A deck for the RVA QA meetup for September. Subject: Agile QA.

1. Agile QA

2. Agenda
1. QA (15 min)
2. Agile (15 min)
3. Agile QA (15 min)
4. Success factors (15 min)
5. Antipatterns (15 min)
6. Testing quadrants (15 min)
7. Other gnarly tools (15 min)
8. General discussion (30 min)

3. Agile QA
(wild west)

4. what is Agile

5. Derived from Toyota

6. Andon lights at Kamigo Plant, 1966

7. Kanban storage area at Motomachi Plant, 1963

9. Based on Lean

11. An actual methodology

13. what Agile is NOT

17. what is QA

23. • Toyota
• About (challenging a product)
• A service
• A discipline
• Something humans do

24. So…Agile QA?

25. • the same
• except there’s no time

30. concepts:
• quality is shared
• testing is not a phase
• PO is gatekeeper
• automate when possible

31. Agile QA success factors!

33. • Everyone tests, quality is everyone’s job
– Different roles focus on different aspects of
quality (BA, Dev, UX, QA, PO)
– We’re all in this together

34. • Co-location
• Collaboration
• Concentration

35. • Awesome stories++
• Testers involved in user story creation
• Bonus: Test the requirements

36. But
first,
testing.
• Test first approach, push all types of testing as early as you can

38. • Have a common test specification language. Ex:
Gherkin
• Given, When, Then

39. Testers:
• Groom w/ team,
• Estimate w/ team,
• Plan sprints w/ team
• Retrospect w/ team

40. Don’t be this guy:

41. Be more like this guy:

42. Agile QA success factors
• Strong, robust defect management process
• Everyone on the same page
• Have agreed upon ‘definition of ready’, ‘development
done’, ‘definition of done’ checklists
• Favor face to face conversations
• Perform Root Cause Analysis

43. Cost of a defect

44. Agile QA anti-patterns
• Us vs. Them
• Lack of quality communication
• “Over the wall”
• Non co-located groups
• Lack of solid Defect management process
• Lack of adequate CI/DevOps practices
• “When will it be done?”
• Lack of focus
• Focusing on the ‘wrong’ defects

46. Tools/tips/tricks
• Stay close w/ PO a/o PM
• Stay close w/ Devs
• Don’t assure quality
• Prod bugs are not failure
• Don’t be a process improvement champion
• Scientific method & heuristics
• Get psychological
• Automating is really really hard. Ask for help.
• Bug bashes
• Plunge & quit (pomodoro-style)
• Session-based testing/ test charters/ testing missions
• Have fun

48. http://lisacrispin.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Agile-Testing-
Quadrants.png

49. Resources
http://agiletester.ca/agile-testing/
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide
for Testers and Agile Team
Lessons Learned in Software Testing
Book by James Bach
testersio.slack.com
rvaqa.slack.com (woot!)