Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

It was hard for the business to agree to let us devote a two-week iteration every six months to do the internal work we needed to manage our technical debt, but over time they could see the results in our velocity. Recently, one of the managers actually asked if we might need to have “engineering sprints” more often. Both the product and the team are growing, and the business wants to make sure we grow our infrastructure and tools, too.

—Lisa

Like all members of an agile team, managers need to learn a lot of new concepts and figure out how they fit as team members. Use big visible charts (or their virtual equivalents, as needed) to make sure they can follow the progress of each iteration and release. Look for ways to maximize ROI. Often, the business will ask for a complex and expensive feature when there is a simpler and quicker solution that delivers similar value. Make sure you explain how your team’s work affects the bottom line. Collaborate with them to find the best way for stakeholders to express the requirements for each new feature.

Budget limitations are a reality most teams face. When resources are limited, your team needs to be more creative. The whole-team approach helps. Perhaps, like Lisa’s team, your team has a limited budget to buy software, and so you tend to look at open-source test automation tools that usually don’t have a large up-front purchase cost. A tool that uses the same language as the application won’t help the non-programming testers unless the programmers collaborate with them to automate the tests. Leveraging all of the expertise on the team helps you work within the business limitations.

As with all challenges your team encounters, experiment with new ways that the development team and management can help each other to build a valuable product. At the same time, regardless of your development approach, you might have to make sure that some processes, such as conformance to audit requirements, receive the necessary attention.

Change Doesn’t Come Easy

Agile development might seem fast-paced, but change can seem glacial. Teams that are new to agile will be slow to master some practices they’ve committed to using. We’ve met many testers who are frustrated that their “agile” development cycles are actually mini-waterfall cycles. These testers are still getting squeezed; it just happens more often. Iterations are over before stories can be tested. Programmers refuse or aren’t able to adopt critical practices such as TDD or pairing. The team leaves responsibility for quality in the hands of the testers, who are powerless to make changes to the process.

There’s no magic that you can use to get your team to make positive changes, but we have some tips for testers who want to get their teams to change in positive ways.

Be Patient

New skills such as TDD are hard. Find ways to help your team get time to master them. Find changes you can make independently while you wait. For example, while programmers learn to write unit tests, implement a GUI test tool that you can use with minimal help. Help the team make baby steps. Remember that when people panic, they go back to their old habits, even though those habits didn’t work. Focus on tiny positive increments.

Let Them Feel Pain

Sometimes you just have to watch the train wreck. If your suggestions for improvement were rebuffed, and the team fails, bring your suggestion up again and ask the team to consider trying it for a few iterations. People are most willing to change in the areas where they feel the most pain.

Build Your Credibility

You might now be working with programmers who haven’t worked closely with testers before. Show them how you can help. Go to them with issues you’ve found rather than opening bug reports. Ask them to review code with you before they check it in. When they realize you’re contributing real value, they’re more likely to listen to your ideas.

Work On Your Own Professional Development

Read books and articles, go to user group meetings and conferences, and learn a new tool or scripting language. Start learning the language your application is coded in, and ask the programmers on your team if you can pair with them or if they’ll tutor you. Your coworkers will respect your desire to improve your skills. If your local user group is willing to listen to your presentation on agile testing, or a software newsletter publishes your automation article, your teammates might notice you have something worth hearing too.

Beware the Quality Police Mentality