development

Lots of test automation efforts in agile software development fail, or at least do not maximize their potential. This article looks at two main reasons test automation may not live up to the expectations that testers and other stakeholders in the agile development process have, then outlines six steps to avoid falling into these traps. Here's how to succeed with test automation in an agile environment.

Developers have a tendency to overbuild their code. This is frequently due to not knowing exactly when they're done and not knowing how robust a feature needs to be. Acceptance test-driven development (ATDD) is a great way to avoid this practice because when the acceptance test passes, the developer knows they're done building that particular feature.

Cross-functionality means having all the necessary people and skills on one self-organizing team. Unfortunately, the execution of cross-functionality is often biased. The main traps we fall into are misunderstanding the value of specialization, hero worship, and not “walking the cross-functional talk” as organizations. Let’s examine each of these pitfalls in the hope that your teams may avoid them.

Everyone knows a tester's job is to help improve the quality of the software under test. But it gets a little murky when you try to define the boundary between testing and debugging. There's no clear delineation: Some testers would state how to reproduce the bug, write the report, and hand it off, while others learn the code, find the root cause, and even create builds to fix the bugs. How much is useful, and how much is too much?