Seven Keys to Navigating Your Agile Testing Transition

MF
AM Tutorial
4/29/13 8:30AM

Seven Keys to Navigating Your Agile
Testing Transition
Presented by:
Bob Galen
RGalen Consulting

Brought to you by:

340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
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Bob Galen
Bob Galen is an agile coach at RGalen Consulting and director of agile solutions at Zenergy
Technologies, a North Carolina-based firm specializing in agile testing and leading agile adoption
initiatives. Bob regularly speaks at international conferences and professional groups on topics related to
software development, project management, software testing, and team leadership. He is a Certified
Scrum Master Practicing (CSC), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), and an active member of the
Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. Bob published Scrum Product Ownershipâ€“Balancing Value from the
Inside Out, which addresses the gap in guidance toward effective agile product management. Contact Bob
at bob@rgalen.com or bob.galen@zenergytechnologies.com.

Keys for Transitioning to Agile
Testing
Myths & Realities from the Trenches

Bob Galen
President & Principal Consultant
RGCG, LLC
bob@rgalen.com

Fifteen

Seven Keys for Navigating your
Agile Testing Transition
Myths & Realities from the Trenches

Bob Galen – RGCG
bob@rgalen.com
Mary Thorn – Deutsche Bank
mary.thorn@gmail.com

1

Introduction
Bob Galen
Somewhere ‘north’ of 30 years experience ☺
Various lifecycles – Waterfall variants, RUP, Agile, Chaos
Various domains – SaaS, Medical, Financial Services, Computer
& Storage Systems, eCommerce, and Telecommunications
Developer first, then Project Management / Leadership, then
Testing
Leveraged ‘pieces’ of Scrum in late 90’s; before ‘agile’ was ‘Agile’
Agility @ Lucent in 2000 – 2001 using Extreme Programming
Formally using Scrum since 2000
Currently an independent Agile Coach (CSC – Certified Scrum
Coach, one of 50 world-wide; 20+ in North America)
at RGCG, LLC and Director of Agile Solutions at Zenergy Technologies

From Cary, North Carolina
Connect w/ me via LinkedIn and Twitter if you wish
Bias Disclaimer:
Agile is THE BEST Methodology for Software Development
However, NOT a Silver Bullet!

Copyright © 2013 RGCG, LLC

3

Introduction
Mary Thorn
A VP of QA and Test Manager at Deutsche Bank
Global Technologies in Cary, North Carolina,
Mary Thorn has a broad testing background that spans
automation, data warehouses, and web-based systems
in a wide variety of technologies and testing
techniques.
During her more than fifteen years of experience in
healthcare, HR, agriculture, and SaaS-based products,
Mary has held manager and contributor level positions
in software development organizations.
She has a strong interest in agile testing methodologies
and direct experience leading agile teams through
Scrum adoption & beyond.


4

2

Outline – Myths & Realities
Introduction
1. Transforming your
Team
2. Automation
3. Developers &
Automation
4. Developers Testing
5. Test Planning & Scripts
6. Testing within the Sprint
7. Exploratory Testing
8. Role of Testers

9. Developer to Tester
Workflow
10. Managing Agile Testers
11. Test Metrics
12. Retrospectives – The
Secret Sauce
13. Continuous Improvement
14. The Customer
15. Agile Requirements – The
Product Backlog


5

#1, Transforming your team

Myth: You need all programmers or highly technical
testers when you move to agile
Reality: A mix is best –
Manual, domain-centric and technical skills
Some programming / scripting skills
Soft / collaborative skills

Reality: And throw out all of that Developer-to-Tester
ratio ‘stuff’.

6

3

#2, Automation
Myth: You need 100% automation to start
agile testing.
Reality: You simply need to have a strategy AND
doggedly pursue automation where it makes sense
Make it part of the Backlog and work it every sprint

Reality: There are some excellent Open Source tools
that supplement agile automation development
Reality: The Agile Test Automation Pyramid is the right
overall strategy


7

Agile Test Automation Pyramid
Mike Cohn; Lisa Crispin & Janet Gregory
http://behaviordrivendevelopment.wikispaces.com/Testing


8

4

#3, Developers & Automation
Myth: QA designs, writes & runs all of the test
automation
Reality: Everyone should be responsible for automation
Developers need to minimally attend to Unit Level
Participate in any framework or re-use development
Writing ‘glue’ code – fixtures, step files, etc.

Reality: It also extends into your Build & Continuous
Integration systems
All automation should be ‘wired’ into CI
Dashboards, trending, lava lamps, etc. for all to see

9

#4, Developers Testing

Myth: Developers can’t test their own code—they’re not
independent enough nor skilled enough to do it properly.
Reality: We need to stop stereotyping team members,
their strengths and their abilities.
Developers can absolutely test their own code.
Some are better at it than others
Pair with them to help test appropriately


10

5

#5, Test Planning & Scripts
Myth: You don’t need to plan
(it just happens

)

and you don’t need functional test cases
(automation takes care of everything )

Reality: Plans help the team focus on the risk-based
testing required within an iteration AND across a release
Reality: Scripts (test cases) help formalize and drive
your testing;
Absolutely required in regulatory environments

Reality: You’ll never actually automate every test

11

#6, Testing within the Sprint
Myth: You simply need to run 100%
of the tests within the constraints of the Sprint
“Agile”

that’s

Reality: Rarely possible in most contexts.
You first need a high-degree of automation and business support
(for example: equipment costs)
Very mature test automation and CI / CD environments

Reality: Most agile teams adopt some sort of risk-based
testing approach for within the sprints
Dealing with Technical Test Debt
Then leverage Hardening / Stabilization pre-release sprints

12

6

The Agile Release Train
Synchronized
Internal
Release
Team 1

Iterate Iterate Harden
Continuous

Team 2

Continuous

Team 3

Continuous

Team 4

Continuous

External
Release

Iterate Iterate Iterate
Integration

Docs,
Training,
X-team Support,
Integration
Harden UAT,
Comp.

Integration

Integration

Team n


13

Example: eCommerce / SaaS Model
10 days

Team 1

10 days

Iterate

Iterate

5 + 2 days

External
Release

Harden

Continuous Integration

Team 2

Iterate

Iterate

Harden

X-team
Harden

Rinse

Harden

Docs,
Training

Repeat


Team 3

Iterate

Iterate

&


Team 4

Team 8

Iterate

Iterate

Harden


Environment
Evolution

Dev + QA


Dev + QA

QA -> Staging

Production

14

7

Example: iContact / SaaS Model
3 weeks / 15 days

SBET, Exploratory –
Regression Testing

4-5 days

Production
Release
Team 1

Iterate

Harden


Team 2

Iterate

Harden

X-team
Harden


Team 3

Iterate

Harden

Docs,
Training

Rinse
&
Repeat


Team 4

Team 10

Iterate

Harden


Environment
Evolution

Dev + QA

QA -> Staging

Production


15

Brainstorm…
“Your” Agile Release Train
Either individually or in small groups from the same
company
Take a few minutes and think about your current release
constraints
timing, customers, domain, competition, # of teams, technology,
etc.

Design a release train model for your organization
Overlay it with testing activities, plans, and milestones
Present it to your larger table/group; gain feedback &
adjust
Be prepared to share

16

8

#7, Exploratory Testing

Myth: There is no place for Session Based Exploratory
Testing in agile contexts.
Reality: ET and SBET are a beautiful complement to
agile testing.
Helping nurture pairing & collaboration across teams and
functions
Defining new (more valuable) test cases
Quickly gaining quality & usability feedback


17

#8, Role of Testers

Myth: That the testers alone own quality & testing
practices within each team and sprint
Reality: The testers foster a “Whole Team” view
towards quality—focusing less on “Testing” and more on
“Quality Practices & the Customer”
Serving as guides for the team; Testing the “hard bits”
Facilitating exploratory testing sessions—finding more
interesting / valuable tests
Working with the Product Owners—are we solving the
customers problems?

18

9

#9, Developer to Tester Workflow

Myth: There is always a hand-off from developers to
testers; usually quite late in the sprint. That’s simply the
“way of things” in software development.
Reality: Scrummer-fall is alive and well but, Wrong!
Teams need to swarm on their work, as flow &
throughput matter the most.
WIP limits and close proximity / collaboration help establish a
healthy tempo of developer & tester pairing
Micro-handoffs – testing as development progresses!
Do you log bugs? Or do you fix bugs?

19

#10, Managing Agile Testers
Myth: The functional test manager is
in charge of deciding how, who, when , etc. for the test
team.
Reality: You still absolutely need functional leadership
within agile teams;
However, it’s focused towards quality practices, strategy &
coaching, and handling impediments / escalations
Encouraging transparency, transforming metrics & reporting
Supporting & protecting the teams
Encouraging risk-taking, innovation & creativity (Slack Time)

20

10

Levels of Done-Ness Criteria
Activity

Criteria

Basic Team
Work Products

Done’ness criteria

User Story or
Theme Level

Acceptance Tests

Sprint or
Iteration Level

Done’ness criteria

Release Level

Release criteria

Example
Pairing or pair inspections of code prior to check-in; or
development, execution and passing of unit tests.
Development of FitNesse based acceptance tests with the
customer AND their successful execution and passing.
Developed toward individual stories and/or themes for sets
of stories.
Defining a Sprint Goal that clarifies the feature
development and all external dependencies associcated with
a sprint.
Defining a broad set of conditions (artifacts, testing
activities or coverage levels, results/metrics, collaboration
with other groups, meeting compliance levels, etc.) that IF
MET would mean the release could occur.


21

#11, Test Metrics
Myth: You can and should move
forward reporting everything exactly as
you have before.
Including any ‘dysfunctional’ metrics that your process and/or
PMO dictates.

Reality: The metrics should change immediately.
From QA and Test centric towards Team-Centric metrics (Value,
Throughput, Quality, Team)
Stop reporting out on “Testing”; it’s irrelevant!
This effects planning as well—estimation, progress, risk, etc.
Contribute quality-centric Information radiators to the mix

22

11

Brainstorm…
Morphing your Metrics
Get together in small groups of
of 4-6.
What are you measuring today? Why?
How are they driving your success and behaviors?

As you move to agile, what can/should you be
measuring in the 4 key areas:
Value, Quality, Throughput & Predictability, and Team

How will you change your existing metrics? What
behaviors are you trying to inspire?

23

#12, Retrospectives:
The Secret Sauce
Myth: Testers are “Second Class” citizens who don’t
play an active part in the project & team
Reality: There are many places to “make a difference”
Getting the 800 lb. Gorillas out on the table; Showing courage;
telling truth
Fostering continuous improvement within the team
Setting the example; showing vulnerability—admitting you’re
wrong
Team listening; active planning; dependencies; pairing
Risk-taking; Failure!

24

12

#13, Continuous Improvement
Myth: We’re generally ‘stuck’ in our
approaches so just accept them and do
the “best you can”.
Reality: Continuous improvement is everyone’s
responsibility—to engage, suggest, take ownership of
current results, explore root causes, etc.
Active participation in your teams Retrospectives is a key way to
guide quality, testing, and customer-centric improvements.
Courage!


25

#14, The Customer
Myth: Business Analysts capture
customer requirements and testers test them for
completeness.
Reality: You need to begin to partner with the Customer
– Stakeholders – Product Owners to produce software
that solves the their problems.
Move to the “front” and help define & refine User Stories with your
Product Owner
Actively participate in Sprint Reviews
Show value for automation; placing test investments in the
Backlog

26

13

#15, Agile Requirements –
The Product Backlog
Myth: We can’t start testing until the requirements are
finished or stable; no matter how ‘agile’ we are.
Reality: Hogwash! Get over it
Ambiguity and incompleteness need to become your friend and
ally.
As does working with your Product Owners and Customers to
help define the requirements
Realizing that the requirements (User Stories) are only complete
at the end of each sprint.


27

Agile Test Transformation Strategy:
3 Pillars of Agile Quality


28

14

Development &
Test Automation
•

Pyramid-based
Strategy: (Unit +
Cucumber + Selenium)

Software Testing
•

Risk-based testing:
Functional & NonFunctional

•

•

•

Test planning @
Release & Sprint levels

•

Exploratory Testing

•

Standards – checklists,
templates, repositories

•

Balanced across
manual, exploratory &
automation

•

•

•

Agile-centric Metrics

Attack legacy technical
debt in the Backlog
Visual Feedback –
Dashboards
Actively practice ATDD
and BDD

Cross-Functional
Team Practices
•

Team-based Pairing

•

Stop-the-Line

•

Code Reviews &
Standards

•
•

Active Done-Ness

•

Aggressive Refactoring

•

User Stories – 3 Amigo
based Conversations

•

Building the ‘Right’
Solutions
29


Development &
Test Automation
•

Pyramid-based
Strategy: (Unit +
Cucumber + Selenium)

•


•

Attack legacy technical
debt in the Backlog

•

Visual Feedback –
Dashboards

•

Actively practice ATDD
and BDD

A central part of agile adoption is focusing on CI, 3tiered automation development, and Dashboards to
begin incrementally building coverage for faster
feedback on changes.
In the interim, Hardening or Stabilization Sprints and
having a risk-based Release Train concept help
It’s important that Test or QA not ‘own’ the tooling or
all of the automation efforts. The strategy can come
from Test, but the automation development is best
left to the team.
Mature teams invest in automation as part of Doneness and continually on their backlogs

30

15

Software Testing
•

Risk-based testing:
Functional & NonFunctional

•

Test planning @
Release & Sprint levels

•

Exploratory Testing

•

Standards – checklists,
templates, repositories

•

Balanced across
manual, exploratory &
automation

•

Agile-centric Metrics

Exploratory Testing (Charter / Session based and
paired) can be an incredibly effective way to
establish a whole-team, collaborative view towards
quality and testing. It also emerges new tests.
Leverage ‘plans’ as a whole-team collaboration
mechanism and do plan.
Do not measure testing or tester progress; instead,
measure throughput, output, sprint outcomes, and
done-ness escapes at a team level.
You need a balanced test team; not everyone needs
to be able to program. But everyone needs to be
skilled testers.
Agile testing is a Risk-Based play in every Sprint and
across a release sequence. Don’t forget your
techniques!
31


Cross-Functional
Team Practices
•

Team-based Pairing

•

Stop-the-Line

•

Code Reviews &
Standards

•
•

Active Done-Ness

•

Aggressive Refactoring

•

User Stories – 3 Amigo
based Conversations

•

Building the ‘Right’
Solutions

One of the hardest areas to get ‘right’ culturally. It
needs leadership alignment from Quality/Testing to
Product to Development and a consistent voice of
whole-team approaches.
This is where LEAN lives, where whole-team
collaboration happens, where professionalism and
craftsmanship are held dear.
I like the view of testers becoming the VOC,
champions of quality, and consistent questioners of
what is being build. Are we solving the right
problems as simply as possible.
MMF, MVP, MMP, etc.
And yes Virginia, there ARE standards and
consistency!

32

16

Software Testing
Strategies
It ALL starts with empowering testers AND creating a
Whole-Team view towards Quality
Critical Early Steps:
Creating a sense of empowered Functional Team
Applying Testing Standards across all teams
Deploying Exploratory Testing across all teams
Defining a core set of Agile KPI / metrics
ACTIVE participants in Sprint Planning


33

Cross-Functional Team Practices
Strategies
Training
Agile / Lean in general, Story writing, Acceptance, Unit testing,
etc.
Teaming – for example: feedback or 5 Dysfunctions / Trust

Critical Early Steps:
Coaches & Scrum Masters to reinforce: Pairing / Swarming; WIP
Limits across teams
Define prescriptive and aggressive Done-Ness for ALL teams
Implement coding standards & Crucible / code reviews across the
center (appropriate for technology stacks)
Release Planning BEFORE allowing a team to start Sprint #1
Backlogs have Bug + Refactoring + Automation targets (20%)?

34

17

Organizational Quality
Strategies
Continuously communicate your unified Vision
Your strategy must be aligned/shared across:
Development, Quality/Testing, and Product

Keep working your strategy across the pillars
Don’t get stuck with too narrow a focus (easy road)

Make your strategy visible (Information Radiators)
Show progress (Ex: burn up of test automation coverage

across tiers)

Visualize organizational impediments to your Agile Quality
strategies
Attack them!

Quarterly read-outs on progress, plans and adjustments
Listen to your teams
Celebrate successes!

35

What will be (your) agile strategy when you get
back home?
Either in groups or individually
Consider the 3-Pillars discussion
Consider your current team / organization agile ‘state’
Define a broad, 3-pillar view towards some immediate
focus points when you get back into the office
What will you focus on? Why?
How will you communicate the need for change?
How will you measure results?
What will come immediately afterwards?


36

18

Wrapping up…
Agile is the best thing that’s
happened to testers since
The Great Depression
Whole Team view
Testing, Metrics, Automation
Planning, Reporting, Quality
Facilitate feedback
Multi-tiered automation
Just-in-Time, risk-based testing
Continuous improvement
Trust the Team

Retrospective

37

Contact Info
Bob Galen
Principal Consultant,
RGalen Consulting Group, L.L.C.

Director of Agile Solutions,
Zenergy Technologies,

Blogs
Project Times http://www.projecttimes.com/robert-galen/
Business Analyst – BA Times http://www.batimes.com/robert-galen/
My Podcast on all things ‘agile’ http://www.meta-cast.com/

Experience-driven agile focused
training, coaching & consulting
Contact: (919) 272-0719
bob@rgalen.com
bob.galen@zenergytechnologies.com
www.rgalen.com


38

19

Additional Topics


39

Two Pillars of Lean ‘Thinking’
Respect for
People
Customer, Employees,
Vendors
Develop your teams
Trust & coach
No wasteful work

Continuous
Improvement
Embrace change,
challenge everything
Kaizen – small, incremental
change
Kaikaku – larger scale,
fundamental

From http://www.leanprimer.com


40

20

Agile Testing Quadrants
Brian Marick; Lisa Crispin & Janet Gregory
Business Facing

Functional tests
Story tests
Examples
Prototypes
Simulations

Exploratory testing
Scenarios
Usability testing
UAT
Alpha / Beta
Q2

Q3

Q1

Q4

Unit tests
Component tests
API tests

Automated &
Manual

Manual

Performance testing
Load testing
Security testing
Non-functional requirements

Technology Facing

Critique the Product

Supporting the Team

Automated &
Manual

Automation,
Tools, and
Manual


10 Tenets of Agile Testing

41

Jean Tabaka, Rally Software

1.

The system always runs


2.

Stop the line, vs. logging
defects

Lean – fix it now!

3.

If it’s not tested, it’s not
“Done”

Early feedback; Earned
Value

4.

Testing comes first, not last

Collaborative testing, focus
on building in quality

5.

Finding defects after
Development is “Done” is too
late

Early feedback; fix it now!


42

21

10 Tenets of Agile Testing

Jean Tabaka, Rally Software

6.

“Development Complete” is
meaningless

Whole Team complete view
– no “partial credit”

7.

Use testing, not analysis, to
explore requirements

Executable requirements

8.

Automation is “how” not a
“whether” or “when”

Automate all testing;
feedback

9.

Tests are your second most
detailed specification

Code is first; later is
traditional specifications

10. Testers are CustomerDeveloper liaisons

VOC; guide effective team
collaboration; ask the right
questions


10 Commitments of Agile Testing

43

Jean Tabaka,
Rally Software

1. We commit to not moving forward if a hole is found
through root cause analysis without first writing a test
2. We commit to not relying solely on just automated
testing or just manual testing
3. We commit to not sitting behind a QA wall (no
boundaries!)
4. We commit to not allowing a code complete without
test code harness complete
5. We commit to not waiting for a test phase but rather
working in smaller and smaller pieces, sooner and
sooner

44

22

10 Commitments of Agile Testing Jean Tabaka,
Rally Software

6. We commit to not testing one iteration after
development is “Done”
7. We commit to not allowing surprises to accumulate for
large end-to-end testing (“mock it now”)
8. We commit to not leaving the riskiest tests to the end
9. We commit to being an equal participant with the
customer and the developer in defining “Doneness”
10. We commit to not taking this oath lightly


45

23

Seven Keys to Navigating Your Agile Testing Transition

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