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Agile Journal March 2010

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Written by Russell Pannone   
Monday, 08 March 2010 00:00
Agile Journal

Agile Journal is an online magazine and e-newsletter focused on providing readers with the need-to-know information and resources they need to develop software for an agile business. For over three years Agile Journal has delivered thought leadership and pragmatic advice from a wide range of industry experts, as well as direct feedback from hands-on developers and project managers.

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Agile Quality Management and Testing - March  2010

Cover“Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.” – Dr. W. Edwards Deming

“Quality is everyone's responsibility.” – Dr. W. Edwards Deming

“You cannot inspect quality into the product; it is already there.” – Dr. W. Edwards Deming

“It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.” – Dr. W. Edwards Deming

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, who is considered by many to be the father of modern Quality Management, simplified Quality Management into the iterative and incremental quality improvement cycle of Plan, Do, Check/Study, Act (PDCA). Fundamentally, PDCA increases the frequency of feedback loops, reduces waste and helps to maintain and advance quality

Dr. Deming’s quality improvement cycle was based on the work of Walter A. Shewhart. Dr. Deming edited a series of lectures delivered by Shewhart at United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control, into a book published in 1939.

This month’s edition is devoted to Agile Quality Management and Testing.

Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin, co-authors of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams (Addison-Wesley, 2009) share with us their insights about QA and Testing in their article titled: “What’s a Tester without a QA Team?”.

Robert Small and Janet Gregory, cleverly and insightfully, share with us a conversation between the two of them with respect to “QA vs. Testing in Agile Projects”.

My article, “Quality Management and Testing in the World of Scrum and Agile Product Development,” shares how Quality Management is inherent or self-evident in self-directing and self-organizing agile teams, as the team iteratively and incrementally validates and verifies the team is doing the right things, doing those things right and adapting every step of the way; while delivering commercial or operational value incrementally.

The product director of test automation at Micro Focus, Joachim Herschmann, in his article “Managing the Transition to Agile”, shares with us his insights about the many challenges that an established software organization faces when shifting to agile. He helps us take a look at some major considerations that any enterprise making an agile shift must tackle; Quality in Agile – A new paradigm for QA being one of the areas to consider:

  • Empowering self-managing teams in a distributed environment
  • Measuring the benefits
  • Applying Agile in a heterogeneous tooling environment
  • Planning in an Agile world
  • Quality in Agile – A new paradigm for QA
  • Managing a successful transition

Ken Pugh, in his article, “An Introductory Acceptance Test”, describes an example of an acceptance test and four ways that an acceptance test can be executed.

Mike Cohn in his article “Continuous Testing: Building Quality into Your Projects” shares with us why testing at the end doesn’t work, the test automation pyramid, and what building in quality looks like.

Geoffrey Bourne, in his article “Agile Developer’s Journal: A Day In The Life”, walks us through a typical “Day in the Life” of an agile developer, specifically at the mid point of an Iteration cycle.  Including insights on test-driven development and continuous integration.

Finally, Roman Pichler, in his article “Getting the Product Backlog Ready for Sprint Planning”, shares that carefully preparing the product backlog for the upcoming sprint planning meeting is key to creating successful product. It ensures that the sprint planning meeting is effective resulting in a strong and realistic commitment.

Check out the future editions of the Agile Journal, as Mr. Pichler will share additional articles based on his forthcoming book, Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love.

Have a great reading experience!

Your agile buddy and editor,
Russell Pannone
Editor
Agile Journal


Featured articles...


What’s a Tester without a QA Team?
by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory
When a tester joins an agile team, she leaves her Test or QA team behind. Often, her old QA team is disbanded altogether. Without the support of a QA team, she might feel abandoned, especially if she now reports to a development manager. She’s in danger of becoming isolated, having lost the phased and gated process that guided her old team. She may feel pushed to the sidelines and like she’s lost any control over quality.
Read More >>


QA vs. Testing in Agile Projects
by Bob Small and Janet Gregory
Janet Gregory has been a long time icon of mine.  When I was asked to write an article for the Agile Journal regarding Agile testing I was honoured.  The first person I thought of was Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin as their book, Agile Testing, was a huge help to me when I was first learning about this topic.  After contacting Janet about co-authoring the article, we quickly discovered that we had a very strong difference of opinion.  We decided to share that with you in this article.  You may feel strongly one way or another from reading this article, and the comments from the conversation, but please remember we are all trying to do the same thing.  Increase quality, of our software, and help others to do the same.
Read More >>



Quality Management & Testing in the World of Scrum and Agile Product Development
by Russell Pannone
Does Quality Management, as depicted in Figure 1.0, have a place in agile product (system-software) development and delivery?
Read More >>

More articles...

Managing the Transition to Agile
by Joachim Herschmann
During these challenging economic times there is a dramatic increase in the need of organizations to adapt the software delivery lifecycle processes to the rapid changes often imposed on them. Leadership is making the decision to transition its development organization – not than just small teams but large numbers of engineers, working on a broad portfolio of development projects from many different locations around the world — to a more agile approach as part of an effort to vastly improve performance, be more responsive to customers and improve quality. However, there are many challenges that an established software organization faces when shifting to Agile.
Read More >>


An Introductory Acceptance Test
by Ken Pugh
"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else." Yogi Berra

This article is an excerpt from Ken Pugh’s upcoming book – “Lean-Agile Acceptance Test Driven Development” to be published by Addison-Wesley.  Debbie, the developer, and Tom, the tester, are introducing acceptance test-driven development to Cathy, the customer.

The Triad – Tom, Debbie, and Cathy – are in their second meeting together.  Debbie describes an example of an acceptance test and four ways that an acceptance test can be executed.
Read More >>


Continuous Testing: Building Quality into Your Projects
by Mike Cohn
I buy new cars infrequently, typically every 10 to 12 years. So when I bought a new car in 2003 I was surprised at the many advances in technology since I’d purchased my previous car, a 1993 Honda. One advance I was particularly pleased with was a sensor that automatically detects low air pressure in my tires. It is sometimes hard to tell by looking at a tire if its pressure is low, and checking tires manually is a dirty job, so I did it infrequently. A continuous test of tire pressure was, I thought, a tremendous invention.
Read More >>


Agile Developer’s Journal: A Day In The Life
by Geoffrey Bourne
People are creatures of habit, particularly programmers: we seek consistency, whether it is the tried and true Waterfall/SDLC method or our morning routine of reading the newspaper with a hot cup of coffee.  Companies or projects looking to adopt an Agile process usually begin by asking, "What it the ROI (return on investment)?" and "Will projects be delivered better, faster and cheaper?"  While these are excellent management focused questions, they neglect the fundamental concern of an individual developer: "What will my day-to-day look like working in an Agile environment?"
Read More >>


Getting the Product Backlog Ready for Sprint Planning
by Roman Pichler
Most sprint planning meetings I have attended were fun. The ones that weren’t involved a poorly groomed product backlog, whose high-priority items were not workable, not ready to be pulled into the sprint. When the backlog hasn’t been prepared prior to the meeting, the product owner and team often carry out impromptu grooming activities. These consume valuable planning time and usually result in poor requirements and weak commitments. Plus, everyone is fed up and exhausted by the end of the meeting. As a consequence, the product backlog items that are likely to be worked on in the next sprint have to be prepared prior to each sprint planning meeting. Although it is the product owner’s job to make sure that the work gets done, preparing the product backlog should be teamwork involving the product owner, ScrumMaster and team. We begin the preparation work by choosing a sprint goal.
Read More >>

Last Updated on Wednesday, 10 March 2010 10:33
 

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