This document summarizes the author's experiments with agile testing practices at Yahoo. It describes experiments with thinning the boundary between developers and testers, developing an automation framework using the same language for tests and code, using mind maps for test planning and reviews, conducting daily test huddles, and performing group testing. The key lessons learned are that these practices can streamline testing, improve collaboration between teams, and help find issues earlier.

1. MY EXPERIMENTS IN AGILE TESTING
@YAHOO!
Baiju Joseph
Director QE & RE , Yahoo!
baiju@yahoo-inc.com
12 Jul 2013
UNICOM World Conference –
Next Generation Testing
08 – 12 July, Le-Meridien, Bangalore

2. AGENDA
• Why Experiments
• Agile Testing
• Thinning the boundary
• Automation Framework
• Mind Maps
• Test Huddles
• Group Tests
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in
anyway.

3. WHY EXPERIMENTS
Source : Crisp's Blog

4. WHY EXPERIMENTS
Source : Crisp's Blog

5. WHY EXPERIMENTS
• Continuous Improvement
• Prove your Predictions
• What would happen IF…?
• Toss out Failed results
• Propel successful ideas

6. AGILE TESTING
“The main reason that testing at the end of
a development cycle finds problems is not
that problems were put in near the end, it
is that testing was put off until then…”
- Ron Jeffries

7. AGILE TESTING

8. 8
FACTORS HINDERING
ACCELERATION
• Mass – QE process, tools,
methodologies, mindset etc…
• Horse Power – Skill shortage, non
availability of QE Architects
• Running track friction
•Team synergy
•Culture and practices

9. AGILE – BASIC SUCCESS
MANTRAS
• Build quality In
• Why->How->What of (user stories)
• Test early Test Often
• Unit Tests (75%+ code coverage)
• ROI based automation (75%+)
• CI/CD aka Release Runways

10. AGILE – BASIC SUCCESS
MANTRAS
Most important : agile mindset

12. E1. THINNING THE BOUNDARY

13. THINNING THE BOUNDARY
• Developer – Tester boundary
• Experiment
• Developers to do more Testing
• Unit , Smoke , Functional
• Automated Test
• Testers to do more Development
• Test Framework , Tooling
• Fix bugs…

14. THINNING THE BOUNDARY
• Results (Few Pass , Many Fails)
• Pass : backend scrum teams
• Fail : front end scrum teams

15. THINNING THE BOUNDARY
• Revised Experiment
• Dev – Unit , Smoke automation
• QE – Framework , Functional auto

16. TAKE AWAYS
• Developer – Tester boundary
thinning
• Objective : Build Good Quality Code
first time
• Developers to understand the test
cases before coding
• Testers becoming more technical ,
understand Architecture , Unit Tests
…
• Not just defect finding : can we also

17. HOW TO EXPERIMENT
• Evangelize the “WHY” by leadership
• Cross Trainings
• Listen to the team on how its
working and fine tune
• Worked better on
• Brand New projects , Features
• Small Scrum teams
• Co located

18. E2: AUTOMATION FRAMEWORK
• Feature Coding & Test Coding
using different language
• Result : FAIL
• Automation framework change –
all coding including test in same
language
• Result : Good progress

19. AUTOMATION FRAMEWORK TAKE
AWAYS
• Revised Experiment
• FE :
• Dev – javascript
• Unit Test , Functional Test –
javascript
• BE :
• Dev – Java
• Unit Test , Functional Test - Java
• Dev writing smoke tests , good quality

20. AUTOMATION FRAMEWORK

21. E3: MIND MAPS
• For test planning
• Test case brainstorming
• Test reviews
• RESULT :
• Quicker
• Easy to review especially for
distributed teams

22. MIND MAPS

23. MIND MAPS

24. MIND MAPS

25. MIND MAPS

26. MIND MAPS – TAKE AWAYS
S# Activity Project Savings/Returns
Without Mind Maps With Mind Maps
01 Test Plan Discussion 1 Hour 20 Minutes 65%
02 Test Case Designing 3 PD 0.5 PD 80%
03 Test Case
Review/Walkthrough
2 Hours 30 Minutes 75%
04 Incorporating review and
feedback Inputs
2 Hours NIL 100%
05 Test Case Review Inputs 1X 5X 5 Times Review Inputs

27. • Free Tools –
• FreeMind
• Xmind
• Paid Tools –
• MS Visio
• Mind Manager
• Xmind Pro
MIND MAPS

28. MIND MAPS

29. E4 : TEST HUDDLES

30. TEST HUDDLES

31. TEST HUDDLE – TAKE AWAYS
• Better Clarity of
• Features ,
• User Stories ,
• Aacceptance criteria ,
• Tests
• ATDD

32. TEST HUDDLES

33. E5 : GROUP TESTS

34. GROUP TESTS – TAKE AWAYS
• Early feedback
• Theme based (ex: browser ,3 screens…)
• Sev1 , Sev2s are resolved in same
sprint

35. WHERE WE EXPERIMENTED
• Cloud
• Mobile
• Web applications with Millions of
PVs
• Machine learned algorithms
• Back end
• Front end

36. IS THIS RELEVANT FOR YOU ?
Source : Crisp's Blog

37. Q&A