a dozen keys to agile testing maturity

MI AM Tutorial

10/13/2014 8:30:00 AM

"A Dozen Keys to Agile Testing

Maturity"

Presented by:

Bob Galen, Velocity Partners

Mary Thorn, ChannelAdvisor

Brought to you by:

340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073

888-268-8770 ∙ 904-278-0524 ∙ [email protected] ∙ www.sqe.com

Bob Galen

Velocity Partners An agile methodologist, practitioner, and coach based in Cary, NC, Bob Galen helps guide companies in their adoption of Scrum and other agile methodologies and practices. Bob is a principal agile evangelist at Velocity Partners, a leading agile nearshore development partner; president of RGCG; and frequent speaker on software development, project management, software testing, and team leadership at conferences and professional groups. He is a Certified Scrum Coach, Certified Scrum Product Owner, and an active member of the Agile and Scrum Alliances. In 2013 Bob published Scrum Product Ownership–Balancing Value from the Inside Out. Reach him at [email protected].

Mary Thorn

ChannelAdvisor A QA director at ChannelAdvisor in Morrisville, NC, Mary Thorn has a broad testing background that spans automation, data warehouses, and web-based systems in a wide variety of technologies and testing techniques. During her more than seventeen years of experience in healthcare, HR, financial, and SaaS-based products, Mary has held manager and contributor level positions in software development organizations. She is a strong leader in agile testing methodologies and has direct experience leading teams through agile adoption and beyond.

1

Keys for Transitioning to Agile

TestingMyths & Realities from the Trenches

Bob Galen

[email protected]

Mary Thorn

[email protected]

Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC 2

Introduction

Bob Galen

� Independent Agile Coach (CSC) at RGCG, LLC

� Principle Agile Evangelist at Velocity Partners

� Somewhere ‘north’ of 30 years overall experience ☺

� Wide variety of technical stacks and business domains

� Developer first, then Project Management / Leadership, then Testing

� Senior/Executive software development leadership for 20 years

� Practicing formal agility since 2000

� XP, Lean, Scrum, and Kanban experience

� From Cary, North Carolina

� Connect w/ me via LinkedIn and Twitter @bobgalen

Bias Disclaimer:

Agile is THE BEST Methodology

for Software Development�

However, NOT a Silver Bullet!

2


Introduction

Mary Thorn

� Mary Thorn is the Director of QA and Agile Coach at

ChannelAdvisor in Morrisville, North Carolina,

� Mary has a broad testing background that spans

automation, data warehouses, and web-based systems

in a wide variety of technologies and testing

techniques.

� During her more than fifteen years of experience in

healthcare, HR, agriculture, and SaaS-based products,

� Mary has held manager and contributor level positions

in software development organizations.

� She has a strong interest in agile testing methodologies

and direct experience leading agile teams through

Scrum adoption & beyond.


3


Outline – Myths & Realities

Introduction

1. Transforming your Team

2. Automation

3. Developers & Automation

4. Developers Testing

5. Test Planning & Scripts

6. Testing within the Sprint

7. Exploratory Testing

8. Role of Testers

9. Developer to Tester Workflow

10. Managing Agile Testers

11. Test Metrics

12. Retrospectives – The Secret Sauce

13. Continuous Improvement

14. The Customer

15. Agile Requirements – The Product Backlog

� 3-Pillars of Agile Testing & Quality


#1, Transforming your team

� Myth: You need all programmers or highly technical

testers when you move to agile

� Reality: A mix is best –

� Manual, domain-centric and technical skills

� Some programming / scripting skills

� Soft / collaborative skills

� Reality: And throw out all of that Developer-to-Tester

ratio ‘stuff’.

4


#2, Automation

� Myth: You need 100% automation to start

agile testing.

� Reality: You simply need to have a strategy AND

doggedly pursue automation where it makes sense

� Make it part of the Backlog and work it every sprint

� Reality: There are some excellent Open Source tools

that supplement agile automation development

� Reality: The Agile Test Automation Pyramid is the right

overall strategy

Agile Test Automation PyramidMike Cohn; Lisa Crispin & Janet Gregory

http://behaviordrivendevelopment.wikispaces.com/Testing


5

Brainstorm…

Agile, Multi-tiered Automation

� Get together in small groups of 4-6 to discuss

� Take a few minutes and think about your current

automation approaches:

� Tooling, approaches & strategies, strengths, weaknesses,

opportunities, maintenance challenges, future technology, etc.

� What sorts of adjustments would you need to make to

take this approach?

� What would be the largest challenges in taking this

approach? How might you overcome them?

� Do you “buy” the whole-team view to automation?



#3, Developers & Automation

� Myth: QA designs, writes & runs all of the test

automation

� Reality: Everyone should be responsible for automation

� Developers need to minimally attend to Unit Level

� Participate in any framework or re-use development

� Writing ‘glue’ code – fixtures, step files, etc.

� Reality: It also extends into your Build & Continuous

Integration systems

� All automation should be ‘wired’ into CI

� Dashboards, trending, lava lamps, etc. for all to seeN

6

#4, Developers Testing

� Myth: Developers can’t test their own code—they’re not

independent enough nor skilled enough to do it properly.

� Reality: We need to stop stereotyping team members,

their strengths and their abilities.

� Developers can absolutely test their own code.

� Some are better at it than others

� Pair with them to help test appropriately



#5, Test Planning & Scripts

� Myth: You don’t need to plan

� (it just happensN)

� and you don’t need functional test cases

� (automation takes care of everythingN)

� Reality: Plans help the team focus on the risk-based

testing required within an iteration AND across a release

� Reality: Scripts (test cases) help formalize and drive

your testing;

� Absolutely required in regulatory environments

� Reality: You’ll never actually automate every test

7

Brainstorm…

Agile Planning & Execution

� Get together in small groups of 4-6

� Take a few minutes discuss your current planning and

test process mechanisms.

� What would an Agile Test Plan “look like” in your organization?

� What would Test Cases “look like”? What about progress

measures? And traceability?

� Can you move from the “individual” to the “team”?

� Be prepared to shareN



#6, Testing within the Sprint

� Myth: You simply need to run 100%

of the tests within the constraints of the SprintNthat’s

“Agile”

� Reality: Rarely possible in most contexts.

� You first need a high-degree of automation and business support

(for example: equipment costs)

� Very mature test automation and CI / CD environments

� Reality: Most agile teams adopt some sort of risk-based

testing approach for within the sprints

� Dealing with Technical Test Debt

� Then leverage Hardening / Stabilization pre-release sprints

8

Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC

The Agile Release Train

Synchronized

Iterate

Iterate

Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4

Iterate

Iterate

Harden Iterate Iterate Iterate

X-team

Harden

Harden

Harden

Harden

Iterate Iterate

Iterate Iterate

Iterate Iterate

Iterate Iterate Iterate Iterate

Iterate

Iterate

Iterate

Internal

Release

External

Release

Docs,

Training,

Support,

UAT,

Comp.

Team n

�

Continuous Integration




15



Example: eCommerce / SaaS Model

Iterate

Iterate

Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4

Iterate

Iterate

Harden

X-team

Harden

Docs,

Training

Harden

Harden

Harden

Iterate Iterate

Iterate Iterate

External

Release

Team 8�





10 days 10 days 5 + 2 days

Rinse

&

Repeat

Environment

Evolution Dev + QA Dev + QA QA -> Staging Production

16

9



Example: iContact / SaaS Model

Team 1

Team 2

Team 3

Team 4

Iterate

Iterate

Harden

X-team

Harden

Docs,

Training

Harden

Harden

Harden

Iterate

Iterate

Production

Release

Team 10�





3 weeks / 15 days 4-5 days

Rinse

&

Repeat

Environment

Evolution Dev + QA QA -> Staging Production

SBET, Exploratory –

Regression Testing

Brainstorm…

“Your” Agile Release Train


� Take a few minutes and think about your current release

constraints

� timing, customers, domain, competition, # of teams, technology,

etc.

� Design a release train model for your organization

� Overlay it with testing activities, plans, and milestones

� Present it to your larger table/group; gain feedback &

adjust



10

#7, Exploratory Testing

� Myth: There is no place for Session Based Exploratory

Testing in agile contexts.

� Reality: ET and SBET are a beautiful complement to

agile testing.

� Helping nurture pairing & collaboration across teams and

functions

� Defining new (more valuable) test cases

� Quickly gaining quality & usability feedback

� Let’s explore the details of SBETN



#8, Role of Testers

� Myth: That the testers alone own quality & testing

practices within each team and sprint

� Reality: The testers foster a “Whole Team” view

towards quality—focusing less on “Testing” and more on

“Quality Practices & the Customer”

� Serving as guides for the team; Testing the “hard bits”

� Facilitating exploratory testing sessions—finding more

interesting / valuable tests

� Working with the Product Owners—are we solving the

customers problems?

11


#9, Developer to Tester Workflow

� Myth: There is always a hand-off from developers to

testers; usually quite late in the sprint. That’s simply the

“way of things” in software development.

� Reality: Scrummer-fall is alive and wellNbut, Wrong!

Teams need to swarm on their work, as flow &

throughput matter the most.

� WIP limits and close proximity / collaboration help establish a

healthy tempo of developer & tester pairing

� Micro-handoffs – testing as development progresses!

� Do you log bugs? Or do you fix bugs?


#10, Managing Agile Testers

� Myth: The functional test manager is

in charge of deciding how, who, when , etc. for the test

team.

� Reality: You still absolutely need functional leadership

within agile teams;

� However, it’s focused towards quality practices, strategy &

coaching, and handling impediments / escalations

� Encouraging transparency, transforming metrics & reporting

� Supporting & protecting the teams

� Encouraging risk-taking, innovation & creativity (Slack Time)

12

Levels of Done-Ness Criteria

Activity Criteria Example

Basic Team

Work Products

Done’ness criteria Pairing or pair inspections of code prior to check-in; or

development, execution and passing of unit tests.

User Story or

Theme Level

Acceptance Tests

Development of FitNesse based acceptance tests with the

customer AND their successful execution and passing.

Developed toward individual stories and/or themes for sets

of stories.

Sprint or

Iteration Level

Done’ness criteria Defining a Sprint Goal that clarifies the feature

development and all external dependencies associcated with

a sprint.

Release Level

Release criteria

Defining a broad set of conditions (artifacts, testing

activities or coverage levels, results/metrics, collaboration

with other groups, meeting compliance levels, etc.) that IF

MET would mean the release could occur.

23Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC

Brainstorm…

“Your” Definition of Done


� Using the 4-tier approach referenced start filling in the 4

levels as a group.

� Consider any criteria you are currently using at your

companies?

� Also consider current issues or challenge you might

have where “done-ness” would help?

� And what about Ready-ness?



13


#11, Test Metrics

� Myth: You can and should move

forward reporting everything exactly as

you have before.

� Including any ‘dysfunctional’ metrics that your process and/or

PMO dictates.

� Reality: The metrics should change immediately.

� From QA and Test centric towards Team-Centric metrics (Value,

Throughput, Quality, Team)

� Stop reporting out on “Testing”; it’s irrelevant!

� This effects planning as well—estimation, progress, risk, etc.

� Contribute quality-centric Information radiators to the mix


Brainstorm…

Morphing your Metrics


� What are you measuring today? Why?

� How are they driving your success and behaviors?

� As you move to agile, what can/should you be

measuring in the 4 key areas:

� Value, Quality, Throughput & Predictability, and Team?

� How will you change your existing metrics? What

behaviors are you trying to inspire?


14

#12, Retrospectives:

The Secret Sauce

� Myth: Testers are “Second Class” citizens who don’t

play an active part in the project & team

� Reality: There are many places to “make a difference”

� Getting the 800 lb. Gorillas out on the table; Showing courage;

telling truth

� Fostering continuous improvement within the team

� Setting the example; showing vulnerability—admitting you’re

wrong

� Team listening; active planning; dependencies; pairing

� Risk-taking; Failure!


#13, Continuous Improvement

� Myth: We’re generally ‘stuck’ in our

approaches so just accept them and do

the “best you can”.

� Reality: Continuous improvement is everyone’s

responsibility—to engage, suggest, take ownership of

current results, explore root causes, etc.

� Active participation in your teams Retrospectives is a key way to

guide quality, testing, and customer-centric improvements.

� Courage!


15

#14, The Customer

� Myth: Business Analysts capture

customer requirements and testers test them for

completeness.

� Reality: You need to begin to partner with the Customer

– Stakeholders – Product Owners to produce software

that solves the their problems.

� Move to the “front” and help define & refine User Stories with your

Product Owner

� Actively participate in Sprint Reviews

� Show value for automation; placing test investments in the

Backlog



#15, Agile Requirements –

The Product Backlog

� Myth: We can’t start testing until the requirements are

finished or stable; no matter how ‘agile’ we are.

� Reality: Hogwash! Get over itN

� Ambiguity and incompleteness need to become your friend and

ally.

� As does working with your Product Owners and Customers to

help define the requirements

� Realizing that the requirements (User Stories) are only complete

at the end of each sprint.

16


Brainstorm…

Agile Requirements


� Are iterative, are intentionally incomplete

� The “older” the are, the larger and less defined they are

� Enter the sprint at 70%, exit at 100%

� Drive questions, dialogue, discussion, and collaboration;

think 3 Amigos or the Triad

� So, WHY? And how will you make this work as a tester?


Agile Test Transformation Strategy:

3 Pillars of Agile Quality


17



33

Development & Test

Automation

• Pyramid-based Strategy:

(Unit + Cucumber +

Selenium)

• Continuous Integration

• Attack technical

infrastructure in the Backlog

• Visual Feedback –

Dashboards

• Actively practice ATDD and

BDD

Software Testing

• Risk-based testing:

Functional & Non-Functional

• Test planning @ Release &

Sprint levels

• Exploratory Testing

• Standards – checklists,

templates, repositories

• Balance across manual,

exploratory & automation

Cross-Functional Team

Practices

• Team-based Pairing

• Stop-the-Line Mindset

• Code Reviews & Standards

• Active Done-Ness

• Aggressive Refactoring of

Technical Debt

• User Stories, “3 Amigo”

based Conversations

• Whole Team Ownership of “Quality”

• Building it ‘Right’; Building the ‘Right’ Thing

• Healthy – Agile Centric Metrics

• Center of Excellence or Community of Practice

• Strategic balance across 3 Pillars; Assessment, Recalibration, and Continuous Improvement

Foundation of the 3 Pillars


34

• Whole Team Ownership of

“Quality”

• Building it ‘Right’; Building

the ‘Right’ Thing

• Healthy – Agile Centric

Metrics

• Center of Excellence or

Community of Practice

• Strategic balance across 3

Pillars; Assessment,

Recalibration, and

Continuous Improvement

• Whole team view includes building it right,

everyone tests,

• Focus on features/stories, confirmation,

conversation, and getting them staged

properly OVER testing

• 4-tier metrics: Quality, Value, Prediction, Team

• Agile strategies need light-handed “steering”;

establish a CoE (heavier weight) or a CoP

(lightweight)

• Consider finding an assessment framework

and then tying it to your strategy

measurement, recalibration, and continuous

improvement.

• Make the Foundation visible thru Information

Radiators and metrics

18



35

Development &

Test Automation

• Pyramid-based

Strategy: (Unit +

Cucumber + Selenium)

• Continuous Integration

• Attack technical

infrastructure in the

Backlog

• Visual Feedback –

Dashboards

• Actively practice ATDD

and BDD

A central part of agile adoption is focusing on CI, 3-

tiered Automation development, and Dashboards to

begin incrementally building coverage for faster

feedback on changes.

In the interim, Hardening or Stabilization Sprints and

having a risk-based Release Train concept help

It’s important that Test or QA not ‘own’ the tooling or

all of the automation efforts. The strategy can come

from Test, but the tactical automation development is

best left to the team.

Mature teams invest in automation as part of Done-

ness and continually on their backlogs



36

Software Testing

• Risk-based testing:

Functional & Non-

Functional

• Test planning @

Release & Sprint levels

• Exploratory Testing

• Standards – checklists,

templates, repositories

• Balance across

manual, exploratory &

automation

Exploratory Testing (Charter / Session based and

paired) can be an incredibly effective way to

establish a whole-team, collaborative view towards

quality and testing. It also emerges new tests.

Leverage ‘plans’ as a whole-team collaboration

mechanismNand do plan.

Do not measure testing or tester progress; instead,

measure throughput, output, sprint outcomes, and

done-ness escapes at a team level.

You need a balanced test team; not everyone needs

to be able to program. But everyone needs to be

skilled testers.

Agile testing is a Risk-Based play in every Sprint and

across a release sequence. Don’t forget your

techniques!

19



37

Cross-Functional

Team Practices

• Team-based Pairing

• Stop-the-Line Mindset

• Code Reviews &

Standards

• Active Done-Ness

• Aggressive Refactoring

of Technical Debt

• User Stories – 3 Amigo

based Conversations

One of the hardest areas to get ‘right’ culturally. It

needs leadership alignment from Quality/Testing to

Product to Development and a consistent voice of

whole-team approaches.

This is where LEAN lives, where whole-team

collaboration happens, where professionalism and

craftsmanship are held dear.

I like the view of testers becoming the VOC,

champions of quality, and consistent questioners of

what is being build. Are we solving the right

problemsNas simply as possible. Notions of Minimal

Viable Product / Feature help with focus.

And yes Virginia, there ARE standards, templates,

and a focus on consistency!


Software Testing

Strategies

� It ALL starts with empowering testers AND creating a

Whole-Team view towards Quality

� Critical Early Steps:

� Creating a sense of empowered Functional Team

� Applying Testing Standards across all teams

� Deploying Exploratory Testing across all teams

� Defining a core set of Agile KPI / metrics

� ACTIVE participants in Sprint Planning

20


Cross-Functional Team Practices

Strategies

� Training

� Agile / Lean in general, Story writing, Acceptance, Unit testing,

etc.

� Teaming – for example: feedback or 5 Dysfunctions / Trust

� Critical Early Steps:

� Coaches & Scrum Masters to reinforce: Pairing / Swarming; WIP

Limits across teams

� Define prescriptive and aggressive Done-Ness for ALL teams

� Implement coding standards & Crucible / code reviews across the

center (appropriate for technology stacks)

� Release Planning BEFORE allowing a team to start Sprint #1

� Backlogs have Bug + Refactoring + Automation targets (20%)?


Organizational Quality

Strategies

Continuously communicate your unified Vision

� Your strategy must be aligned/shared across:

� Development, Quality/Testing, and Product

� Keep working your strategy across the pillars

� Don’t get stuck with too narrow a focus (easy road)

� Make your strategy visible (Information Radiators)

� Show progress (Ex: burn up of test automation coverageNacross tiers)

� Visualize organizational impediments to your Agile Quality

strategies

� Attack them!

� Quarterly read-outs on progress, plans and adjustments

� Listen to your teams; Celebrate successes!

21

What will be (your) agile strategy when you get

back home?

� Either in groups or individually

� Consider the 3-Pillars discussion

� Consider your current team / organization agile ‘state’

� Define a broad, 3-pillar view towards some immediate

focus points when you get back into the office

� What will you focus on? Why?

� How will you communicate the need for change?

� How will you measure results?

� What will come immediately afterwards?


Wrapping up…

Agile is the best thing that’s

happened to testers since�

The Great Depression

� Whole Team view

� Testing, Metrics, Automation

� Planning, Reporting, Quality

� Facilitate feedback

� Multi-tiered automation

� Just-in-Time, risk-based testing

� Continuous improvement

� Trust the Team

� Retrospective


22

Contact Info

Bob GalenPrincipal Consultant,

RGalen Consulting Group, L.L.C.

Experience-driven agile focused training, coaching & consulting

Cell: (919) 272-0719

[email protected] www.rgalen.com

[email protected] www.velocitypartners.net

BlogsProject Times - http://www.projecttimes.com/robert-galen/

BA Times - http://www.batimes.com/robert-galen/

Podcast on all things ‘agile’ - http://www.meta-cast.com/

43Copyright © 2014 RGCG, LLC 43

Additional Topics


23

Two Pillars of Lean ‘Thinking’

Respect for

People

� Customer, Employees,

VendorsN

� Develop your teams

� Trust & coach

� No wasteful work

Continuous

Improvement

� Embrace change,

challenge everything

� Kaizen – small, incremental

change

� Kaikaku – larger scale,

fundamental

45

From http://www.leanprimer.com


Agile Testing QuadrantsBrian Marick; Lisa Crispin & Janet Gregory


Exploratory testing

Scenarios

Usability testing

UAT

Alpha / Beta

Unit tests

Component tests

API tests

Functional tests

Story tests

Examples

Prototypes

Simulations

Performance testing

Load testing

Security testing

Non-functional requirements

Q1

Q2 Q3

Q4

Automated &

Manual

Automated &

Manual

Manual

Automation,

Tools, and

Manual

Business Facing

Technology Facing

Supporting the Team

Critiq

ue the Product

24


10 Tenets of Agile Testing Jean Tabaka, Rally Software

1. The system always runs

2. Stop the line, vs. logging

defects

3. If it’s not tested, it’s not

“Done”

4. Testing comes first, not last

5. Finding defects after

Development is “Done” is too

late

� Continuous Integration

� Lean – fix it now!

� Early feedback; Earned

Value

� Collaborative testing, focus

on building in quality

� Early feedback; fix it now!


10 Tenets of Agile Testing Jean Tabaka, Rally Software

6. “Development Complete” is

meaningless

7. Use testing, not analysis, to

explore requirements

8. Automation is “how” not a

“whether” or “when”

9. Tests are your second most

detailed specification

10. Testers are Customer-

Developer liaisons

� Whole Team complete view

– no “partial credit”

� Executable requirements

� Automate all testing;

feedback

� Code is first; later is

traditional specifications

� VOC; guide effective team

collaboration; ask the right

questions

25


10 Commitments of Agile Testing Jean Tabaka,

Rally Software

1. We commit to not moving forward if a hole is found

through root cause analysis without first writing a test

2. We commit to not relying solely on just automated

testing or just manual testing

3. We commit to not sitting behind a QA wall (no

boundaries!)

4. We commit to not allowing a code complete without

test code harness complete

5. We commit to not waiting for a test phase but rather

working in smaller and smaller pieces, sooner and

sooner


10 Commitments of Agile Testing Jean Tabaka,

Rally Software

6. We commit to not testing one iteration after

development is “Done”

7. We commit to not allowing surprises to accumulate for

large end-to-end testing (“mock it now”)

8. We commit to not leaving the riskiest tests to the end

9. We commit to being an equal participant with the

customer and the developer in defining “Doneness”

10.We commit to not taking this oath lightly