The team was not co-located and worked in silos with no communication. The QA team found hundreds of defects each build. Tests took 48 hours to run and weeks to analyze results. The team adopted agile practices like co-locating, continuous integration, pairing, and automation to improve collaboration, find issues earlier, speed up testing, and reduce defects.

1. Huddle Your QAExperience ReportDawn CarvellPushpa Reddy

2. ContextWe were sent into project where the company has started to be agileThey had not delivered for 2 yearsThey had spent 6 months deriving 800 page requirement specificationWe were bought in to deliver itOne of our goals was also enable to continue after we leave

3. Problem DefinitionNot co-located yet in the same buildingThey did not have clue what the other people doing DevelopersManual TestersAutomation TestersNFR testersBAsIf an integration issue if found (which was very common) it took weeks to fix it

4. Testers test after developers complete development (usually months)Automation scripts took 48 hours in 14 parallel machines to executeIt took weeks to analyse results and to find whether the script failed for genuine reasonsDevelopers had no clue what scripts containQAs found hundreds of defect in each build, they were asked to not to find anymore defectsTo top it all off the QAs were threatened to lose their jobs if they can’t cope with change

5. What we did?Not co-located yet in the same building so that no one knew what anyone else are doingMoved everyone around so that the whole team was able to sit togetherThey did not have clue what the other people doing QAs sat with developersQAs paired with devs to write automated acceptance testsQAs paired with BAs to write acceptance criteriaTeam did regular performance testing

6. Automation scripts took 48 hours in 14 parallel machines to executeA tool which can integrate with continuous integration system was chosen for frequent execution of testsWe used light weight tool which took lesser time to execute the testsTests were carefully selected and incrementally built to cover just enough and no more than necessary

7. If an integration issue if found (which was very common) it took weeks to fix itDue to continuous integration bugs were fed back faster and issues were fixed earlier in the life cycle which costs lessContinuous communication also helped in fixing the defects found in manual regression and exploratory which were still fresh in devs minds

8. Testers test after developers complete development (usually months)As we had continuous integration we were able to get a build anytime we can, so that we could test story by story basisThis also gave us a confidence in the build because the tests are successfully passed

9. It took weeks to analyse results and to find whether the script failed for genuine reasonsAs the test suite is continuously built as the development is done, it was easier to find the reason for failing test (it’s more likely that new test is failed)Checking in small changes if the build failed its more clearer that the new change had caused the fail.

10. Developers had no clue what scripts containAs QAs and devs paired to write acceptance test, the entire team was in a sync about the contents of test suite

11. QAs found hundreds of defects in each build, they were asked to not to find anymore defectsLess number of defects were found per build as we were continuously testing