Where is test strategy with an agile team?

In search of long-term ideas that guide test design

Maaret PyhäjärviTwitter: @maaretp

Atypical Agile Team• Product Development• Team of 9 (1 testing specialist) + PO• Release in production when done (includes

tested)– Continuous Deployment with little test

automation– Kanban with conversational WIP limits– NoEstimates, focus on identifying slices of value– NoProjects– Testing = Checking + Exploring

Ideas that Guide All Testing• Knowing the product (by asking around)

– Purpose of existence– Functionality, Performance– Browsers, .NET MVC– Choosing the right features into development pipeline (lean

startup)• Delivering professionally

– Done means done – value in use delivered – Production monitoring is an option for getting information– Reporting on product (Lead time; Net Promoter Score) not on

testing• Actionable information first

– Awareness of reporting timeStrategy should be more specific to the

product at hand?

Supporting Documents• Quality Target– “Awareness thing”– Outlining rough types of testing with

split to roles• System Testing Support List– “Feature Breakdown” – Connections in the system between the

features

• Elisabeth Hendrickson’s cheat sheet

What Really Happens• Split Jira item into smallest possible testable chunk; talk

about value and design (dev-test-po)• Implement & Pair-test to introduce to testing specialist• Explore sympathetically and extending as long as

needed– Feature in isolation, split to browsers starting from most

likely to break– Feature in combination with other features– … – Monitoring in production

• Get better (scope of test automation; refactoring; pairing and group work; individuals’ skills)

Key Observations from the Experience

• CONTINUOUS DEPLOYMENT IS TESTING GAME-CHANGER– Continuous deployment allows for applying indefinite time on selected tactics, so

the prioritizing of the next tactic to use is on selecting the next move that reveals information that is immediately useful

• TACTICS OVER STRATEGY FOR TESTING– There’s so much commonality on things to do in testing of different projects that

strategic ideas seem almost invisible, and the focus on is applying the right tactics to reveal the right information more efficiently and timely.

• TEMPORARY AND TACTICAL AIDS FOR AGREEING AND REMEMBERING– Two documents have seemed relevant in the lifecycle of this product: a quality

target agreeing who does what kinds of testing activities and a feature breakdown to remind of connections in the system between the features

• STRATEGY IS ENABLING TESTING IN PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT– Most of strategic effort goes into software development in general: shortening

the feedback cycle to enable flexibility and relevance of testing and building in testing from the inception of a feature idea, driving through feature splitting to the ideas of tactics we’d apply on a particular feature.