1. Introduction to
Agile Testing
Rad Butalid, ICP-ACC, CKC, PMI-ACP, SAFe SA
Sept 18, 2019

2. • IBM Recognized Agile Thought Leader,
Agile Coach & Agile Champion
• International Consortium for Agile -
Agile Certified Coach (ICP-ACC)
• International Business and Quality
Management Institute – Certified
Kanban Coach (CKC)
• Project Management Institute – Agile
Certified Professional (PMI-ACP)
• Scaled Agile Framework – SAFe Agilist
(SA – Incoming)
Hello!

3. Agenda
o What is Agile Testing?
o Testing Methods and Models
o What’s next for Agile Testing?
o Q&A

4. What is Agile
Testing?
4

5. “Agile development has
always centered around
testing and quality. That
characteristic drew us to
agile: Test first, test all the
time, build in quality. ” – Lisa
Crispin & Janet Gregory

6. 6
What is Agile
Testing?
Agile testing is a software testing process that follows the
principles of Agile Software Development. It is a continuous
process rather than being sequential. Both development
and testing activities are concurrent unlike the Waterfall
model.
The common objective of agile development and testing is
to achieve a high product quality.

7. Agile Testing
Principles
o Test Driven: Test First vs. Test Last
o Continuous Testing = Continuous Progress
o Tests performed by the whole team
o Continuous feedback
o Decrease time of feedback response
o Bug fix within iteration
o Lightweight documentation
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8. Advantages of Agile
Testing
o It saves time and money
o Agile testing reduces documentation
o It is flexible and highly adaptable to changes
o It provides an easier way for receiving regular feedback
from the end user
o Better determination of issues through daily
standups/meetings
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9. 9

10. Agile Test Plan
o The scope of the testing
o Consolidating new functionalities
to be tested
o Types of testing/Levels of testing
o Performance & load testing
In agile testing, the test plan is written as well as updated for
every release. A test plan in agile includes:
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o Consideration of infrastructure
o Risks Plan
o Planning of resources
o Deliverables & Milestones

13. Agile Testing:
Methods and
Models
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14. 14
Marick Test
Matrix

16. 16
The Agile Test
(Automation)
Pyramid

18. 18
Shift Left
Testing

20. 20
Behavior
Driven
Development
(BDD)

21. Behavior Driven
Development (BDD)
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o Who is it for?
The BDD methodology is ideal for teams that work on feature-
focused software and/or teams that put the user experience
first.
BDD starts with a functional specification using the Gherkin
Given/When/Then syntax.

22. How is it different from
standard Waterfall testing?
22
o Waterfall testing requires test cases to be written early
against requirements and calls for those tests to be
executed toward the end of the development cycle. With
BDD, tests are not based on requirements (but on “end user
behavior”) and testing happens in conjunction with
development of the features.

23. What does adoption entail?
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o It requires a BA to write tests up front and for the
developers to write the test specification in code to match.
It’s a new type of coordination within the team, but it’s
extremely positive in that the team works together as one
unit, business users included.

24. Best Practices
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o Streamlining documentation in order to keep the entire process lean
o Embracing a “three amigos” model where the product owner, developer
and tester form a cohesive team
o Using a test framework like Cucumber to define criteria
o Building automated tests in a way that make them easy to reuse as much as
possible
o Having business analysts learn the Gherkin syntax and write test cases
directly

25. 25
Acceptance
Test Driven
Development
(ATDD)

26. 26
o Who is it for?
Due to its emphasis on user perception, it’s best suited for
teams that are focused on the user experience, have goals
around high rates of adoption and want to minimize the
number of feature changes in future releases.
Acceptance Test Driven
Development (ATDD)

27. 27
o Standard Waterfall testing calls for test cases to be
written upfront based on requirements, whereas ATDD is
not a requirements driven testing process.
How is it different from
standard Waterfall testing?

28. 28
o To be in the best position to adopt an ATDD methodology,
teams need to get stakeholder buy-in, which can prove
challenging at times.
What does adoption entail?

29. 29
o Interacting closely with customers, in order to determine
expectations
o Leaning on customer-facing team members, to understand
customer expectations
o Developing acceptance criteria based on customer
expectations
o Prioritizing two questions:
1. Will customers use the system if it does X?
2. How can we validate if the system does X?
Best Practices

30. Exploratory
Testing

31. 31
o Who is it for?
Best suited for teams that are under time constraints, teams
that need help identifying the best types of tests to run and
those who want to make sure they didn’t miss anything from
previous tests.
Exploratory Testing

32. 32
o Exploratory testing can actually be done in both Waterfall
and Agile environments, but the tight integration between
testers and developers in an “Agile” environment helps ease
any bottlenecks that might surface while running
exploratory testing in a “Waterfall” environment.
How is it different from
standard Waterfall testing?

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o It’s important to keep in mind that it should not be the only
form of testing (rather, it should inform what type of testing
happens next). Additionally, even though it’s unscripted,
exploratory testing should not be unstructured (testers still
need to set a goal, log your activities and take on the mindset
of a specific user persona).
What does adoption entail?

34. 34
o Organizing the functionality in the application using something
like a Mindmap or a spreadsheet
o Focusing on certain areas or certain scenarios
o Tracking what gets tested to help reproduce any errors
o Documenting results for accountability on what got tested
Best Practices

35. Session Based
Testing

36. 36
o Session based testing builds on exploratory testing by
providing more structure.
o Session based testing should be capped off with a
“debrief” between the tester(s) and the manager that
covers the five PROOF points:
What happened (Past), What was achieved (Results),
What got in the way (Obstacles), What still needs to be
done (Outlook) and How does the tester feel about it
(Feelings).
Session Based
Testing

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o The same as exploratory testing, session based testing
can be run in both Agile and Waterfall environments, but
it is more conducive to the tight collaboration between
testers and developers that is typically found in Agile
environments.
How is it different from
standard Waterfall testing?

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o For testers already accustomed to exploratory testing, the
biggest hurdle is embracing the additional structure for
which session based testing calls.
o Similar to exploratory testing, teams running session based
testing should remember that it is not a final stop, but
rather a method to help determine the best type of testing
to conduct next.
What does adoption entail?

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o Outlining a mission so that testers are clear about the software they’re testing
o Developing a clear charter that indicates the mission, the areas of the
software to test, which tester(s) will run the session, when the session will take
place and for how long, the tests designed and executed, the bugs found and
overall notes.
o Running the testing session without any interruptions
o Clearly documenting activities and notes during the session in a session report
o Holding a debrief between the tester(s) and the manager to review findings
from the session and discuss next steps for testing
Best Practices

40. What’s next for
Agile Testing?
40

41. 41
In the future, three key tenets will become particularly
important for testers working in Agile environments:
1.) Communication
Agile requires a tight collaboration between testers and developers,
and that collaboration makes communication a top priority for testers.
2.) Skill Diversity
In an Agile environment, everything can change on a dime, and that
requires testers to be adaptable.
3.) Business Mindset
Finally, Agile takes on a very customer-centric approach in order to
ensure customers receive as much value as possible as quickly and as
early on as possible.

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Although Agile has already
made significant inroads into
the software development
lifecycle, there’s still a long
way to go, especially among
testing teams..

43. × “Lots of methodologies
have come and gone,
paradigms have changed
but the requirements are
always the same; Make it
good and make it fast.” -
Anonymous
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