Quality is a Mindset

Neil Killick, Agile Coach and Trainerneilkillick.com / agilemelbourne.com neil_killick

Copyright Neil Killick, Iterative, 2013

Qualityis a

Mindset

IT’S HARD BEING A TESTER IN AN AGILE TEAM

● Seems like there’s “nothing to test” at the start

● Stories can end up being queued for testing at end of Sprint

● How do I test “unfinished” features?

● Automated testing tools mean I’m not needed!

INCREMENTAL TESTING IS A DIFFERENT BALLGAME

VERY IMPORTANT

BUT… TESTING SKILLS ARE

● Drive conversations around Quality such as clear, valuable Requirements and Acceptance Tests

● Be a nuisance to the developers! How will we test this? Where should these tests go?

WE NEED SOMEONE TO DEFINE AND DRIVE QUALITY

● What is Quality? We need a shared definition

● Quality is about requirements,expectations and behaviour,not just code

● Quality is “What the customer wants”,building the right thing, so is variable

QUALITY, LIKE VALUE, IS AMBIGUOUS

● Quality is a shared responsibility of the team, not just the QA’s, the Tester’s or the QA Manager’s

● You cannot “test” Quality into a poor Quality product - it’s too late!

● Quality emerges from the way we work together, our interactions

QUALITY IS NOT ANACTIVITY OR ROLE

● Improving Quality by “process” alone has limited efficacy

● Hire craftspeople who insiston building Quality intoeverything they do

● Never trade-off build Quality

YOU EITHER CARE ABOUT QUALITY OR YOU DON’T

● Work with developers to automate execution of acceptance criteria

● Manual testing should be non-repetitive and utilise your skills as a tester○ Exploratory Testing○ Boundary Testing, etc.

AS AN AGILE TESTER, HOW CAN I MAXIMISE MY VALUE?

● There are dozens of automatedtesting tools - Google it!

● Selenium / WebDriver is apopular browser testing tool

● Cucumber / JBehave for BDD testing

HOW CAN I AUTOMATE ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA?

HOW CAN WE BUILD IN QUALITY AS A TEAM?

● BA or Product Owner, Developer and Tester

● Requirements and tests are discussed for a new feature

● Create shared understanding and common vocabulary for new feature

● Identify missing requirements and edge cases

THREE AMIGOS

● Work collaboratively with the team to ensure the right tests are written from the start

● Avoid a testing “phase” after “dev” by working closely with the developers daily

● Help the team with a “test first” approach, where failing tests are written before the code

BE TEST DRIVEN

HOW CAN WE ENSURE THESE CONVERSATIONS HAPPEN?

● Formalise story kick-off as 1ststep in workflow before storycan be “in progress”

● Three Amigos (or whole team if practical) get together when team is ready to pull in a new story, or at Backlog Refinement Meeting

● Whole team at Sprint Planning Meeting

STORY KICK-OFF

● Don’t hand off work,or let it be handedoff to you

● Spend 10 mins withdevelopers checkingthat all acceptance criteria pass

● Spend 10 mins with Product Owner to make sure he/she is happy with functionality

SHOULDER TAPS

● Quality is not an activity/role, it’s a mindset● Create a shared definition of Quality● Hire people who care● Whole team owns Quality● Don’t trade off Build Quality● Drive the right conversations to ensure

Quality is built in

SUMMARY

Neil Killick, Agile Coach and Trainerneilkillick.com / agilemelbourne.com neil_killick

Copyright Neil Killick, Iterative, 2013