The document is a presentation on distributed agile testing given by Janet Gregory. It discusses challenges with distributed teams such as communication difficulties due to time zone differences and lack of face-to-face interaction. It provides strategies for effective collaboration and communication when teams are distributed, including using video conferencing, pairing remotely, and integrating testing with development. The presentation emphasizes the importance of experimentation and adapting practices to overcome issues unique to distributed teams.

1. TP
PM Tutorial
4/30/13 1:00PM
Distributed Agile Testing:
Yes, You Can
Presented by:
Janet Gregory
DragonFire, Inc.
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888-268-8770 ∙ 904-278-0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

2. Janet Gregory
Agile testing coach and practitioner Janet Gregory (@janetgregoryca) is the coauthor of Agile Testing: A
Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams and a contributor to 97 Things Every Programmer Should
Know. Janet specializes in showing agile teams how testers can add value in areas beyond critiquing the
product. For the past ten years, she has been working with teams to transition to agile development. Janet
teaches agile testing courses and tutorials worldwide, contributes articles to leading publications, and
enjoys sharing her experiences at conferences and user group meetings worldwide. Find more information
at janetgregory.ca or visit her blog.

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StarEast 2013
Orlando, Florida
Janet Gregory, DragonFire Inc.
Copyright 2013
With input from Lisa Crispin
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Twitter: @janetgregoryca
janet@agiletester.ca
www.janetgregory.ca
My experience comes …
As a tester, working on co-located agile teams,
several distributed teams
Coached interviewed distributed teams world wide
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Let’s learn a bit about your experiences
-
Different cities, same time zone (or 1 hr. apart)
Time zones more than 3 hrs difference
More than 7 hrs difference
More than one continent
More than 3 remote teams
Others?
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What are your issues with distributed teams?
Don’t forget to consider testing issues…
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15 - 20 minutes to capture issues
Then debrief & share
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•
•
•
•
Cost savings
Mergers & acquisitions
Remote availability
Lack of expertise
in-house
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• Able to hire the ‘right’ people
◦ Independent of where they live
• Leverage time zones to your advantage
◦ Shorten feedback cycle
• More diversity
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• Extra communication efforts
• Time zone differences
• Dependencies
• Less productive
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Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… on limitations / benefits?
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Distributed teams means cultural issues. Many
teams just don’t take it into consideration.
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Norms & values
History, habits
Language
Interactions
Infrastructure challenges
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• Accents
• English as a second language
• Attitudes – assertive vs. reserved / humble
• Saving face
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Infrastructure Challenges
What we
think of as
“normal”,
may not be
for everyone
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It’s relatively simple for a co-located team to
adapt to agile, make the values’ their own,
and follow the principles.
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• Lack of trust
• Lack of face time
• Splitting work between teams
• Collaboration / Communication
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• Give the benefit of the
doubt to team members
• Think constantly of
distributed teams
members
• Extend help to others
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Get entire team in one place
◦ At the start of the project
◦ Regular intervals (if possible)
• At a minimum,
individuals spend
time in other
locations
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• Divide up work
• Use time zones to your advantage
• What are some ways to do this?
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Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… cultural & team challenges?
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• Collaboration means ...
◦ Working together to find solutions, etc.
• Communication means ... sharing
◦ Ideas, information, decisions, solutions, etc.
◦ Understand the media
◦ Know the audience
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• Set up communication channels so all team
members have access to
◦ decisions made
◦ planning sessions
◦ meeting notes
• Lowest common denominator for
communication
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• Common orientation
• Off –shore teams
• Acquired teams
• New remote team members
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Let’s talk about tools & practices for
communication & collaboration
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• Email
◦ Broadcast, individual, follow-up on
conversations
• Photos – task boards, smart boards
• Videos
Remember .....
• Emails do not show emotions and
can be misinterpreted
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• Telephone
• Chat rooms
• Wiki
• Collaborative automation tools
• Mind-mapping tools
• Remote pairing: VPN, Skype, instant messaging,
desktop sharing
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• Use video whenever possible
◦ Skype, Google phone, teleconferencing
• Put faces on stories and tasks
◦ Physical task boards
◦ On-line systems
◦ Use avatars
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• Dedicated laptop on
wheels
• Good headsets
• Good microphones
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Anybody have any other
suggestions / stories to share
about tools they’ve used
successfully?
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Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… on Tools?
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• Tests provide feedback
• Tests show desired behaviour
• Developers think about testability
• Testers think about the big picture
• Multiple skill sets mean better solution
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• Keep the feedback cycle short
• Remove dependencies early
Note:
Feature teams
are preferable
with all team
members
co-located
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Picture by Augusta Evangelisti, based on diagram from Elisabeth Hendrickson
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How is testing affected when you have feature
teams vs. component teams?
Generate some ideas about how to split work
between teams so that collaboration can happen.
Let’s share
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The story: As Amazon marketing manager, I want
to offer free delivery options, so that customers
will buy multiple items at once.
Acceptance:
Orders of 5 or more books get free delivery
Discuss at your tables, and come up with various
examples that might make the story more clear.
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The story: As Amazon marketing manager, I want
to offer free delivery options, so that customers
will buy multiple items at once.
Acceptance:
Orders of 5 or more books get free delivery
Now,
exchange the examples with another table.
• Do you think that this might work with a remote
team?
• Would it help clarify what was wanted?
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• Power of 3
• Pairing
• Question
• Draw pictures
• Repeat verbal
conversations in
writing
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• Continuous integration
• Integrate testing and coding
• Use common tools
◦ Version control
◦ Test frameworks
◦ Defect tracking
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Consider
operations /
maintenance
teams for
support of tests,
code
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• Share information
• Share awareness of
dependencies
• Keep everyone “in
the loop”
• Same vision
• Same goal
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Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… on Key Practices?
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• The right support
◦ For self-organizing teams
◦ Extra positions for liaison
• Foster a learning culture
◦ Tolerate mistakes
◦ Personal safety
• Give time to
experiment, to try
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• Schedules
◦ Overlapping times
◦ Meetings
◦ Share the pain
• Use retrospectives
◦ Identify problem areas
◦ Experiment with solutions
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• Pick one of the challenges from the first
exercise
• What experiments might you try?
• User flip charts, markers, sticky notes...
• Prepare to share top experiment with the
group
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Instead of saying NO,
or being the gatekeeper
Be the information provider so
business can make the decisions
Questions… on adapting?
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• Whole team
• Small chunks of work
• Use your diverse skills
• Respect culture: yours and others
• Give teams time to experiment, learn
• Maintain discipline
• Avoid silos – geographical or functional
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Think of new ways to collaborate and communicate
Remote team
member
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Collaborate to innovate
or
Innovate to collaborate
Use retrospectives to improve!!
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31. 13/03/2013
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for
Testers and Agile Teams
By Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
www.agiletester.ca
Contact info
www.janetgregory.ca
http://janetgregory.blogspot.com/
Email: janet@agiletester.ca
Twitter: janetgregoryca
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• Practices for Scaling Lean & Agile Development: Large,
Multisite and Offshore Product Development with Large-Scale
Scrum, Craig Larman and Bas Vodde, Addison-Wesley, 2010
• Agile Software Development in the Large: Diving into the
Deep, Jutta Eckstein, Dorset House, 2004
• Fearless Change: Patterns for introducing new ideas, Linda
Rising and Mary Lynn Manns
• Agile-testing@yahoogroups.com
• Pictures taken on safari in Kenya and Tanzania with Nature
Encounters Tours, British Columbia
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• www.lisacrispin.com
• Rothman Consulting Group, Inc. Vol 9, #5: Building Trust in
any Team
• Version One - State of Agile Development Survey:
http://www.versionone.com/pdf/7th-Annual-State-of-AgileDevelopment-Survey.pdf
• http://leadingsoftwaretestinginanagileworld.blogspot.co.uk/2
011/03/distributed-agile-test-teams-making-it.html
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