Agile Testing: A Road Map to Success

This three day course explains how testers can become valued agile team members, how they contribute to delivering a continuous stream of business value, and ways to overcome common cultural and logistical obstacles in transitioning to an agile development process.

It describes the values and principles that help testers adopt an agile testing mind-set, and gives practical alternatives to traditional testing processes, such as defect tracking, metrics, audits, and conforming to quality models. Students will be shown how to complete testing activities in short iterations, and how testers contribute on a daily basis during each iteration and release cycle.

Through interactive exercises and group discussions, participants will discover good strategies for driving development with both executable and manual tests. The course is filled with real–life examples of the many ways agile testers add value.

Learn how to: Understand how testers contribute on agile teams, how agile teams successfully cover all dimensions of software quality in short release cycles, and collaborate to deliver the "right" business value at frequent, consistent intervals.

Is this course for you?: The course is aimed at testers experienced in traditional phased and gated software development methodologies that found themselves on an agile project. It is also aimed at testers on agile projects wanting to improve their skills and contribute better to the whole team. Testing⁄QA managers, and development managers who work with testers, will also find the course valuable.

Program: Each module includes small group exercises and discussions in addition to the 2 major exercises listed.

Day One

Introduction into Agile and How Testing Fits

• Overview of agile terminology
• Agile Methods - what does it mean to a tester
• SDLC – Introduce agile testing activities and approach
• compare it to phased & gated
• What problems are we trying to solve?
• Communication

• The whole-team approach
  • Ten Principles for agile testers
  • Roles and responsibilities
  • Learning to collaborate
• Overcoming common obstacles
  • Cultural Issues
  • Mini–waterfalls

• Transitioning typical processes
  • Defect tracking
  • Quality models
  • Traceability

Release Planning – Sizing and prioritizing stories – Visibility

DAY 2

Exercise: Release planning simulation
Test Planning – Automation  Needs

• Automation Needs
  • Value of automation
  • Common obstacles
  • Evaluating Tools
• Using the Agile Testing Quadrants
  • Vocabulary, Collaboration
  • Tests that guide development, foundation for quality
  • Tests to evaluate the product
• The Agile Testing Pyramid
  • Whole team approach
• Test Plan Alternatives

DAY 3

The Iteration

• Pre–planning
• Iteration Planning
  • Simplest thing first – steel thread
  • Acceptance Tests – give an example using same story
  • Task breakdown, and estimating
  • Visibility
  • What to automate
• Coding & Testing
  • Defect tracking
  • Expanding tests
  • Exploratory testing
• The demo

Exercise – We will work through an iteration simulation so that the students will have an opportunity to experience all we have talked about.

Successful Delivery

• The End Game
• Release retrospective
  

Key Success Factors

• Summary: Seven Key Success Factors for Agile Testing