Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

Integration of Testers into an Agile Project

Agile Project Teams

Physical Logistics

Resources

Tester-Developer Ratio

Hiring an Agile Tester

Building a Team

Self-Organizing Team

Involving Other Teams

Every Team Member Has Equal Value

Performance and Rewards

What Can You Do?

Summary

Chapter 5. Transitioning Typical Processes

Seeking Lightweight Processes

Metrics

Lean Measurements

Why We Need Metrics

What Not to Do with Metrics

Communicating Metrics

Metrics ROI

Defect Tracking

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

Why Shouldn’t We Use a DTS?

Defect Tracking Tools

Keep Your Focus

Test Planning

Test Strategy vs. Test Planning

Traceability

Existing Processes and Models

Audits

Frameworks, Models, and Standards

Summary

Part III. The Agile Testing Quadrants

Chapter 6. The Purpose of Testing

The Agile Testing Quadrants

Tests that Support the Team

Tests that Critique the Product

Knowing When a Story Is Done

Shared Responsibility

Managing Technical Debt

Testing in Context

Summary

Chapter 7. Technology-Facing Tests that Support the Team

An Agile Testing Foundation

The Purpose of Quadrant 1 Tests

Supporting Infrastructure

Why Write and Execute These Tests?

Lets Us Go Faster and Do More

Making Testers’ Jobs Easier

Designing with Testing in Mind

Timely Feedback

Where Do Technology-Facing Tests Stop?

What If the Team Doesn’t Do These Tests?

What Can Testers Do?

What Can Managers Do?

It’s a Team Problem

Toolkit

Source Code Control

IDEs

Build Tools

Build Automation Tools

Unit Test Tools

Summary

Chapter 8. Business-Facing Tests that Support the Team

Driving Development with Business-Facing Tests

The Requirements Quandary

Common Language

Eliciting Requirements

Advance Clarity

Conditions of Satisfaction

Ripple Effects

Thin Slices, Small Chunks

How Do We Know We’re Done?

Tests Mitigate Risk

Testability and Automation

Summary

Chapter 9. Toolkit for Business-Facing Tests that Support the Team

Business-Facing Test Tool Strategy

Tools to Elicit Examples and Requirements

Checklists

Mind Maps

Spreadsheets

Mock-Ups

Flow Diagrams

Software-Based Tools

Tools for Automating Tests Based on Examples

Tools to Test below the GUI and API Level

Tools for Testing through the GUI

Strategies for Writing Tests

Build Tests Incrementally

Keep the Tests Passing

Use Appropriate Test Design Patterns

Keyword and Data-Driven Tests

Testability

Code Design and Test Design

Automated vs. Manual Quadrant 2 Tests

Test Management

Summary

Chapter 10. Business-Facing Tests that Critique the Product

Introduction to Quadrant 3

Demonstrations

Scenario Testing

Exploratory Testing

Session-Based Testing

Automation and Exploratory Testing

An Exploratory Tester

Usability Testing

User Needs and Persona Testing

Navigation

Check Out the Competition

Behind the GUI

API Testing

Web Services

Testing Documents and Documentation

User Documentation

Reports

Tools to Assist with Exploratory Testing

Test Setup

Test Data Generation

Monitoring Tools

Simulators

Emulators

Summary

Chapter 11. Critiquing the Product Using Technology-Facing Tests

Introduction to Quadrant 4

Who Does It?

When Do You Do It?

“ility” Testing

Security

Maintainability

Interoperability

Compatibility

Reliability

Installability

“ility” Summary

Performance, Load, Stress, and Scalability Testing

Scalability

Performance and Load Testing

Performance and Load-Testing Tools

Baseline

Test Environments

Memory Management

Summary

Chapter 12. Summary of Testing Quadrants

Review of the Testing Quadrants

A System Test Example

The Application

The Team and the Process

Tests Driving Development

Unit Tests

Acceptance Tests

Automation

The Automated Functional Test Structure

Web Services

Embedded Testing

Critiquing the Product with Business-Facing Tests

Exploratory Testing

Testing Data Feeds

The End-to-End Tests

User Acceptance Testing

Reliability

Documentation

Documenting the Test Code

Reporting the Test Results

Using the Agile Testing Quadrants

Summary

Part IV. Automation

Chapter 13. Why We Want to Automate Tests and What Holds Us Back

Why Automate?

Manual Testing Takes Too Long

Manual Processes Are Error Prone

Automation Frees People to Do Their Best Work

Automated Regression Tests Provide a Safety Net

Automated Tests Give Feedback, Early and Often

Tests and Examples that Drive Coding Can Do More

Tests Are Great Documentation

ROI and Payback

Barriers to Automation—Things that Get in the Way

Bret’s List

Our List

Programmers’ Attitude—“Why Automate?”

The “Hump of Pain” (The Learning Curve)

Initial Investment

Code that’s Always in Flux

Legacy Code

Fear

Old Habits

Can We Overcome These Barriers?

Summary