Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams [Paperback]

Lisa Crispin (Author), Janet Gregory (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0321534468 | ISBN-13: 978-0321534460 | Edition: 1

Testing is a key component of agile development. The widespread adoption of agile methods has brought the need for effective testing into the limelight, and agile projects have transformed the role of testers. Much of a tester’s function, however, remains largely misunderstood. What is the true role of a tester? Do agile teams actually need members with QA backgrounds? What does it really mean to be an “agile tester?”

Two of the industry’s most experienced agile testing practitioners and consultants, Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory, have teamed up to bring you the definitive answers to these questions and many others. In Agile Testing, Crispin and Gregory define agile testing and illustrate the tester’s role with examples from real agile teams. They teach you how to use the agile testing quadrants to identify what testing is needed, who should do it, and what tools might help. The book chronicles an agile software development iteration from the viewpoint of a tester and explains the seven key success factors
of agile testing.

Readers will come away from this book understanding

• How to get testers engaged in agile development
• Where testers and QA managers fit on an agile team
• What to look for when hiring an agile tester
• How to transition from a traditional cycle to agile development
• How to complete testing activities in short iterations
• How to use tests to successfully guide development
• How to overcome barriers to test automation

This book is a must for agile testers, agile teams, their managers, and their customers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“As Agile methods have entered the mainstream, we’ve learned a lot about how the testing discipline fits into Agile projects. Lisa and Janet give us a solid look at what to do, and what to avoid, in Agile testing.”
–Ron Jeffries, www.XProgramming.com

“An excellent introduction to agile and how it affects the software test community!”
–Gerard Meszaros, Agile Practice Lead and Chief Test Strategist at Solution Frameworks, Inc., an agile coaching and lean software development consultancy

“In sports and music, people know the importance of practicing technique until it becomes a part of the way they do things. This book is about some of the most fundamental techniques in software development–how to build quality into code–techniques that should become second nature to every development team. The book provides both broad and in-depth coverage of how to move testing to the front of the development process, along with a liberal sprinkling of real-life examples that bring the book to life.”
–Mary Poppendieck, Author of Lean Software Development and Implementing Lean Software Development

“Refreshingly pragmatic. Chock-full of wisdom. Absent of dogma. This book is a gamechanger. Every software professional should read it.”
–Uncle Bob Martin, Object Mentor, Inc.

“With Agile Testing, Lisa and Janet have used their holistic sensibility of testing to describe a culture shift for testers and teams willing to elevate their test effectiveness. The combination of real-life project experiences and specific techniques provide an excellent way to learn and adapt to continually changing project needs.”
–Adam Geras, M.Sc. Developer-Tester, Ideaca Knowledge Services

“On Agile projects, everyone seems to ask, ‘But, what about testing?’ Is it the development team’s responsibility entirely, the testing team, or a collaborative effort between developers and testers? Or, ‘How much testing should we automate?’ Lisa and Janet have written a book that finally answers these types of questions and more! Whether you’re a tester, developer, or manager, you’ll learn many great examples and stories from the real-world work experiences they’ve shared in this excellent book.”
–Paul Duvall, CTO of Stelligent and co-author of Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk

“Finally a book for testers on Agile teams that acknowledges there is not just one right way! Agile Testing provides comprehensive coverage of the issues testers face when they move to Agile: from tools and metrics to roles and process. Illustrated with numerous stories and examples from many contributors, it gives a clear picture of what successful Agile testers are doing today.”
–Bret Pettichord, Chief Technical Officer of WatirCraft and Lead Developer of Watir

About the Author

Lisa Crispin is dedicated to helping agile teams and testers discover good ways to deliver the best possible product. She specializes in showing testers and agile teams how testers can add value and how to guide development with business-facing tests. Since 2003, she’s been a tester on a Scrum/XP team at ePlan Services, Inc., and frequently leads tutorials and workshops on agile testing at conferences. Lisa regularly contributes articles about agile testing to publications such as Better Software magazine, IEEE Software, and Methods and Tools. Lisa also coauthored Testing Extreme Programming (Addison-Wesley, 2002) with Tip House.

Janet Gregory is the founder of DragonFire, Inc., an agile quality process consultancy and training firm. Her passion is helping teams build quality systems. Since 1998, she has worked as a coach and tester introducing agile practices into both large and small companies. Her focus is working with business users and testers to understand their role in agile projects. Janet is a frequent speaker at agile and testing software conferences, and she is a major contributor to the North American agile testing community.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (January 9, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321534468
• ISBN-13: 978-0321534460
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Testing

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 55 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, but a little bit too soft April 24, 2010

By Paulo Sergio Medeiros

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I think this book is a little overhyped. Don't get me wrong. The book offers many interesting insights and experience reports about how testing can be organized by an agile team. However, in my opinion, much of them are "common sense" or were already explored in other sources (as some reviewers stated: "more about agile than agile testing"). For example, suggestions like "begin with the happy path", "put test stories on your backlog to make the test activities visible", "when working with legacy systems, create tests for the new features and, then, treat the old code in small steps" and "i (the tester) used to put candies on my table to attract programmers" are all interesting. But, at least for me, that wasn't *ONLY* what I was expecting for. Also, is that really new to someone that has experience with test or software? Another example of my expectations was about the beginning with test automation chapter. I really liked to be alerted to evaluate the ROI of what needs to be automated, but where are the details of inserting these activities in a team? What are the steps?

As a practical guide I was really expecting to see *DETAILED* examples of software testing in an agile context, distilled in steps or recommendations for its application in other contexts. I wouldn't be bothered if these examples weren't directly applicable to my context, but at least I would know how decisions were made and how they worked out. Overall, I was expecting much more technical content and even without all this the book managed to have 576 pages. Ok, again, maybe it was just my wrong expectations, but be advised to what you will get. If you are new to Agile you can read this book. Also, even if you are experienced, but want to refresh some good "common sense" practices it's a good read too. Otherwise, don't create many expectations as I did.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A much needed book. A must read. January 7, 2009

By Bas Vodde

Format:Paperback

"Agile Testing" is an excellent and must-needed book related to testing in agile product development. Much has been written about test-driven development on unit level, however, little has been written on higher level testing and the role of testers and test departments in Agile development. This book changes that!

The book consists of 6 parts. The first part if an introduction, the last part is a summary. The introduction starts with a short explanation of agile testing and then followed by the ten principles of an Agile Tester. One of the key messages in this book is "the whole team approach", meaning that testing should be within the team and should not just be "the testers job". Anyone in the team can test, however, teams will probably still benefit from having a test specialist of a test expert. This mindset is one of the key thoughts the book repeats over and over again. In the last chapter, the authors summarize their thoughts with the seven key success factors for testing. Again, "the whole team approach" is #1. The agile testing mindset -- the proactive, creative cooperative mindset as opposed to a quality policy mindset -- is the second success factor.

The second part of the book describes organizational challenges. In my opinion, this part was perhaps the most needed. In many organizations testers struggle to find their role on agile product development. The chapter relate to cultural change, team logistics and transitioning typical processes. I thought the chapters were enlightening. Parts I liked were the discussion about the change in role for QA managers and especially the experience that, without proper coaching, a lot of traditional testing people might simply flee your agile development effort.

The third part of the book takes Brian Maricks four testing quadrants and explains these in details. These quadrants describe the different types of testing and how they would happen in agile development. The unit testing part is not covered thoroughly, as the authors (correctly) mention that this is covered well by other literature. The higher-level functional (acceptance) testing is covered well, including advise on automation. Exploratory testing is also covered in detail and explains its role in agile development clearly. Non-functional testing is covered reasonably well, especially considering that this depends so much on the type of product you are developing.

The fourth part of the book focuses more on test automation. I didn't find much new information in here, though it was a good summary of modern test automation and some of the challenges and difference between traditional test automation.

Part five follows an agile tester though an agile project and explains for every step in an agile project what the role of an agile tester is. It starts with the role in release planning and estimating. Then it explains the preparation before an iteration (product backlog refinement) and how early example tests can (should) be written. It continues with iteration planning and then the actual activities an agile tester would do during the iteration. This part also includes the important discussion related to the use of bug tracking systems. The part ends with the iteration review/retrospective and some final works about the actual delivery.

As mentioned, in my opinion, a good book on agile testing was absolutely needed. And the authors do not disappoint at all. Their knowledge about the subject is obvious. They have put much effort in sharing actual experiences by the many sidebox experience sharing stories. They touch the seldom touched parts related to organizations and roles and transitioning. Their writing is clear, though sometimes repeats itself (but not so that it is annoying). Not much topics are left unanswered, the book is thorough.

All in all, this book is exactly the kind of book that was needed. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in agile development and especially testers who have a hard time finding their new roles. Great work! Five stars.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great help for transitioning QA analysts to Agile teams February 5, 2009

By Alex Kell

Format:Paperback

I'm a QA Manager in a department of 30 testers, most of whom have spent their entire careers on traditional SDLC "waterfall" projects. One of my, perhaps unenviable, tasks is to help transition these folks onto newly formed Agile teams. While I've had success, I wish I had this book sooner!

Crispin and Gregory have created a practical and very readable reference that shines a light on the roles of testers, and testing management -- areas that are often neglected in most of the work that I've found. Perhaps most importantly, they address the fear and apprehension that testers feel when faced with the prospect of joining an Agile team -- the same emotions I've seen (and felt) time and time again.

There's an appropriate mix of high level concepts and low level specifics. The book starts with discussions of principles and mindsets and moves on, in the later chapters to discuss such things as specific techniques of test automation. All along there are anecdotes from interviews with real agile teams and quoted articles from testing luminaries such as Brian Marick, Michael Bolten, et. al.

I've already begun to incorporate much of the material in these books into my own writings and presentations and it's certainly gratifying to see some of my own ideas mirrored. I now have solid references to back them up! I highly recommend this book for testers and testing managers who are planning to start on Agile projects, or who have years of experience on them. There's surely something in this book that will influence you.