Balancing the Pendulum: Reflecting on BDD in Practice

Balancing the PendulumReflecting on BDD in practiceZach Dennis, Mutually Human SoftwareGreat Lakes Ruby Bash 2010

BDDImplementing an applicationby describing its behaviour from the stakeholders perspective

3 Principles1. Enough is enough2. Deliver stakeholder value3. It’s all behaviour

TrustThe glue that holds it together

7 areasof reflection

Outside-inUI/UXStakeholderStories & Acceptance CriteriaAutomationDoing it example firstSpikes

Pre Outside-in

“A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.”

-- THOMAS CARLYLE

It’s easy to write code you don’t need

It’s easy to invent code you think you’ll need

It’s easy to write code that is awkward to use

Outside-in acts as the rudder, steering the boat.

Outside-in

Outside-inSTAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVE

ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA

UI/UX

VIEWS

CONTROLLERS

MODELS

DATABASE

STORIES

FEATURES

Outside-inis value/need driven from the stakeholder perspective

Outside-inprovides a starting point

Outside-inidentifies where to go next

Outside-inhelps define done-ness

UI/UX

UI/UXThe invisible elephant(except to designers)

Developers are not designers.

Different hats entirely.

Switch if necessary, but don’t develop + design.

Usability matters

Tracking expensesA real world example

Agile + UX: ConvergenceJohn Hwang has a great talk

Stakeholders

Expect to fight for stakeholder involvement

Most stakeholdersdon’t care about BDD

52% of agile projects report challenges getting stakeholder involvement

SOURCE: DR DOBBS NOVEMBER STATE OF THE UNION SURVEY

SOURCE: SCOTT AMBLER, BUSTING THE MYTHS OF AGILE DEV.

15% of agile projects report resistance from stakeholders

SOURCE: DR DOBBS NOVEMBER STATE OF THE UNION SURVEY

SOURCE: SCOTT AMBLER, BUSTING THE MYTHS OF AGILE DEV.

32% of agile projects report challenges getting trust

SOURCE: DR DOBBS NOVEMBER STATE OF THE UNION SURVEY

SOURCE: SCOTT AMBLER, BUSTING THE MYTHS OF AGILE DEV.

Stories & Acceptance Criteria

9 out of 10 stakeholdersdon’t author stories or acceptance criteria

Stakeholdersprefer other communicationmethods

Stories & acceptance criteriaare natural to developersnot stakeholders

Having 2 folks helps to converse and record

Popping the “why” stack

SPOILER ALERT

Not every answer is a going to be a good one

Automation

Not everythinghas to be automated

Unit-level examplesYES

DeploymentsYES

Acceptance-level examplesMAYBE

Automation isn’t free.time, moneyvalue, riskcommitment, requirement

Goalsfail fast, feedbackreflect, adaptimprove, balance(iterate)

Unit-level examplesAutomateAutomateAutomate

High level scenariosAutomateExploreScript

Computers do it “... faster, better, stronger.”

They also don’t notice anything you don’t tell them to notice.

In-browser automationis still evolving

Doing it example first(er... TDD)

Example firstdrives out design,less code,better code,regression

Doing it welltakes experience,exploration,reflection,courage,willingness to change

Peoplehave varying levels of experience

Inexperiencebad examplesbrittle exampleshard to maintain

Outside-in is a way of thinkingbefore it is a hard-fast rule

Higher level examplesprovide implementation flexibility

When in doubt spikenot test

Spikes

A 15 minute spike can save you 15% or more on your next feature

Spikes aren’t BDD per-sayjust simple awesome

Spikes aren’t this complex

A spike istime-boxed,communicated,example / test free,exploratory

A spikesaves time,save money,provide learning,provides experience

Recap

Outside-inUI/UXStakeholderStories & Acceptance CriteriaAutomationDoing it example firstSpikes

Thank you