presented at the conference Agile Testing Days 2010 (http://www.agiletestingdays.com/) in Berlin.

1. How to Brew a Tasty
Agile Test Strategy?
Agile Development/Testing and
Brewing/Kitchen Analogies
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

2. Nice Cookbooks
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

3. In our agile pantry..
contains many...
• books
• ingredients
• tools
• cookbooks
• restaurants
• styles
www.flickr.com/photos/52192754@N00/220946716/
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

4. Why Cooking/Brewing Analogy?
• Examples can help
• Analogies from a different (known)
context can help
• It’s fun
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

5. Analogy #1: The Definition of Done (DoD) in a Kitchen
Assume a professional cook in a
restaurant kitchen is asked to
create a nice meal for a customer. NO
When it’s DONE?
www.flickr.com/photos/28549294@N05/4273275734 Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

6. Analogy #1: The Definition of Done (DoD) in a Kitchen
Assume a professional cook in a
restaurant kitchen is asked to
create a nice meal for a customer. YES
When it’s DONE?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28549294@N05/4273275734/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

7. What we find in a cookbook
• Ingredients
• Techniques
• Tools
• Mindset
• Skills
• Recipes
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

8. What we find in a cookbook
This talk....
• Ingredients
(META-)Recipes to create
• Techniques a Test Strategy
p les
am en
• Tools ex ch
e kit
om u r
s o
• Mindset ith m
w ro
f
• Skills recipe recipe
• Recipes Spikes into
details
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

9. La Cuisine
• mobile.de - e-Commerce, selling vehicles
• belongs to eBay Classifieds Group
• Marketplaces
France, Italy, Poland and Romania
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

10. Our Agile Transition
•first Scrum pilot project 3.5 years ago
•3 years Scrum with multiple teams
- 70+ people
- 6+ teams, 2 distributed teams
- parallel development on same product
•1.5 million LoC
•1 year Kanban for maintenance
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

11. Votré chef de cusine
• programming background (20 years)
• Agile from 2004, Scrum Master
• my current role:
Team Lead “Engineering Support Group”
supporting agile project teams with...
- Release Management
- Test Automation
tic
lis
- Build Management
ho
- Tools
- Configuration Management
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

12. What I mean by “Agile Test Strategy”?
• What to test? What not to test?
• Which kinds of tests?
- Test categories / taxonomy
- Tools
• When to test (what)?
• How to introduce/improve?
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

13. The Recipe
• Which kind of restaurant?
• Get to know your craft
• Try to use ... adapt & learn
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

14. Step 1: What kind of restaurant?
- Who are your clients?
- Your style? Quality is a business
requirement
- Competitors, market?
- Your team
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

15. Step 2: Get to know your craft...
• Ingredients
• Tools
• Techniques
• Principles
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

16. Principle: Visibility
www.flickr.com/photos/shannonsturgis/4274202367 Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

17. Principle: Care about your tools
Sharpen your knifes.
www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/3641653927
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

18. Principle: Care about your tools
Sharpen your knifes.
www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/3641653927
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

19. Principle: Whole team approach
•... not very kitchen-like?
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

20. Question: Use instant ingredients or not?
www.flickr.com/photos/vegetarian/2292620706
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

21. Example from our kitchen: Principles
• Early feedback
• From risk to test
strategy
• Test as low as
possible
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

22. Recipe: From Risk to Test
Criteria Test Automation ROI Radar Chart
• Incident prio Incident prio
What is the prio of a
• Change frequency possible incident?
• Bug density
• Overhead for manual Overhead of
high
Bug density
tests manual test high How many bugs in
the past?
high
• Complexity of
requirements
• Maintenance overhead Change frequency
for automated tests
Maintenance low often
overhead for high How many changes in the
• Known domain future?
automated tests
Complexity
How complicated is the
feature?
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

23. Ingedients - Test Categorization / Taxonomy
Overhead / Complexity
.
Source:
Lisa Crispin & Janet Gregory
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

24. Ingedients - Test Categorization / Taxonomy
.
Source:
Lisa Crispin & Janet Gregory
Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

25. Recipe: The “Tetris Principle” - Test as low as possible
Story: As a customer I can contact the seller of an interesting ad.
Risk/aspect 1 Risk/aspect Risk/aspect: Risk/aspect:
Mail is not sent Layout of mail Wrong mail Javascript problem
due to config is crap language in contact form
problems
Story Test / UI Story Test / UI
(Integration) (Browser)
Story test
below UI
automated tests
no automated tests
Manual tests
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

26. Analogy #2: QA or When do you flip a pancake?
Robert “Uncle Bob” Martin
thecleancoder.blogspot.com/2010/08/
qa-or-when-do-you-flip-pancake.html
www.flickr.com/ /mrlerone/106039369/
photos
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

27. Test
Automation
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

28. Goal: A happy kitchen crew
www.flickr.com/photos/fractalv/1341923133
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW

29. Thanks for
your attention.
Alex Schwartz
Sonntag, 10. Oktober 2010 KW