Agile Testing A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

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Название: Agile Testing A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

Год: 2009

Автор: Lisa Crispin, Janet Gregory

Издательство: Addison-Wesley

ISBN: 9780321534460

Язык: английский

Формат: PDF

Количество страниц: 533

Размер: 2 МБ

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 tester’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 industry’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. In Agile Testing, Crispin and Gregory define agile testing and illustrate the tester’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.

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

Customer Team 7

Developer Team 7

Interaction between Customer and Developer Teams 8

How Is Agile Testing Different? 9

Working on Traditional Teams 9

Working on Agile Teams 10

Traditional vs. Agile Testing 12

Whole-Team Approach 15

Summary 17

Chapter 2 Ten Principles for Agile Testers 19

What’s an Agile Tester? 19

The Agile Testing Mind-Set 20

x CONTENTS

Applying Agile Principles and Values 21

Provide Continuous Feedback 22

Deliver Value to the Customer 22

Enable Face-to-Face Communication 23

Have Courage 25

Keep It Simple 26

Practice Continuous Improvement 27

Respond to Change 28

Self-Organize 29

Focus on People 30

Enjoy 31

Adding Value 31

Summary 33

Part II Organizational Challenges 35

Chapter 3 Cultural Challenges 37

Organizational Culture 37

Quality Philosophy 38

Sustainable Pace 40

Customer Relationships 41

Organization Size 42

Empower Your Team 44

Barriers to Successful Agile Adoption by Test/QA Teams 44

Loss of Identity 44

Additional Roles 45

Lack of Training 45

Not Understanding Agile Concepts 45

Past Experience/Attitude 48

Cultural Differences among Roles 48

Introducing Change 49

Talk about Fears 49

Give Team Ownership 50

Celebrate Success 50

Management Expectations 52

Cultural Changes for Managers 52

Speaking the Manager’s Language 55

Change Doesn’t Come Easy 56

Be Patient 56

Let Them Feel Pain 56

CONTENTS xi

Build Your Credibility 57

Work On Your Own Professional Development 57

Beware the Quality Police Mentality 57

Vote with Your Feet 57

Summary 58

Chapter 4 Team Logistics 59

Team Structure 59

Independent QA Teams 60

Integration of Testers into an Agile Project 61

Agile Project Teams 64

Physical Logistics 65

Resources 66

Tester-Developer Ratio 66

Hiring an Agile Tester 67

Building a Team 69

Self-Organizing Team 69

Involving Other Teams 69

Every Team Member Has Equal Value 70

Performance and Rewards 70

What Can You Do? 71

Summary 71

Chapter 5 Transitioning Typical Processes 73

Seeking Lightweight Processes 73

Metrics 74

Lean Measurements 74

Why We Need Metrics 75

What Not to Do with Metrics 77

Communicating Metrics 77

Metrics ROI 78

Defect Tracking 79

Why Should We Use a Defect Tracking System (DTS)? 80

Why Shouldn’t We Use a DTS? 82

Defect Tracking Tools 83

Keep Your Focus 85

Test Planning 86

Test Strategy vs. Test Planning 86

Traceability 88

xii CONTENTS

Existing Processes and Models 88

Audits 89

Frameworks, Models, and Standards 90

Summary 93

Part III The Agile Testing Quadrants 95

Chapter 6 The Purpose of Testing 97

The Agile Testing Quadrants 97

Tests that Support the Team 98

Tests that Critique the Product 101

Knowing When a Story Is Done 104

Shared Responsibility 105

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

The Purpose of Quadrant 1 Tests 110

Supporting Infrastructure 111

Why Write and Execute These Tests? 112

Lets Us Go Faster and Do More 112

Making Testers’ Jobs Easier 114

Designing with Testing in Mind 115

Timely Feedback 118

Where Do Technology-Facing Tests Stop? 119

What If the Team Doesn’t Do These Tests? 121

What Can Testers Do? 121

What Can Managers Do? 122

It’s a Team Problem 123

Toolkit 123

Source Code Control 123

IDEs 124

Build Tools 126

Build Automation Tools 126

Unit Test Tools 126

Summary 127

CONTENTS xiii

Chapter 8 Business-Facing Tests that Support the Team 129

Driving Development with Business-Facing Tests 129

The Requirements Quandary 132

Common Language 134

Eliciting Requirements 135

Advance Clarity 140

Conditions of Satisfaction 142

Ripple Effects 143

Thin Slices, Small Chunks 144

How Do We Know We’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

Checklists 156

Mind Maps 156

Spreadsheets 159

Mock-Ups 160

Flow Diagrams 160

Software-Based Tools 163

Tools for Automating Tests Based on Examples 164

Tools to Test below the GUI and API Level 165

Tools for Testing through the GUI 170

Strategies for Writing Tests 177

Build Tests Incrementally 178

Keep the Tests Passing 179

Use Appropriate Test Design Patterns 179

Keyword and Data-Driven Tests 182

Testability 183

Code Design and Test Design 184

Automated vs. Manual Quadrant 2 Tests 185

Test Management 186

Summary 186

Chapter 10 Business-Facing Tests that Critique the Product 189

Introduction to Quadrant 3 190

Demonstrations 191

xiv CONTENTS

Scenario Testing 192

Exploratory Testing 195

Session-Based Testing 200

Automation and Exploratory Testing 201

An Exploratory Tester 201

Usability Testing 202

User Needs and Persona Testing 202

Navigation 204

Check Out the Competition 204

Behind the GUI 204

API Testing 205

Web Services 207

Testing Documents and Documentation 207

User Documentation 207

Reports 208

Tools to Assist with Exploratory Testing 210

Test Setup 211

Test Data Generation 212

Monitoring Tools 212

Simulators 213

Emulators 213

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

Security 223

Maintainability 227

Interoperability 228

Compatibility 229

Reliability 230

Installability 231

“ility” Summary 232

Performance, Load, Stress, and Scalability Testing 233

Scalability 233

Performance and Load Testing 234

Performance and Load-Testing Tools 234

Baseline 235

CONTENTS xv

Test Environments 237

Memory Management 237

Summary 238

Chapter 12 Summary of Testing Quadrants 241

Review of the Testing Quadrants 241

A System Test Example 242

The Application 242

The Team and the Process 243

Tests Driving Development 244

Unit Tests 244

Acceptance Tests 245

Automation 245

The Automated Functional Test Structure 245

Web Services 247

Embedded Testing 248

Critiquing the Product with Business-Facing Tests 248

Exploratory Testing 248

Testing Data Feeds 249

The End-to-End Tests 249

User Acceptance Testing 250

Reliability 250

Documentation 251

Documenting the Test Code 251

Reporting the Test Results 251

Using the Agile Testing Quadrants 252

Summary 253

Part IV Automation 255

Chapter 13 Why We Want to Automate Tests and What

Holds Us Back 257

Why Automate? 258

Manual Testing Takes Too Long 258

Manual Processes Are Error Prone 259

Automation Frees People to Do Their Best Work 259

Automated Regression Tests Provide a Safety Net 261

Automated Tests Give Feedback, Early and Often 262

Tests and Examples that Drive Coding Can Do More 262

xvi CONTENTS

Tests Are Great Documentation 263

ROI and Payback 264

Barriers to Automation—Things that Get in the Way 264

Bret’s List 264

Our List 265

Programmers’ Attitude—“Why Automate?” 265

The “Hump of Pain” (The Learning Curve) 266

Initial Investment 267

Code that’s Always in Flux 269

Legacy Code 269

Fear 269

Old Habits 270

Can We Overcome These Barriers? 270

Summary 271

Chapter 14 An Agile Test Automation Strategy 273

An Agile Approach to Test Automation 274

Automation Test Categories 274

Test Automation Pyramid 276

What Can We Automate? 279

Continuous Integration, Builds, and Deploys 280

Unit and Component Tests 282

API or Web Services Testing 282

Testing behind the GUI 282

Testing the GUI 282

Load Tests 283

Comparisons 283

Repetitive Tasks 284

Data Creation or Setup 284

What Shouldn’t We Automate? 285

Usability Testing 285

Exploratory Testing 286

Tests that Will Never Fail 286

One-Off Tests 286

What Might Be Hard to Automate? 287

Developing an Automation Strategy—Where Do We Start? 288

Where Does It Hurt the Most? 289

Multi-Layered Approach 290

Think about Test Design and Maintenance 292

Choosing the Right Tools 294

CONTENTS xvii

Applying Agile Principles to Test Automation 298

Keep It Simple 298

Iterative Feedback 299

Whole-Team Approach 300

Taking the Time to Do It Right 301

Learn by Doing 303

Apply Agile Coding Practices to Tests 303

Supplying Data for Tests 304

Data Generation Tools 304

Avoid Database Access 306

When Database Access Is Unavoidable or Even Desirable 307

Understand Your Needs 310

Evaluating Automation Tools 311

Identifying Requirements for Your Automation Tool 311

One Tool at a Time 312

Choosing Tools 313

Agile-Friendly Tools 316

Implementing Automation 316

Managing Automated Tests 319

Organizing Tests 319

Organizing Test Results 322

Go Get Started 324

Summary 324

Part V An Iteration in the Life of a Tester 327

Chapter 15 Tester Activities in Release or Theme Planning 329

The Purpose of Release Planning 330

Sizing 332

How to Size Stories 332

The Tester’s Role in Sizing Stories 333

An Example of Sizing Stories 334

Prioritizing 338

Why We Prioritize Stories 338

Testing Considerations While Prioritizing 339

What’s in Scope? 340

Deadlines and Timelines 340

Focus on Value 341

xviii CONTENTS

System-Wide Impact 342

Third-Party Involvement 342

Test Planning 345

Where to Start 345

Why Write a Test Plan? 345

Types of Testing 346

Infrastructure 346

Test Environments 347

Test Data 348

Test Results 349

Test Plan Alternatives 350

Lightweight Test Plans 350

Using a Test Matrix 350

Test Spreadsheet 353

A Whiteboard 353

Automated Test List 354

Preparing for Visibility 354

Tracking Test Tasks and Status 354

Communicating Test Results 357

Release Metrics 358

Summary 366

Chapter 16 Hit the Ground Running 369

Be Proactive 369

Benefits 370

Do You Really Need This? 372

Potential Downsides to Advance Preparation 373

Advance Clarity 373

Customers Speak with One Voice 373

Story Size 375

Geographically Dispersed Teams 376

Examples 378

Test Strategies 380

Prioritize Defects 381

Resources 381

Summary 382

Chapter 17 Iteration Kickoff 383

Iteration Planning 383

Learning the Details 384

Considering All Viewpoints 385

CONTENTS xix

Writing Task Cards 389

Deciding on Workload 393

Testable Stories 393

Collaborate with Customers 396

High-Level Tests and Examples 397

Reviewing with Customers 400

Reviewing with Programmers 400

Test Cases as Documentation 402

Summary 403

Chapter 18 Coding and Testing 405

Driving Development 406

Start Simple 406

Add Complexity 407

Assess Risk 407

Coding and Testing Progress Together 409

Identify Variations 410

Power of Three 411

Focus on One Story 411

Tests that Critique the Product 412

Collaborate with Programmers 413

Pair Testing 413

“Show Me” 413

Talk to Customers 414

Show Customers 414

Understand the Business 415

Completing Testing Tasks 415

Dealing with Bugs 416

Is It a Defect or Is It a Feature? 417

Technical Debt 418

Zero Bug Tolerance 418

It’s All about Choices 419

Decide Which Bugs to Log 420

Choose When to Fix Your Bugs 421

Choose the Media You Should Use to Log a Bug 423

Alternatives and Suggestions for Dealing with Bugs 424

Start Simple 428

Facilitate Communication 429

Testers Facilitate Communication 429

Distributed Teams 431

xx CONTENTS

Regression Tests 432

Keep the Build “Green” 433

Keep the Build Quick 433

Building a Regression Suite 434

Checking the “Big Picture” 434

Resources 434

Iteration Metrics 435

Measuring Progress 435

Defect Metrics 437

Summary 440

Chapter 19 Wrap Up the Iteration 443

Iteration Demo 443

Retrospectives 444

Start, Stop, and Continue 445

Ideas for Improvements 447

Celebrate Successes 449

Summary 451

Chapter 20 Successful Delivery 453

What Makes a Product? 453

Planning Enough Time for Testing 455

The End Game 456

Testing the Release Candidate 458

Test on a Staging Environment 458

Final Nonfunctional Testing 458

Integration with External Applications 459

Data Conversion and Database Updates 459

Installation Testing 461

Communication 462

What If It’s Not Ready? 463

Customer Testing 464

UAT 464

Alpha/Beta Testing 466

Post-Development Testing Cycles 467

Deliverables 468

Releasing the Product 470

Release Acceptance Criteria 470

Release Management 474

Packaging 474

CONTENTS xxi

Customer Expectations 475

Production Support 475

Understand Impact to Business 475

Summary 476

Part VI Summary 479

Chapter 21 Key Success Factors 481

Success Factor 1: Use the Whole-Team Approach 482

Success Factor 2: Adopt an Agile Testing Mind-Set 482

Success Factor 3: Automate Regression Testing 484

Success Factor 4: Provide and Obtain Feedback 484

Success Factor 5: Build a Foundation of Core Practices 486

Continuous Integration 486

Test Environments 487

Manage Technical Debt 487

Working Incrementally 488

Coding and Testing Are Part of One Process 488

Synergy between Practices 489

Success Factor 6: Collaborate with Customers 489

Success Factor 7: Look at the Big Picture 490

Summary 491

Glossary 493

Bibliography 501

Index 509

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