Abstract: Do they only think about corner cases? Do they only do exploratory testing? Do they hate reports? Do they know what triage means? Do they need to write code? Do they write specifications? Or do not they exist at all? If your company starts to adopt behavior driven development, specification by example or generally agile testing principles, similar questions may pop up in your head when you think about the future of your manual testers. (Are you one of those?) This session shows how agile projects work, and what are the new responsibilities of testers in these projects. You will also see that manual testers are not only needed, but they can be respected, equal members of an agile team.

1. Gáspár Nagy
coach • trainer • bdd addict • creator of specflow
@gasparnagy • gaspar@specsolutions.eu
Everything you MUST know
about agile testers
HUSTEF Budapest • 18/11/2015

2. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Are you an agile tester?

3. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Agile testing principles
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Transparency
• Being part of the specification
• Subjective testing techniques (e.g. exploratory testing)
• Integration to the delivery team

4. Being part of the specification

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Specify with Given/When/Then

6. Collaboration

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Did you feel like an equal member?

8. Yes… equally unhappy

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revolution

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Bug Hunting → Bug Prevention

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Requirements vs. Tests
As formality increases, tests and
requirements become indistinguishable.
At the limit, tests and requirements
are equivalent.
Equivalence Hypothesis (Martin, Melnik)
Pic: Martin/Melnik: Requirements and Tests

12. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Specification-By-Example
Example Tests
Specifications
consist of
describe validate fulfillment
Source: Gojko Adzic – Bridging the Communication Gap

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Team Foundation Server Version Control
TeamFoundation Server Workitems
SpecLog
Story Maps
Product
Backlog
Sprint
Backlog
Task Board
SpecFlow Scenarios
Test-
auto-
mation
Product
Living
Documen-
tation
Our Process
Source: TechTalk (www.techtalk.at)

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Agile testers during
preparation…

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Develop test strategy

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Decide on the automation
target
…and manage the consequences

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Agile testers during
preparation…
• Develop test strategy
• Ensure / verify feasibility of the strategy
• (tools, infrastructure, skills)

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Agile testers during
planning…

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Finding acceptance criteria
“Imagine this story is
already implemented:
How would you verify
it?”
“I would try to put a book
into the shopping cart …”
“I would try to remove a
book from the shopping
cart…”
“I’d check whether the shopping
cart is empty, when I enter the
shop …”
Shopping cart should be
empty when entering the
shop
Source: TechTalk (www.techtalk.at)

20. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Key examples: Breaking the
model
Books in catalogue:
Title Author
Specification-By-Example Gojko Adzic
Impact Mapping Gojko Adzic
Explore It! Elisabeth Hendrickson
Competitive Engineering Tom Gilb
Search for … Books found …
Spec Specification-By-Example
Hend Explore It!
et Explore It!, Competitive Engineering
What happens, if I search for
“Explore Specification”?
Can I search for single
characters, e.g. “e”?
Is the number of search results
limited, or paged?
Is the search also performed in the
sub-title of a book?

21. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Agile testers during planning…
• Help structuring ideas to acceptance criteria
• Find key examples
• Helps deciding if a check should be automated
• Consider edge cases
• Define exploratory testing goals

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Agile testers during
Sprint…

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Formulate business readable
tests
Aut.
Aut.
Aut.

24. Managing baseline (default)
data

25. Visualize systems
Source: TechTalk (www.techtalk.at)

26. Establish build status indicators
Source: TechTalk (www.techtalk.at)

27. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Agile testers during Sprint…
• Formulate business readable tests (e.g. Gherkin),
• right before implementing them
• Support team with continuous verification of stories
• Build new tests from existing building blocks
• Perform AC check
• Help preparing for the demo
• Keep control of default/baseline data
• Ensure that the feedback from the tests is shown to
everyone

28. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Agile testers after Sprint…
• Share experience
• Help others to learn
about agile testing

29. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
revolution

30. Copyright © Gaspar Nagy
Give the words real meaning!
collaboration
communication
transparency
specification
agile
stake in product
give and take
useful things accessible
by examples
inspect & adapt

31. May the test results be with you
Source: TechTalk (www.techtalk.at)

32. Gáspár Nagy
coach • trainer • bdd addict • creator of specflow
@gasparnagy • gaspar@specsolutions.eu
Thank you!