Top 10 Tips for Agile Software Development Testing!

I just stumbled upon a great blog post by Ray Claridge (www.testertroubles.com) – Golden Rules for Software Testing.

I’ve summarised his top 9 tips and have added one (!)

Check out his original post for further details on each point: Golden Rules for Software Testing

Thanks, Ray!

Top 10 Agile Software Development Testing

1)   Testers should be involved at every stage of the delivery process i.e. from planning to release – Tara

2)   Find the bugs early

3)   Make sure you implement the three levels of Software Testing

4)   Don’t rely too much on automated testing (!)

5)   Deal with resistance

6)   Regression test every release

7)   Give defects a test-severity status

8)   Let Product Owners decide if a defect should be fixed (based on business priority)

9)   Define your test entry and exit criteria

10) Focus on the Software Testing process, not the tools

See: Golden Rules for Software Testing for more information about each of these tips: (http://www.testertroubles.com/2009/05/golden-rules-for-software-testing.html)

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7 Responses to “Top 10 Tips for Agile Software Development Testing!”

1. -e says:

   September 9, 2009 at 12:14 pm

   4 and 6 are in conflict. And 4 is the one that’s wrong. You can’t get a regression test every iteration without having automated tests. Well, you can, but you’ll be wasting a lot of time…
2. Ray Claridge says:

   September 9, 2009 at 6:11 pm

   Hi -e
   I’m not saying you shouldn’t automate, I’m just saying don’t rely on it for all tasks. I’ve known testers to write automation tests, that are difficult to maintain and have no payback value in terms of cost saving. The whole point of automation is to save money, not because the tester doesn’t like running the same tests manually.

   See my thoughts on the subject over on http://www.testertroubles.com/2008/12/when-to-automate.html
3. lilikindsli says:

   September 30, 2009 at 10:48 pm

   namU0O I want to say – thank you for this!
4. Globals says:

   October 3, 2009 at 4:30 am

   all good things
5. Ashley says:

   October 13, 2009 at 11:11 am

   I am really in fond of Agile Development and obviously I love this tips too.
6. Vinayak Savant says:

   October 15, 2009 at 11:59 am

   Seems good information but not great.I don’t agree on 4th n 10th points.
   I want to addd something,Test Automation Makes Sense when.

   Let’s start with the tests that ideally are automated. These include:

   * Regression and confirmation. Rerunning a test against a new release to ensure that behavior remains unbroken—or to confirm that a bug fix did indeed fix the underlying problem—is a perfect fit for automated testing. The business case for test automation outlined in Software Test Automation by Mark Fewster and Dorothy Graham is built around this kind of testing.

   * Monkey (or random). Tests that fire large amounts or long sequences of data, transactions, or other inputs at a system in a random search for errors are easily and profitably automated

   * Load, volume, and capacity. Sometimes, systems must support tremendous loads. On one project, we had to test how the system would respond to 50,000 simultaneous users, which ruled out manual testing! Two Linux systems running custom load-generating programs filled the bill.

   * Performance and reliability. With the rise of Web-based systems, more and more automated testing is aimed at looking for slow or flaky behavior on Web systems.

   * Structural, especially API-based unit, component, and integration. Most structural testing involves harnesses of some sort, which brings you most of the way into automation. Again, the article I wrote with Greg Kubaczkowski, “Mission Made Possible” (STQE magazine, July/Aug. 2002), provides an example.

   Other tests that are well-suited for automation exist, such as the static testing of complexity and code standards compliance that I mentioned in the previous article. In general, automated tests have higher upfront costs—tools, test development, environments, and so forth—and lower costs to repeat the test.
7. moderni obrazy says:

   July 22, 2010 at 9:14 am

   Thank you for these tips. Surely they look very good. Thumbs UP