Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Bob Bartlett
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- PART 1 REVIEW OF OLD-SCHOOL AND AGILE APPROACHES
- PART 2 EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT: AGILE CASE STUDIES
- 4 From Waterfall to Evolutionary Development and Test
- 5 How to Test a System That Is Never Finished
- 6 Implementing an Agile Testing Approach
- 7 Agile Testing in a Remote or Virtual Desktop Environment
- 8 Testing a Derivatives Trading System in an Uncooperative Environment
- 9 A Mixed Approach to System Development and Testing: Parallel Agile and Waterfall Approach Streams within a Single Project
- 10 Agile Migration and Testing of a Large-Scale Financial System
- 11 Agile Testing with Mock Objects: A CAST-Based Approach
- 12 Agile Testing – Learning from Your Own Mistakes
- 13 Agile: The Emperor's New Test Plan?
- 14 The Power of Continuous Integration Builds and Agile Development
- 15 The Payoffs and Perils of Offshored Agile Projects
- 16 The Basic Rules of Quality and Management Still Apply to Agile
- 17 Test-Infecting a Development Team
- 18 Agile Success Through Test Automation: An eXtreme Approach
- 19 Talking, Saying, and Listening: Communication in Agile Teams
- 20 Very-Small-Scale Agile Development and Testing of a Wiki
- 21 Agile Special Tactics: SOA Projects
- 22 The Agile Test-Driven Methodology Experiment
- 23 When Is a Scrum Not a Scrum?
- PART 3 AGILE MY WAY: A PROPOSAL FOR YOUR OWN AGILE TEST PROCESS
- APPENDIX A The Principles of Rapid Application Development
- APPENDIX B The Rules and Practices of Extreme Programming
- Appendix C The Principles of the Dynamic Systems Development Method
- Appendix D The Practices of Scrum
- APPENDIX E Agile Test Script Template
- Appendix F Agile Test Result Record Form Template
- Appendix G Agile Test Summary Report Template
- Appendix H My Agile Process Checklist
- References
- Index
12 - Agile Testing – Learning from Your Own Mistakes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword by Bob Bartlett
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- PART 1 REVIEW OF OLD-SCHOOL AND AGILE APPROACHES
- PART 2 EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT: AGILE CASE STUDIES
- 4 From Waterfall to Evolutionary Development and Test
- 5 How to Test a System That Is Never Finished
- 6 Implementing an Agile Testing Approach
- 7 Agile Testing in a Remote or Virtual Desktop Environment
- 8 Testing a Derivatives Trading System in an Uncooperative Environment
- 9 A Mixed Approach to System Development and Testing: Parallel Agile and Waterfall Approach Streams within a Single Project
- 10 Agile Migration and Testing of a Large-Scale Financial System
- 11 Agile Testing with Mock Objects: A CAST-Based Approach
- 12 Agile Testing – Learning from Your Own Mistakes
- 13 Agile: The Emperor's New Test Plan?
- 14 The Power of Continuous Integration Builds and Agile Development
- 15 The Payoffs and Perils of Offshored Agile Projects
- 16 The Basic Rules of Quality and Management Still Apply to Agile
- 17 Test-Infecting a Development Team
- 18 Agile Success Through Test Automation: An eXtreme Approach
- 19 Talking, Saying, and Listening: Communication in Agile Teams
- 20 Very-Small-Scale Agile Development and Testing of a Wiki
- 21 Agile Special Tactics: SOA Projects
- 22 The Agile Test-Driven Methodology Experiment
- 23 When Is a Scrum Not a Scrum?
- PART 3 AGILE MY WAY: A PROPOSAL FOR YOUR OWN AGILE TEST PROCESS
- APPENDIX A The Principles of Rapid Application Development
- APPENDIX B The Rules and Practices of Extreme Programming
- Appendix C The Principles of the Dynamic Systems Development Method
- Appendix D The Practices of Scrum
- APPENDIX E Agile Test Script Template
- Appendix F Agile Test Result Record Form Template
- Appendix G Agile Test Summary Report Template
- Appendix H My Agile Process Checklist
- References
- Index
Summary
SYNOPSIS
No one in our newly formed team had done this “agile” thing before, and while more and more colleagues in other parts of our company are doing “agile,” it seems that everyone does things slightly differently. There are no mandated processes that we must follow, only guidelines, experiences from other teams, and best practices – but what everyone else does doesn't necessarily work for you. Learn from yourselves as you go along, change your process to match your working environment and your team, and don't be afraid to try something for an iteration or two to see if it works.
Introduction
My name is Martin Phillips and I work for IBM. I've been in software development for almost nine years, working mostly on functional testing of “off-the-shelf” middleware. This software was developed primarily using the waterfall model [5] (with twelve- to eighteen-month cycles), though more recently projects have been more iterative (with two- to three-month iterations).
For the past six months I've been the test lead for a newly formed agile development team, and am responsible for delivering a new middleware product for an emerging market.
This case study describes the challenges we have faced testing the product and what lessons we have learned.
Overview of the Testing Challenge
IBM is very aware of the commercial value of emerging markets; like many companies, it wants to get a foothold in these new areas quickly, but with products that meet the high expectations that customers have of IBM.
Developing with an agile approach enables our team to develop a functional product with early and frequent beta releases.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Agile TestingHow to Succeed in an Extreme Testing Environment, pp. 81 - 85Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009