Will Agile turn the test world on its head?

Peter Kalmijn

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Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing

software by doing it and helping others do it.
Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on

the right, we value the items on the left more.
www.agilemanifesto.org
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Why to go Agile anyway?

» Shorter time-to-market
» Better product quality
» Reduced waste of resources and material
» Better predictability of the end product
» Heightened team morale

DO not use Agile

» Safety critical systems
» Without interaction with the customer
» With monolithic large teams
» Without management support

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How do I recognize real ‘Agile’?

» Iterations are used to develop the product

» Each Iteration delivers a working product
» Phases (Design-Build-Test) in each iteration are nearly
concurrent
» The team uses specific practices to keep the growing
product fresh and flexible
» Teams are self-managing
» Lean principles and techniques eliminate waste wherever
possible
» Team members are highly skilled and disciplined

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What Agile testers do
The agile testing role might evolve
and change into something
completely different from what we
know of as testing today
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» Facilitate communication between the technical & business
stakeholders
» Support early validation of requirements
» Help the business stakeholders define acceptance criteria
» Create automated acceptance tests
» Expand scope of ‘acceptance’ tests
» Advise the team about overall risks, trends and progress
» Perform manual/exploratory tests on early-stage product
» Help to determine if your stories are well defined
» Suggest adding stories related to testability
» Do exploratory testing on early builds
» Verify the completion of stories as they are completed
WHAT does Agile change for testers?

‘The nature of the tester's role changes in iterative projects. We are no longer the high-
profile victims, we are no longer the lonely advocates of quality, we are merely (!)
competent service providers, collaborating with a group that wants to achieve high
quality.’
Cem Kaner

An Agile tester..
» will communicate more, with your coders and your
customers.
» will need to have a deeper understanding of the
technology and the code (or will rapidly gain)
» practices pair testing, i.e. collaborates with the
developers to get good tests you will share more
risk, and feel an increased sense of ownership
» is part of the team and attend all team sessions
» is an integral part of the planning game
» will no longer be the gatekeeper

the role of testers on Agile teams is still emerging

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 Agile test projects differ .. .. Agile people too

Conservative, plan- Agile

oriented
Outcome process guarantee, result guarantee
repeatable
(Test) Plan driven, taskmaster guiding vision,
Project communicating
leader
Plan Following the Plan Responding to change

Processes Defined work processes Simple rules & open

and controls information

Teams Fixed roles Organic teams

Stakeholders upfront involvement Active Stakeholder

participation
Design Big upfront design Evolving according to
Stakeholder Value

Delivery Delivery on the end of the Short increments and

project frequent delivery in UAT
and BAT to real users
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 Evolving Agile test strategies

Trend
» Towards hybrid / blended approaches
» Appropriate testing strategies motivated by risk

Practice
» Feature wise pre-acceptance the Agile way
» Final acceptance (Business Acceptance Test) at the end

Combinations of agile elements with traditional approaches

» Long and mid-term estimation/planning: traditional plan driven
» Agile highly iterative/incremental approach

You can use all agile some of the time and some agile all of the time.
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 Discussion
Testing will never be the same
again..

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
9 Custom presentation- or document control name Responding to change over following a plan