The Spin Bowler and the Agile Tester

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Amy Johnston
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1 The Spin Bowler and the Agile Tester

2 At work I test software Outside work I coach Junior Cricket

3 Both cricket and testing use models and frameworks

4 Cricket coaching uses models to communicate ideas POP - Player centered coaching Core Principles Continuum of practice Coaches tool kit STEP Framework

5 I had a pre-season session with a spin bowling coach and he showed me a model of what a spin bowler should do... I needed communicate the role of a tester in an agile team just as he needed to communicate the role of a spin bowler...and I thought that I could adapt his model to solve a problem that I had in testing

6 How should I communicate what agile testers do?

7 Testers job titles are the same whether we work in an agile or a waterfall team...but the role is quite different Expectations are often based on what testers in waterfall teams do We need to be able to quickly describe what it is that testers in agile teams do

8 The Tester in a waterfall team is often described as: Having an eye for detail Having good concentration Having good interpersonal skills Being conscientious

9 In a waterfall team often it is the case that : Testers are only involved when the code is "ready for testing" The Tester does lots of manual testing there is often not sufficient time for the tester to write automated tests Work is allocated to the Tester I always felt I could contribute more..

10 The Testers in an Agile team help improve the quality of software by: being involved in all stages of the development process Carrying out a wide range of roles being involved in test automation being self organising helping the team be self-organising

11 Due to the move to agile the role of the Tester has changed and we need to communicate this We need to be able to describe what we do We need to manage expectations... upwards We need to persuade people so that we can improve how we make software

12 The role of the Tester has changed We maintain test environments We write acceptance criteria We facilitate meetings We automate tests We are part of the "Power of Three"\"Three Amigos" As well as testing manually

13 We need to be able to communicate the new role easily So that we can express what we do To enable better communication within the team So that we can contribute more to the team So that we can help the business understand how agile teams work So that we get involved in test automation Share good practice across the company

14 Need to describe the role of the Agile Tester to... Senior Management Senior Managers at other locations Scrum Masters The Product Owner Developers at other locations Testers at other locations The Dev Team Testers Recruiters Potential members of the team HR New starters in the Dev Team Business people who interface with the Dev Team Support Analysts

15 When I worked in a company that was based in one office I could talk with the stakeholders every day

16 We spoke about the need for testers to develop their skills.. Testers need to have work over the course of a sprint that enables them to retain and develop their skills If you don t write code for two years you will forget how if Testers are not getting any coding work a "Test Support" story could be added to the scrum teams sprints to give the Tester coding work

17 We also spoke about Lean testing In line with Lean principles testing should start as early as possible Testers should help to refine stories Testers can do "Test Consultancy" when the programmer starts work on a story

18 And spoke about finding the causes of bugs If a bug has been deployed to production, the teams Tester can lead Root Cause Analysis to find the reason

19 Many companies have Dev Teams in more than one location We need something to help us communicate

20 This is where the bowling coaches model was useful.

21 The coaches model enabled me: to show what we do and share the model

22 "Soft Skills" e.g. questioning An Agile Tester: Aids the development process and improves quality Testing Skills e.g. exploratory testing The Agile Tester and their "Hard" Skills e.g. test automation skills

23 What do we want stakeholders to understand about our role? What other techniques can we use to communicate our agile role? What metaphors and models will appeal to our colleagues and stakeholders as we explain our model? Who do we need to communicate this message to? Does this model show on one side of A4 what testers do in an agile team?

24 Thank You Mike Harris Test Lead New Look

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