Mob TestingLessons from a Year of #MobTesting

Maaret Pyhäjärvi (@maaretp)

Maaret Pyhäjärvi

• Empirical Technologist• Tester• Programmer• Catalyst for improvement• Organizer• Speaker• Blogger at visible-quality.blogspot.com • Author on Mob Programming Guidebook (LeanPub)

Mob Testing

Who am I?

What is Mob Testing (and Programming)Defining the Basics

"All the brilliant people working on the same thing, at the same time, in the

same space, on the same computer." -- Woody Zuill (the discoverer of Mob Programming)

Mob Testing

Defining Mobbing

Mob Testing

It’s Not This!

Mob Testing

Mobbing Setup

For an idea to go from your head to the computer it must go through

someone else’s hands”*http://llewellynfalco.blogspot.fi/2014/06/llewellyns-strong-style-pairing.html

Mob Testing

Strong-Style Navigation

Rotate: driver, designated navigator, navigators

No thinking at the keyboard

Yes, and…

Kindness, consideration and respect

Rotate: driver, designated navigator, navigators

No thinking at the keyboard

Yes, and…

Kindness, consideration and respect

Mob Testing

The Rules

Mob Testing

It’s a Game a 7-yo Wants to Play

My Mob Testing ExperienceWorking and Teaching in a Mob

Woody Zuill at a conference

Visiting Hunter Industries in San Marcos, California

Refactoring in a mob at Granlund, facilitated by Llewellyn Falco

Various sessions in Java & C# on TDD and coding techniques in mob format

Mobbing at work: selenium, approvaltests, component changes, cleanup of styles, refactoring …

Woody Zuill at a conference

Visiting Hunter Industries in San Marcos, California

Refactoring in a mob at Granlund, facilitated by Llewellyn Falco

Various sessions in Java & C# on TDD and coding techniques in mob format

Mobbing at work: selenium, approvaltests, component changes, cleanup of styles, refactoring …

Mob Testing

A Non-Programmer Meets Mob Programming

Mob Testing

An All-Female Hackathon

…Learning programming by osmosis

Programming Selenium Tests

Stealth exploration while mob programming

Correcting mistakes without egos in play

Sharing exploratory testing tasks in a mob format

Moving from teaching in pairs to teaching in mob

Programming Selenium Tests

Stealth exploration while mob programming

Correcting mistakes without egos in play

Sharing exploratory testing tasks in a mob format

Moving from teaching in pairs to teaching in mob

Mob Testing

Mob Programming Meets Exploratory Testing

Exploring in a MobCreating a Varied Learning Experience

Building habits and transferring skills over passing knowledge

Mob Testing

Habits and Skills Take Time to Form

Speaking about testing in strong-style

Working better in a group

Working away from confirmation bias, being active

Building a map of an application (mindmup)

Learning the purpose and features of an applicationGUI-based: Dark Function Editor for SpritesheetsAPI-based: ApprovalTests Unit Testing framework

Finding and isolating bugs

Introducing heuristics and tools

Speaking about testing in strong-style

Working better in a group

Working away from confirmation bias, being active

Building a map of an application (mindmup)

Learning the purpose and features of an applicationGUI-based: Dark Function Editor for SpritesheetsAPI-based: ApprovalTests Unit Testing framework

Finding and isolating bugs

Introducing heuristics and tools

Mob Testing

Skills

Mob Testing

Testing as Performance vs. Testing as Artifact Creation

Mob Testing

What Testing Gives Us

Uni

t Tes

ting

Exp

lora

tory

Tes

ting

SPECFEEDBACKREGRESSIONGRANULARITY GUIDANCE

UNDERSTANDINGMODELS

SERENDIPITYTesting as artifact creation

Testing as performance

A 360 degree view into what people see happen

Also things people see happening that did not happen

A discussion on what we’re observing

Mob Testing

An Observations Retrospective

The Usual ConcernsWouldn’t We Get More Done Individually?

Mob Testing

Why?

A great way to • learn hands-on• teach and add stuff the group is missing

Encourages innovation and bringing in the best of everyone

Mob Programming

• Best ideas win when you care about work over credit

• From Technical Debt to Technical Assets

• People improve things they would accept alone

• Long-term relationship builds psychological safety

A great way to • learn hands-on• teach and add stuff the group is missing

Encourages innovation and bringing in the best of everyone

Mob Programming

• Best ideas win when you care about work over credit

• From Technical Debt to Technical Assets

• People improve things they would accept alone

• Long-term relationship builds psychological safety

Mob Testing

How Can It Be Worth the Effort?

Group work is multiplication, not sum.

1.0 x 1.0 x 1.0 x 1.0 = 1.0 “normal achievement”1.0 x 1.2 x 1.0 x 1.0 = 1.2 “infectious excitement”1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 x 1.2 = 2.1 “shared lift of spirits”1.0 x 1.2 x 0.5 x 1.0 = 0.6 “the bad apple”0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 x 0.8 = 0.4 “shared discouragement”

While you’re learning or contributing, mob is the place for you.

Mob Testing

J.T. Bergqvist Formula

Mob Testing

From Getting Started to a Functional Mob

Mob Testing is a great way to transfer exploratory testing skills… for your team’s developers… for other testers

You have great ideas even if you did not know how to turn them to code – removing the distance is worth the struggle.

Mob Testing

Summary

Maaret PyhäjärviEmail: maaret@iki.fiTwitter: @maaretpBlog: visible-quality.blogspot.fi

Questions?

Maaret Pyhäjärvi (@maaretp)

http://dojo.ministryoftesting.com/