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Testing for agile teams: Tests that support the team (#4)

Agile Testing Book Part 5

This post is part of the “Testing for Agile Teams” series.

Technology-Facing Tests (Q1)

  • Strive to make time to test more complex scenarios and edge cases.
  • TDD means writing a test that captures the behavior of a tiny bit of code and then working the code until the test passes.
  • Programmers make sure at least one path (happy-path) works end-to-end.
  • When a bug is found, a unit test is created to reproduce the bug and the code is fixed.
  • Each unit test is independent and tests one dimension at a time. The business-facing tests (Q2) rarely cover only one dimension, since they test more complex user scenarios.
  • Push tests to lower levels whenever possible (simpler, quicker, +ROI).

Example: The unit test (Q1) would check the calculation of the date, and the business-facing (Q2) test would verify that it displays correctly in the borrower’s loan report.

Business-Facing Tests (Q2)

Q1 tests help programmers make sure they have written the code right. How do they know the right thing to build?

  • Stories don’t provide that much information. They’re a brief description of desired functionality and an aid to planning and prioritization.
  • Stories have a level of detail that will let programmers start writing working code almost immediately. The remaining details come from examples and tests, that will confirm what the customer really wants.
  • A story is just a sentence about who wants the feature, why and what the feature is — a starting point for an ongoing dialogue.

Requirement = Story + Example + Test + Conversation

  • The tests need to be written in a language that’s comprehensible to a business user reading them yet still executable by the technical team (e.g. easyb).
  • Clarify requirements by asking these questions to your customer:
    • What value will users get from this feature?
    • What will they do immediately before and after using that feature?
    • How do we know we’re done with this story?
  • A Product Owner guarantees only “one voice of the customer” presented to the developer team.
  • It’s easy to lose track of the big picture when we’re focusing on a small number of stories. Always consider how each individual story impacts other parts of the system (ripple effects).
  • The sooner you can build the end-to-end path, the sooner you can do meaningful testing. Find the most stripped-down functionality that can be tested (i.e. steel thread, tracer bullet, critical path).
  • The true test is whether the software’s user can perform the action the story was supposed to provide. The users or product owners are the right people to determine whether the value/requirement has been delivered.
  • Test edge cases that have a bad outcome & good probability of happening. Discuss potential impacts and risky areas with programmers.

This is the recommended order for tests’ creation:

  1. High-level story tests before coding;
  2. Detailed test cases once coding starts;
  3. Exploratory testing on the code as it’s delivered.

This post is a personal summary of a chapter from the book Agile Testing: A Practical Guide For Testers And Agile Teams. I’m sure you’ll find that book useful too.