Seek where you can add value, deliver it and make it visible Published in “the little book of testing wishdom-‐ 25 Tips from Friends of EuroSTAR”-‐ December 2017. See also https://conference.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com/25-‐years-‐eurostar-‐pocketbook/
The most constant advice that I have been given over the previous year is beyond doubt to seek where you can add value, deliver it and make it visible. In order achieve this we need to align with our stakeholder and find out what they need. This advice seems to run like a common thread through all my publications and presentations. In this article I share some tips on how to implement this advice and explain the value it has within modern software development. I am a professional, take me serious When I started testing in 1997 the profession had a strong focus on methods and techniques. The community did quite an effort to organize and structure the trade. Test plans, risk assessment, test design techniques and a proper process seemed natural components in this period. The “I am a professional tester and want to be taken seriously” cry was dominant. In order to be taken seriously we tried to become better organized in our testing. By 2005 I stated that rather than improve the testing, I wanted to improve our recognition. The quality of our testing wasn’t the bottleneck, the way we could convince our added value to the organization was. My first book “TestGoal” (SDU 2007, Springer 2008) was my aim to define the attitude of the result driven tester who, rather than follow the textbook, aims to contribute to the project goal. The book introduces ten principles (see figure 1) that are used throughout the book to show how various test activities contribute to the goals of the organization. If we master our profession, build trust. If we collaborate with various disciplines in order to provide overview and insight throughout the ICT lifecycle we can convince them of our place within software development.
Figure 1: Test principles defining the attitude of a result driven tester
We can be heroes With the first book I was trying hard to bridge the business-‐IT gap. Reaching out to our stakeholders, but still reasoning from the testers perspective. The book “Grip on IT -‐ The hero that guards my nightly rest” (Academic Services, 2011) corrects that. It promotes the personal approach which is typical for Valori: Recognize that stakeholders have worries and fears that influence how they look at testing and that have a great influence on the decisions they make. We can’t ignore these factors. Let’s take their needs as starting point. Talk about testing in a way that relates to their world. E.g. Don’t talk about risks, but ask stakeholders for “the bugs you do not want to find in production” (TBYDWTFIP) or to explain their worst nightmare. Let’s not talk about passed test, but try to eliminate their worries. Testers can be hero’s if they carefully listen to their stakeholders and if they show how they try to fulfilling these needs. This is depicted in figure 2. The approach enables testers to explain how their activities like risk analysis, reviews, test sessions and clear reporting are to the advantage of the stakeholders since they provide overview, insight and comfort. When stakeholders are convinced they personally benefit by our work they support it and give us the commitment, time and the chance to do even a better job.
Figure 2: Testing with the stakeholder’s goals, needs, worries and fears as both a starting and end point. Agile Testing A lot has changed since then, but in agile development we still need to align with our stakeholders. Testing has become a responsivity of the whole development team. Many testers wonder what their role is now that everyone is testing. The advice that I gave over the years still holds today. We should master the profession, no doubt. But stakeholders should experience that we add value. Agile development gives us many opportunities to make them do so.
When the whole team is testing, testers can shift our attention from execution to guiding the team. Free some time and start a dialogue with your stakeholders in order to translate their needs into tests that we could do as a team. A lot of our tests will be automated, but we still should be able to explain why we invest in writing, maintaining and executing those tests. This requires good insight in what tests have value. These can be user centered tests but among our stakeholders are also compliance and security officers that demand other tests. Testers can guide the team, ensure that the right tests are done and even coach the developers so they do a good tester’s job. With two week sprints it is much easier to run through the five steps that are depicted in figure 2. With each sprint review we get the chance to tell our tester’s story. Do not only demo the new features, but explain how the teams ensures quality. Not by just referring to the definition of done, but to be transparent about the activities we undertook and how these align with the risks or worries that the stakeholders shared with you. Review sessions are a good platform to initiate a dialogue. A great thing about the agile approach is that we can change our course and adapt when a stakeholder shares a new need or concern. Ideally Scrum teams execute all tests during the sprint. In practice not all tests fit the sprint. I have been in many organizations where integration, security and performance tests are organized separately. In a Scrum of Scrum inter-‐team dependencies are discussed. An ideal place to create transparency about the quality and progress. I use subway mapping (figure 3) to create overview and insight and to trigger discussions and take action. I know people are struggling with the high speed and short cycles in agile, since they lose track of the bigger picture. As tester I have overview on the status of various parts of the system, and feel appreciated when I use this to re-‐assess the backlog, address dependencies or discuss the upcoming release.
Figure 3: Example of a subway map used to create transparency to the quality and progress of the upcoming releases
Agile development provides testers with another great opportunity to understand our stakeholders and that is during refinement. Testers are good in providing examples and scenario’s that will identify undefined situations. Asking critical questions may lead to new solutions that match the business needs better than the initial solution, or at least will contribute to better defined user stories. Did you ever ask during the refinement session how the new feature should be tested of what should be demonstrated in order to prove its quality? Good questions that often startle the attendees. Unnecessary to explain that these “how to demo” and “how to test” questions are a great starting point for understanding the real challenges and concerns that your stakeholder might have. A great piece of advise Software development has changed a lot over the years and testing has evolved with it. Organizations have become more value driven. Quality is embedded in the approach and we find our stakeholders have become more involved. But that does not mean that we ask them the right questions. Even in agile organizations the test principles that are depicted in figure 1 still hold, since they remind us to keep a focus on the result and build bridges to our stakeholders. We need a personal approach to build trust and we should keep a keen eye their needs. Stakeholder alignment means that they understand how our activities contribute to their goals. In short we need to seek where we can add value, deliver it and make it visible. If we do this right we’ll get commitment, time and resources to do it in a better way, to further improve and master our profession. This will increase the perceived value we deliver as team, department or organization even further and give us more fulfillment. Let me close with referring to the last principle. Testing might have changed, but this way it sure is fun! Bio Derk-‐Jan de Grood works for Valori as senior test manager and agile coach. He helps originations with their Scrum optimisation and embedding the agile quality strategy. He is an experienced trainer, workshop host and a regular speaker at conferences. He wrote several successful books on software testing and frequently publishes articles and columns for the major magazines. On his own blog he shares his knowledge and experience for everyone to benefit. In 2014 he won the EuroSTAR Testing Excellence Award. In 2016 he published a new book: Agile in the real world, starting with Scrum.