7 Habits of Highly Effective Agile Testing - Test Istanbul

7 Habits of Highly Eﬀec3ve
Agile Tes3ng
Philip Lew
© 2017 XBOSo@, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.
1

SeHng Expecta3ons
© 2017 XBOSo@, Inc.- All Rights Reserved. 2
•  I can’t read
– You can get a copy of these slides
later.
•  Go to xboso@.com
•  You’ll learn more today than
so@ware stuﬀ.

Founda3on of 7 Habits
•  Stephen Covey’s book in 1989 almost 30 years
ago, “Seven Habits of Highly Eﬀec3ve People”
•  Just star3ng my career, I applied many of the
principles to not just my work life, but life as a
whole.
•  Recently read his book again and sharpened
up “my saw” in the process. With these
principles in mind, I developed this talk
keeping his 7 habits in mind.

The Original 7 Habits
by Stephen Covey
1.  Be Proac3ve
2.  Begin with the End in Mind
3.  Put First Things First
4.  Think Win-Win
5.  Seek First to Understand, Then to Be
Understood
6.  Synergize
7.  Sharpen the Saw

Opened 1937
The 4,200-foot long
suspension span of the
Golden Gate Bridge was
the longest span in the
world at the time of its
construction in 1937.
On time, still standing.
How long did it take to build?

So@ware is New and Constantly
Changing
•  Smaller teams
•  Faster itera3ons
•  Listening to the user
– Con3nuous beta
– Data collec3on
•  Communica3on
•  Working smarter
•  Analysis, adap3on and
improvement
1.  Many failures
2.  Changes in technology (mobile,
cloud) and SaaS business models
3.  Demand changes in the way we work

Being Successful or Not with Agile
A@er Working With Many of Our Clients
•  I’ve found a few traits that are common
across all or at least most
– Either in their success
– Or in their failure
•  Most of these are not rocket science
•  Some have nothing to do with
technology


Agile
Problems
Resistance to
Change
DIstrust
Requirements
Churn
Agile Doing
– Not Being
Process
Inconsistency Lack Test
Automa3on
Retrospec3ves
Not Valuable
AgileFall
Lack Customer-User
Understanding
Agile Failures – Why?

“Be Proac*ve” at Being Successful
and Prevent Failure!

Habit 1
Focus on Efficiency and Effec3veness
“Smart and Get Things Done” (from Joel on
So(ware)
•  High level of test automa3on with con3nuous
integra3on and delivery
•  Fast feedback systems
•  Automate environment and data management
•  Do just “enough documenta3on”
•  Priori3ze your efforts – “Put First Things First”
•  Manage technical debt and risk

Plan for Technical Debt
•  Plan for it – It will happen, how to “Be
Proac3ve” and deal with it?
•  Agile teams should have a “fix bugs first” or
bug thresholds to prevent a large backlog of
bugs
– Reduce ‘3me to fix’
•  Periodic stabiliza3on or ‘fix defects’ sprints
should be planned
•  With proper metrics, tes3ng can help measure
and manage technical debt

Have Criteria for Documenta3on or
NOT
“Agile methods derive much of their
agility by relying on the tacit
knowledge embodied in the team
rather than wri@ng the knowledge
down in plans.”
Barry Boehm

Habit 2
Treat the User as King (or Queen)
•  GeHng user stories right
– User stories are the main input for tes3ng
– Understand context and domain
– Ask ques3ons or plan on lots of rework
•  Priori3ze product quality, user experience and value
to the client and user
– Reduce list of things to do-What criteria do you
have?
•  Conduct usability tes3ng as early as possible
– Use mock-ups as throw away tests
– Hallway usability tes3ng

Understand the User
Test early and o@en with users and customers
•  Task analysis
– 80/20 rule
•  Real usage and observa3on
– Don’t wait 3ll the end
•  Each itera3on should provide valuable
informa3on going forward
– Don’t race to the ﬁnish line, you may be going in
the wrong direc3on!
14 © 2017 XBOSo@, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.

Habit 3
Maintain an Improvement Frame of Mind
•  Con3nuous improvement through tracking
and measurement
•  Trus3ng and meaningful retrospec3ves
•  Develop agile prac3ces with constant review
and improvement as part of the process
•  Maintain a sustainable pace that leads to
sustainable improvement

Metrics Should
•  Aﬃrm and reinforce your Agile goals and
principles
•  Show trends not numbers
•  Be a basis for conversa3on
– WHY
•  Be easy to collect
•  Help determine excellence and improvement
(or not)
•  Be easily and openly viewed every day by all

Metrics
•  Team understanding and acceptance of what is
measured:
– Support building beter so@ware
– Not the end, but a beginning of a discussion
to get beter
•  Enabling:
– Evalua3on of progress
– Redirec3on of priori3es
– Insights on if changes worked

Retrospec3ve
Use It to Sharpen the Saw
•  Held at the end of each itera3on
•  Team reﬂects on what happened in the itera3on and
iden3ﬁes ac3ons for improvement
•  Team-driven, and team members should decide
together how the mee3ngs will be run and how
decisions will be made about improvements.
•  For con3nuous improvement, regular Agile
retrospec3ve is one of the most important of Agile
development prac3ces.

Retrospec3ve’s Value Depends on
Trust
•  An atmosphere of honesty and trust so team
members can share thoughts.
•  Norman Kerth's work, his prime direc3ve
states, "Regardless of what we discover, we
understand and truly believe that everyone
did the best job they could, given what they
knew at the 3me, their skills and abili3es, the
resources available, and the situa3on at
hand.”
•  Permission to be gloom and doom

(A) Retrospec3ve Framework
Don’t just “Gab”-Begin with the End in Mind
Ini3ate
Collect
info
Generate
Insights
Decide on
Ac3on
Close

Example Retrospec3ve Framework
1.  Ini3a3on- Get the team ready to engage with a par3cipa3ve warm-up
ac3vity that relaxes and engages (5 minutes)
2.  Collect informa3on - Create an overall team view of what happened
during the itera3on (10 minutes)
3.  Generate insights and ac3on items (15 minutes)
–  What worked well for us? Or what should we con3nue doing?
–  What did not work well for us? What should we stop doing?
–  What ac3ons can we take to improve our process going forward?
What should we start doing?
4.  Decide on Ac3on - iden3fy highest priority items for the next itera3on and
measures to determine comple3on (15 minutes)
5.  Close - Reﬂect on the eﬀec3veness of the retrospec3ve and how to
improve it (5 minutes)
–  Appreciate accomplishments of the team and individual interac3ons
(5 minutes)

Trust
We feel trust. Emo@ons associated
with trust include companionship,
friendship, caring, love, comfort.

Trust is Created by Ac3on
•  Here are a few ways to create trust
in our daily lives through our ac@ons
toward one another and our clients.
1.  Predictability
2.  Exchange
3.  Reciprocity
4.  Vulnerability

1: Predictability
•  Deﬁni&on 1: Trust means being able
to predict what other people will do
and what situa3ons will occur.
•  If we can surround ourselves with
people we trust, then we can create
a safe present and an even beter
future.

2: Exchange
•  Deﬁni&on 2: Trust means making an
exchange with someone when you do not
have full knowledge about them, their
intent and what they are oﬀering to you.
•  Interac3ons with exchange are basis for
all rela3onships.
•  Trust in value exchange if we do not know
whether what we are receiving is what we
expect.

3: Reciprocity
•  Defini&on 3: Trust means giving something
now with an expecta3on that it will be repaid,
possibly in some unspecified way at some
unspecified 3me in the future.
•  Trust is important here because otherwise we
are giving something for nothing. The delay
adds uncertainty that requires trust.
•  “I give you something now with the hope of
geHng back some unspecified thing in the
unknown future.”

4: Vulnerability
•  Deﬁni&on 4: Trust means enabling other
people to take advantage of your
vulnerabili3es (weakness)—but expec3ng that
they will not do this.
•  When we trust other people, we may not only
be giving them something in hope of geHng
something else back in the future, we may
also be exposing ourselves in a way that they
can take advantage of (us) our vulnerabili3es.

What Do All These Elements of
Trust Have in Common?
•  Predictability
•  Exchange
•  Reciprocity
•  Vulnerability
UNCERTAINTY
Trust is developed by
reducing or removing
uncertainty.

Habit 4
Be agile, Then Do Agile
• You can’t do Agile un@l you are
agile

High School Be-Do-Have
Be
Do
Have

Agile Be-Do-Have
Be
Do
Have
© 2017 XBOSo@, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.
Doing - Process
•  Iterative (sprints)
•  Daily standups
•  Face to face communication
•  Post mortem – end of sprint
•  Delivery meeting – end of sprint
•  Planning meeting – before sprint
•  Self organizing
Being - People
•  Communicative
•  Collaborative/Cooperative
•  Flexible and willing
•  Knowledgeable-multi
•  Initiative/responsible
•  Responsive
Having - Results
•  Speed
•  Quality
31
Focus Measurements Here

How to Support and Enable agile
Being
•  Maintain small teams
•  Promote cross func3onal stacked teams
•  Emphasize collabora3on versus 1 way
communica3on
•  Develop a shared understanding
•  “Think Win – Win” and “Synergize”
through your team culture

Keep Teams Small – Size Maters
“Synergize”
Small teams:
•  Force members to work in many
areas across disciplines leading
to cross func3onal teams
•  That are full-stack and
autonomous won’t get blocked
by others
•  Promote eﬃcient
communica3on and
collabora3on so that team
members do not block each
other and duplicate their work;
•  Can integrate feedback a@er
each itera3on and make changes
easier and faster than larger
teams

On the Other Hand, Big Teams:
•  Cause groups to form
around a discipline –
can inhibit cross-
discipline
collabora3on.
•  Can lead to disrupted
cadence, diluted
shared understanding,
and dispersed focus

Communica3on is in our
Evolu3onary DNA
With other
things equal,
or even at a
disadvantage,
Teams that
communicate
better will win.

Communica3on versus
Collabora3on
Gossip and
small talk
Collabora3on
For your
informa3on
Broadcast
One-Way
Two-Way
http://bizblog.blackberry.com/2013/11/mind-link-collaboration/
•  Collaboration: Two-way communication aimed at
achieving specific business objectives.
•  Those that communicate AND collaborate the best
will WIN
“Think Win Win”

Communicate AND Collaborate
•  Email is necessary communica3on,
but it is not equal to collabora3on.
•  U3lize high bandwidth
communica3on; face to face, Skype,
telephone, whiteboards, video, etc…
•  Create process that includes
communica3ng as part of the
process.
– Don’t write documents to avoid
talking, CYA docs-emails
– Decide what docs will be useful in
the beginning

Itera3on Goes Hand in Hand
with Collabora3on
•  Incomplete and imperfect designs should be
welcomed as imperfec3on that leads to
collabora3on.
•  Recognize that itera3on leads to beter
design.
•  “Working” so@ware means it works enough to
get feedback, not perfec3on.
•  Use tools such as prototyping tools as a way
to collaborate.

Promote a Shared Understanding
When you hire new team members
•  Don’t assume new guys have the same
shared ‘understanding’ that you’ve
developed over 3me.
•  Pause to ini3ate new team members,
answer ques3ons, and appreciate new
input that could and should be diﬀerent.
•  Provides opportunity to reset/reinforce
the en3re team’s understanding.

Promote a Shared Understanding
•  Shared understanding is the key to Agile.
– Don’t make assump3ons on what is
understood or not.
– Ask: what do you mean?
•  Apply XP programming techniques to bring
new hires up-to-speed quickly, e.g., pair
programming
– Pair Tes3ng
“Seek First to Understand Then to Be Understood”

Facilitate a Team Culture
•  People coming in and out of the team can disrupt
cadence, ﬂow, and collabora3on. Maintain team
composi3on consistency.
•  When someone is missing (for any number of reasons)
for a day or two, that’s not collabora3on.
•  Working in isola3on is necessary some3mes, but
should be very short dura3on. Make work and
progress (or no progress) instantly visible to all.
•  Changing roles is good to break up a rou3ne, learn
new things and provide future con3ngency/risk mgmt,
but can also bring produc3vity and cadence down.

Habit 5
Think Tasks Not Roles
•  No ‘tes3ng’ phase
•  Flexibility in roles but with clear
responsibili3es and task assignments
– You can wear a diﬀerent hat?
– What hats can you wear?
•  QA is part of the team from start to
ﬁnish

Tes3ng Tasks are a Cri3cal Part of
the Plan
•  Tes3ng is not an a@erthought
– Clarify stories with customer and end user
•  Think from their point of view
– Iden3fy tes3ng ac3vi3es to support development
•  White box tes3ng
•  Integra3on tes3ng
– Backlog grooming
•  Improve and clarify stories
43 © 2017 XBOSo@, Inc.- All Rights Reserved.

Tom Brady Can Play Linebacker
•  Go where you’re
wanted and needed
•  Use the skills you
have where they are
most needed to help
the team win
•  AND… GET MORE
SKILLS – “Sharpen
the Saw”

Tester Pairing
•  With test domain experts
– Security
– Performance
– Usability
– Automa3on
•  With other testers
– “Extreme Tes3ng” -- XT (XP)
•  With programmers
– White box
– Programming logic versus tes3ng logic

Make Responsibili3es Clear
•  Lots of chefs are great but…
•  Divide the work according to type of chef
(dessert, meat, pastry)
•  Need clear decision makers in each discipline
and have speciﬁc roles (can also be rotated)
•  Weakest link can cause the team to fail
•  Talent must match the needs of the team and
the team must have the ability to replace talent.
•  Iden3fying the weak links should be obvious via
working in close proximity and transparency.

Habit 6
Focus on the Customer
•  Collaborate with the customer
– Help them understand what their requirements
are!
– Help them priori3ze
– Extract, elicit examples à user stories, test cases
– ‘Mind the gap’ – be a bridge between the
developers (tech language) and the users/
business analysts (business language)
– “Help Me Help You!”

“Help Me Help You”
Jerry Macguire
Video
1. Sports agent and American football player
2. Football player is not playing well
3. The sports agent is trying to negotiate a new
contract for him
4. But obviously his poor play is not helping

Work Closely with Customers
•  “Help You Help Me” and “Help Me Help You”
•  Ensure you have a skilled and dedicated
product owner from the business
– Why bother with Agile if the business
stakeholders are not ACTIVELY involved?
– They should be leading the way, not
dragged along. They should be priori3zing
requirements.
– Focus on minimum viable product to get
early team success.

Agile is Designed for the Customer
•  Recognize that the most diﬃcult part about
requirements that agile was designed to solve
is that of missing informa3on.
•  The purpose of the agile is to gradually ﬁll in
missing informa3on while development
progresses within each sprint.
•  Priori3ze on what serves the product,
customer and user best.

Habit 7
Think Long Term
•  “Begin with the End in Mind”
– Improve the so@ware
– Deliver the ‘best’ so@ware you can.
– Deliver working so@ware
•  Keep the user in mind-Sa3sfy the user
•  Do what is sustainable, or like any race where
you run to fast, you’ll quit.

Work Delivered at a Constant Pace
•  Recognize it's a long term eﬀort, a marathon,
not a sprint
– The amount of work delivered per sprint is
constant
•  Add and subtract
•  Pace and expecta3ons
•  Don’t compare yourself with others
•  Improve incrementally, not just the so@ware
but you, and your team and how you work
together – Con3nually “Sharpen YOUR Saw”

Develop a Long Term Agile Diet
•  A@er you start changing your diet, don’t let
the old habits creep back in.
•  Maybe takes longer than “21 days”.
•  It’s just like a diet. Losing weight for a short
period is not the goal. You want to keep it oﬀ
for life. It's the beginning of a new lifestyle.
•  “Agile makes sense” but so does ea3ng fewer
desserts. Hard to change long term.

Key Components of the Agile Diet
•  Short itera3ons; don’t have to be 2 weeks
– More itera3ons, the beter – if the overhead is
bearable.
– How o@en do you weigh yourself?
•  Integrate feedback a@er each itera3on retro and
course correct.
•  Daily scrum mee3ngs with real communica3on
– everything is not ‘normal’ or ‘ok’
•  Commited and involved product owner
– Early and frequent feedback from real customer
as well

Key Components of the Agile Diet
•  Don’t forget downstream ac3vi3es (remove
barriers between development, test, and
opera3ons)
– Con3nuous integra3on
– Con3nuous delivery
•  Con3nuous improvement
– Measurement and metrics
•  Have produc3ve retrospec3ves
– We ate too many desserts, let’s work on this!

Agile New Year’s Resolu3ons
Have I Told You
ANYTHING you didn’t
know?
When the doctor tells
you to lose weight, is it
something you don’t
know? (Probably not.)
I hope I’ve reinforced
what you know or shed
a new angle on things
you’ve heard.
(Yes, eating fried foods
is not good for you!)

Successfully ‘Being agile’
•  Agile is not a technique
•  Agile is not a technology
•  You can be agile without a book, without a
coach, just like you can lose weight if you
want to, without Weight Watchers
•  With a diet, you want a lifestyle change
– Not just a 3 week eﬀort, but for long term health
– Some3mes you have set backs
•  With Agile, you want a work-style change

The 7 Habits of Highly Effec3ve Agile Tes3ng
1.  Proac3vely be efficient and effec3ve
2.  Be agile, then do Agile
3.  Maintain an improvement frame of mind
4.  Treat the user as King or Queen
5.  Think tasks not roles
6.  Focus on customer
7.  Think long term

Thanks!
For more, download:
Agile Metrics Whitepaper
Agile Test Plan
http://xbosoft.com/resources/
Philip Lew
@philiplew
philip.lew@xbosoft.com
www.xbosoft.com © 2017 XBOSo@, Inc.- All Rights Reserved. 59

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