Planning Pattern for Agile TestersGerrit Beine

gerrit.beine@saxsys.de

What this talk is NOT about

• Tool discussions

• Testing methodology

• Technical aspects of how to create and maintain software tests

What this talk is about

Observations

Conclusions

Pattern

Observations

A common issue: User Stories are not testable

Define Test Data

Create

Test Report

Define Test Cases

Execute

Test Cases

Conclusions

• Testers need to be part of the team

• It’s not about the testers’ workflow, but about value

• Quality is key and not negotiable

• Testers have to contribute to acceptance criteria of User Stories

Pattern

Pattern 1: The Story Workshop

• Responsible: Product Owner

• Goal: Improving the Quality of User Stories

• How to do it:

• Invite your testers to a workshop for writing User Stories instead of writing them alone on your desk.

• Ask your testers for possible acceptance criteria of every User Story.

Pattern 2: Sprint Planning 1.5• Responsible: Team

• Goal: Prepare task slicing after Planning 1

• How to do it:

• The team forms pairs that are responsible for selected User Stories.

• Each pair look for the key aspects of each User Story.

• These aspects are the starting point of slicing tasks in Planning 2.

Pattern 3: Test Driven Planning

• Responsible: The team’s testers

• Goal: Hand over the lead of sprint planning to the testers

• How to do it:

• The testers provide test ideas for each User Story to the team.

• The developers slice their tasks with the goal to make the resulting test cases green as fast as possible.

Pattern 4: The Value-Oriented Scrum Board

• Responsible: Team

• Goal: Visualize the Test Driven Planning

• How to do to:

• Stick the testers ideas in a column for every User Story.

• Stick the developers’ and testers’ tasks beside these test ideas.

Pattern 4: The Value-Oriented Scrum Board

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Pattern 5: Honor the test pyramid

• Responsible: Team

• Goal: Create valuable test according to Mike Cohn’s test pyramid

• How to do it:

• Focus on test ideas during planning and simple ways to satisfy tests.

• Discuss a lot about simplicity and be willing to throw away complex solutions.

The test pyramidSource: http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TestPyramid.html

Pattern 6:Don’t distinguish between dev and test tasks

• Responsible: Team

• Goal: Exceed role-based thinking

• Focus on business value and technical excellence.

• How to do it:

• Just stop showing up any kind of difference on your task board.

Pattern 6:Don’t distinguish between dev and test tasks

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So geht Software.