Agile Testing In Offshore - Oslo Meetup

The Smart Way To Do Business

Building a professional test unit offshore – Sri Lanka

&

Going Agile with your offshore team

Improve your testing capacity by expanding offshore


Jan Petter Hagberg

SuperOffice AS

QA Manager Processes/methods responsible and SCRUM master Offshore responsible in SuperOffice

Previous:Agresso – developerWM Data- developerSuperOffice – developer/Project Mgr/QA Mgr


Building a professional test unit offshore – Sri Lanka

Improve your testing capacity by expanding offshore


New way of working

Outsourcing

OffshoringNearsh

oring

Rightshoring

restructuring of an organization’s workforce to find the perfect mix of jobs that can be moved to foreign countries or be performed locally


SuperOffice Offshoring Strategy

Access to resources• 4 million people is not that many to choose from• We needed test resources

Learn about offshoring• To be able to evaluate SuperOffice in an offshoring

perspective we wanted to check it out and learn!

The price $• The price of labour in an offshoring context• Offshoring costs money, the price is important


Success Metrics

Assignment

• Build a professional offshore test team in Sri Lanka• We visited Colombo in December 2007 and started

interviewing candidates• Team ready 1st of January 2008

Success

• We have a good functional test team • Motivated team members• Highly skilled • Stability • Communication that works• Fully integrated into our production line and daily

work. Not easy to just end this commitment


How did we achieve this ?


The world is flat

A very good book

”In this world services can be delivered electronically over long distances with

little or no degradation in quality”

”In the future, it will be more important to

be good with people and communication

than with computers”Alan Blinder


Challenges – how did we overcome

Getting started

Culture

Communication

Distributed Teams

Training

Team Building


Getting started

3 levels to Nirvana

Level 1: • Project oriented approach• More like outsourcing

Level 2:• Same project, but work on separate tasks• Needs more coordination

Level 3• Work together on same tasks as a team on a daily

basis• Offshore location really is an integrated part of the

rest of RnD


Get started

What did we do

• Internally you should first talk about offshoring as an alternative.

• Get accept for trying this out • What happens if you scale down?

• Find out where to establish your offshore location• costs (price and travel expences)

• Using a professional partner makes it easier • Probably better to work with another small country to

get the attention you need

• Point of contact:• Don’t put your best technical person on this task, use

one with good communication skills and one who is interested in succeeding

• Have one contact person/team lead in each location• This person will use a lot of his/her time to

communicate with the offshore location


Get started

Interviews

• Do your own interviews• Used powerpoint for parts of the interview• Emphasize that this interview will be done in a norwegian style and

there will be no ”trick” questions• Interview many and pick the ones who also understand the cultural

differences and is interested in a long term commitment• His/her english has to be understandable


Culture

Differences in culture

• Used to a more hierarchical structure• ”Nordic management” is an asset

• Seem not to be used to say what they really think • The girls don’t talk too much• Used to being measured by KPI’s and work to

achieve those. This may not be what you want.

• May be used to failure leading to consequences. • Results in doing things in the safe way• You need to build trust that this is not the case

• Can be challenging to work in a country where:• You change jobs frequently to improve your living

conditions• CV shopping – collect certificates• “Climbing the ladder” is important (career)• Conflicts going on (war and piece and that stuff…)• Linecapacity is expensive / latency


Teambuilding

@ work

• We meet twice a year• When we meet we use workshops for:

• Working with communication, teambuilding and trust• Work to build a common understanding• Exchange experiences• Create a common ownership of what we implements

and our processes• Retrospectives and future plans• When in Sri Lanka, we try to work in their

environment• Bandwith slow – feel their pain(s)

• Allways prioritize feedback to offshore location• Easy to forget to also include/inform offshore location

about things happening on onshore location• Using a lot of effort on teambuilding is an

investment• We knows each other (QA and developers) and it is

easy to contact eachother• Easier to know who knows what and who is best in an

area• This is an investment for long term relationships


Teambuilding

After work

• Important to get to know each other outside a working environment

• Personal relationships creates trust

• Do activities together that requires cooperation – we love to cook together at someones house

• Show them your country • A walk in the woods• A boattrip on the fjord• Seasons• Silence• Norwegian food• …


Communication

No language barriers

• Rely on English or other conceivable language. • Specifications / User Stories• Test Procedures• Test Plans• Documentation• Bug database

• This is important as agile is all about communication.


Communication

Visualization• We needed an effective way of communication• Started off with reports etc• Have developed more visual ways to communicate

and work together over a distance

Automation• Automate communication that can be automated

• When specifications/documents are updated an e-mail is sent to everybody on the team

• When a build breaks, send an e-mail to notify • Automatically upload builds every night after build is

complete

Presence• Important with overlapping time zones• Quick feedback is vital, I always prioritize feedback

to SL• Use “Nick” on MSN to indicate what you are

working with

• The people in the two locations needs to get to know each other easier to make a call (skype)


Communication


Collocated vs Distributed Teams

Distributed• Distance is not a barrier to those who

want to communicate. • Instant messengers, wiki or forums provide

a quick and easy way to communicate even in a distributed environment.

• In the end it all comes down to how the team members communicate with each other.

• Not the same kind of disturbance in remote location (not that many meetings, bosses etc)

• Almost all communication is documented. Easy to go back and look up what we agreed upon

Collocated• Productivity of collocated teams is higher

• Collocated• Easy to communicate (face to face)• Fast

• More disturbance in the collocated workspace. This will impact productivity

• Almost all communication is not documented


Distributed Teams

Time Zones• Synchronize the offshore with the onsite business

hours.• A person that comes early at onsite location can help

offshore location if needed

• Builds and test runs can be scheduled to be ready by offshore mornings so that the analysis on any failures is complete and ready to be picked up by onsite mornings.


Going Agile with your offshore test team..(?)


Agile Testing

Definition of Agile Testing• Testers are an integrated part of the team• Participate in the sprint planning• Start testing activities from day 1• Collaborates with the customer to define the

acceptance test criteria• Test stories once they are complete• Focuses on test automation• Focuses more on exploratory testing• Practice pair testing• Collaborates with development team• Provides continuous feedback to the team


Agile Testing

Agile Testing principles• Provide continuous feedback• Deliver value to the customer• Enable face to face communication• Have courage• Keep it simple• Practice continuous improvement• Respond to change• Self organize• Focus on people• Enjoy


Bottom line

Agile Testing principles• Agile testing is all about applying agile values and

principles to testing• Testers provide information, feedback and suggestions

rather than being last phase of defense• Testing is no more a phase; it integrates closely with

Development• Continuous testing is the only way to ensure

continuous progress.

• The value of Agile testing lies in effective communication between developers, testers and the product owner

• If you manage to make teambuilding, work processes and communication work with your offshore location, then Agile Testing is within reach.


This means that QA in Sri Lanka...• Reviews specifications / user stories• Tests during the sprints• Communicates directly with the developers. This

works because they know each other• Knows our products and provides feedback if

they see things that can be improved or other improvements (process, infrastructure...)

• Are involved in as many planning activities as we can

• ...but they do not participate in Sprint plannings and daily stand-up’s

Going Agile with your offshore team


Challenges

Workarounds• We have QA persons in Norway that ”represents” the

QA team in Sri Lanka• Attends to Sprint planning, daily Stand-up’s• Pair tests with developers• The eyes and ears of the offsite location

Meetings• Today: Meetings with Webcams and Skype/WebEx/...

are difficult• Tomorrow: Just invested in Tandberg system

In a video meeting it should be possible to interrupt in a discussion

I still find it a bit odd and difficult to have a Stand-up with 7 norwegian speaking and two english speaking team members


What is hard – everything

How to get started• A new experience in the beginning, new culture, new

place

Culture• A lot of new things to learn, not least in the way you have

to attack problems at work and what is important

Teambuilding• Hard enough “onshore”. Important that the teambuilding

also continues after you have met. I.e by remembering to include everybody in the communication

Communication• Many tools can help you in all planned activities, but the

communication that happens in front of the coffe machine is harder to distribute – Google Wave

Collocated & Distributed Teams• Can exploit the difference in time zones and red letter

days• If all of the above works, then agile testing with

your offshore team is possible


Q&A

[email protected]

no.linkedin.com/in/janpetterhagberg

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Agile Testing In Offshore - Oslo Meetup

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