Agile Testing A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

Testing is a key component of agile development. The widespread adoption of agile methods has brought the need for effective testing into the limelight, and agile projects have transformed the role of testers. Much of a testerrs"s function, however, remains largely misunderstood. What is the true role of a tester? Do agile teams actually need members with QA backgrounds? What does it really mean to be an "agile tester?" Two of the industryrs"s most experienced agile testing practitioners and consultants, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory, have teamed up to bring you the definitive answers to these questions and many others. InAgile Testing,Crispin and Gregory define agile testing and illustrate the testerrs"s role with examples from real agile teams. They teach you how to use the agile testing quadrants to identify what testing is needed, who should do it, and what tools might help. The book chronicles an agile software development iteration from the viewpoint of a tester and explains the seven key success factors of agile testing. Readers will come away from this book understanding How to get testers engaged in agile development Where testers and QA managers fit on an agile team What to look for when hiring an agile tester How to transition from a traditional cycle to agile development How to complete testing activities in short iterations How to use tests to successfully guide development How to overcome barriers to test automation This book is a must for agile testers, agile teams, their managers, and their customers.

Lisa Crispin is dedicated to helping agile teams and testers discover good ways to deliver the best possible product. She specializes in showing testers and agile teams how testers can add value and how to guide development with business-facing tests. Since 2003, she’s been a tester on a Scrum/XP team at ePlan Services, Inc., and frequently leads tutorials and workshops on agile testing at conferences. Lisa regularly contributes articles about agile testing to publications such as Better Software magazine, IEEE Software, and Methods and Tools. Lisa also coauthored Testing Extreme Programming (Addison-Wesley, 2002) with Tip House.

Janet Gregory is the founder of DragonFire, Inc., an agile quality process consultancy and training firm. Her passion is helping teams build quality systems. Since 1998, she has worked as a coach and tester introducing agile practices into both large and small companies. Her focus is working with business users and testers to understand their role in agile projects. Janet is a frequent speaker at agile and testing software conferences, and she is a major contributor to the North American agile testing community.

Foreword by Mike Cohn xxiii Foreword by Brian Marick xxv Preface xxvii Acknowledgments xxxvii About the Authors xli Part I: Introduction 1 Chapter 1: What Is Agile Testing, Anyway? 3 Agile Values 3 What Do We Mean by "Agile Testing"? 4 A Little Context for Roles and Activities on an Agile Team 7 How Is Agile Testing Different? 9 Whole-Team Approach 15 Summary 17 Chapter 2: Ten Principles for Agile Testers 19 Whatrs"s an Agile Tester? 19 The Agile Testing Mind-Set 20 Applying Agile Principles and Values 21 Adding Value 31 Summary 33 Part II: Organizational Challenges 35 Chapter 3: Cultural Challenges 37 Organizational Culture 37 Barriers to Successful Agile Adoption by Test/QA Teams 44 Introducing Change 49 Management Expectations 52 Change Doesnrs"t Come Easy 56 Summary 58 Chapter 4: Team Logistics 59 Team Structure 59 Physical Logistics 65 Resources 66 Building a Team 69 Summary 71 Chapter 5: Transitioning Typical Processes 73 Seeking Lightweight Processes 73 Metrics 74 Defect Tracking 79 Test Planning 86 Existing Processes and Models 88 Summary 93 Part III: The Agile Testing Quadrants 95 Chapter 6: The Purpose of Testing 97 The Agile Testing Quadrants 97 Knowing When a Story Is Done 104 Managing Technical Debt 106 Testing in Context 106 Summary 108 Chapter 7: Technology-Facing Tests that Support the Team 109 An Agile Testing Foundation 109 Why Write and Execute These Tests? 112 Where Do Technology-Facing Tests Stop? 119 What If the Team Doesnrs"t Do These Tests? 121 Toolkit 123 Summary 127 Chapter 8: Business-Facing Tests that Support the Team 129 Driving Development with Business-Facing Tests 129 The Requirements Quandary 132 Thin Slices, Small Chunks 144 How Do We Know Wers"re Done? 146 Tests Mitigate Risk 147 Testability and Automation 149 Summary 150 Chapter 9: Toolkit for Business-Facing Tests that Support the Team 153 Business-Facing Test Tool Strategy 153 Tools to Elicit Examples and Requirements 155 Tools for Automating Tests Based on Examples 164 Strategies for Writing Tests 177 Testability 183 Test Management 186 Summary 186 Chapter 10: Business-Facing Tests that Critique the Product 189 Introduction to Quadrant 3 190 Demonstrations 191 Scenario Testing 192 Exploratory Testing 195 Usability Testing 202 Behind the GUI 204 Testing Documents and Documentation 207 Tools to Assist with Exploratory Testing 210 Summary 214 Chapter 11: Critiquing the Product Using Technology-Facing Tests 217 Introduction to Quadrant 4 217 Who Does It? 220 When Do You Do It? 222 "ility" Testing 223 Performance, Load, Stress, and Scalability Testing 233 Summary 238 Chapter 12: Summary of Testing Quadrants 241 Review of the Testing Quadrants 241 A System Test Example 242 Tests Driving Development 244 Automation 245 Critiquing the Product with Business-Facing Tests 248 Documentation 251 Using the Agile Testing Quadrants 252 Summary 253 Part IV: Automation