must go through
someone else’s hands”
*http://llewellynfalco.blogspot.fi/2014/06/llewellyns-strong-style-pairing.html
Mob Testing
Strong-Style Navigation

8. Rotate: driver, designated navigator, navigators
No thinking at the keyboard
Yes, and…
Kindness, consideration and respect
Rotate: driver, designated navigator, navigators
No thinking at the keyboard
Yes, and…
Kindness, consideration and respect
Mob Testing
The Rules

9. Mob Testing
It’s a Game a 7-yo Wants to Play

10. My Mob Testing Experience
Working and Teaching in a Mob

11. Woody Zuill at a conference
Visiting Hunter Industries in San Marcos, California
Refactoring in a mob at Granlund, facilitated by
Llewellyn Falco
Various sessions in Java & C# on TDD and coding
techniques in mob format
Mobbing at work: selenium, approvaltests,
component changes, cleanup of styles, refactoring
…
Woody Zuill at a conference
Visiting Hunter Industries in San Marcos, California
Refactoring in a mob at Granlund, facilitated by
Llewellyn Falco
Various sessions in Java & C# on TDD and coding
techniques in mob format
Mobbing at work: selenium, approvaltests,
component changes, cleanup of styles, refactoring
…
Mob Testing
A Non-Programmer Meets Mob Programming

12. Mob Testing
An All-Female Hackathon
…Learning programming by osmosis

13. Programming Selenium Tests
Stealth exploration while mob
programming
Correcting mistakes without egos in
play
Sharing exploratory testing tasks in a
mob format
Moving from teaching in pairs to
teaching in mob
Programming Selenium Tests
Stealth exploration while mob
programming
Correcting mistakes without egos in
play
Sharing exploratory testing tasks in a
mob format
Moving from teaching in pairs to
teaching in mob
Mob Testing
Mob Programming Meets Exploratory Testing

14. Exploring in a Mob
Creating a Varied Learning Experience

15. Building habits and transferring skills
over passing knowledge
Mob Testing
Habits and Skills Take Time to Form

16. Speaking about testing in strong-style
Working better in a group
Working away from confirmation bias, being active
Building a map of an application (mindmup)
Learning the purpose and features of an application
GUI-based: Dark Function Editor for Spritesheets
API-based: ApprovalTests Unit Testing framework
Finding and isolating bugs
Introducing heuristics and tools
Speaking about testing in strong-style
Working better in a group
Working away from confirmation bias, being active
Building a map of an application (mindmup)
Learning the purpose and features of an application
GUI-based: Dark Function Editor for Spritesheets
API-based: ApprovalTests Unit Testing framework
Finding and isolating bugs
Introducing heuristics and tools
Mob Testing
Skills

17. Mob Testing
Testing as Performance vs. Testing as Artifact Creation

18. Mob Testing
What Testing Gives Us
UnitTesting
ExploratoryTesting
SPEC
FEEDBACK
REGRESSION
GRANULARITY
GUIDANCE
UNDERSTANDING
MODELS
SERENDIPITYTesting as artifact
creation
Testing as
performance

19. A 360 degree view into what people see
happen
Also things people see happening that did
not happen
A discussion on what we’re observing
Mob Testing
An Observations Retrospective

20. The Usual Concerns
Wouldn’t We Get More Done Individually?

21. Mob Testing
Why?

22. A great way to
• learn hands-on
• teach and add stuff the group is missing
Encourages innovation and bringing in the best of everyone
Mob Programming
• Best ideas win when you care about work over credit
• From Technical Debt to Technical Assets
• People improve things they would accept alone
• Long-term relationship builds psychological safety
A great way to
• learn hands-on
• teach and add stuff the group is missing
Encourages innovation and bringing in the best of everyone
Mob Programming
• Best ideas win when you care about work over credit
• From Technical Debt to Technical Assets
• People improve things they would accept alone
• Long-term relationship builds psychological safety
Mob Testing
How Can It Be Worth the Effort?

23. Group work is multiplication, not sum.
1.0 x 1.0 x 1.0 x 1.0 = 1.0 “normal achievement”
1.0 x 1.2 x 1.0 x 1.0 = 1.2 “infectious excitement”
1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 = 2.1 “shared lift of spirits”
1.0 x 1.2 x 0.5 x 1.0 = 0.6 “the bad apple”
0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 = 0.4 “shared discouragement”
While you’re learning or contributing, mob is the place for you.
Mob Testing
J.T. Bergqvist Formula

24. Mob Testing
From Getting Started to a Functional Mob

25. Mob Testing is a great way to transfer exploratory testing skills
… for your team’s developers
… for other testers
You have great ideas even if you did not know how to turn them to
code – removing the distance is worth the struggle.
Mob Testing
Summary
Maaret Pyhäjärvi
Email: maaret@iki.fi
Twitter: @maaretp
Blog: visible-quality.blogspot.fi

26. Questions?
Maaret Pyhäjärvi (@maaretp)
http://dojo.ministryoftesting.com/