agile qa & test: a shift in mindset from finding to preventing bugs

T10 Session 10/27/2016 1:30:00 PM

Agile QA & Test: A Shift in Mindset from Finding to Preventing Bugs

Presented by:

Todd Albers and Oscar Gracia

AppFolio

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Todd Albers AppFolio

Involved in agile development for more than ten years, Todd Albers has worked for both large and small companies—all practicing or adopting Agile. From this exposure to different types of agile development, he has learned to take the ideas that work best and implement them within different types of teams. Excited to share what he has learned with others, Todd strives everyday to see small changes make huge impacts.

Oscar GraciaAppFolio Oscar Gracia has been in software quality assurance for 15 years working with teams to build a wide array of software, from Real-Time Ad-Exchange to Payment System software. Oscar has worked with small and large teams across a diverse set of companies ranging from start-ups to mature organizations that employed a range of methodologies from waterfall to agile. For the past 5 years Oscar has been working with AppFolio helping to establish and maintain a focus on preventing bugs and driving value for the customer while maintaining the teams agility, as AppFolio matures from a start-up to a growing public company.

2016 © AppFolio, Inc. Confidential.

A Shift in Mindset from Finding to Preventing Bugs

Presented by Oscar Gracia & Todd Albers


“mindset” (noun)A set of beliefs or a way of thinking that

determines one’s behaviour, outlook and mental attitude.


What You Should Walk Away With


What is a Bug?“A software bug is an error, flaw, failure or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result, or to behave in unintended ways.”


What is a Bug?

Unexpected behavior that matters to someone& there is value to someone for it to be fixed.


Where it all begins...the Backlog


Downside of Grooming


Pre-GroomingA few people work out some basics before an entire team gets together.


Technical Grooming


Exploratory Testing Guidelines

● Great for re-use.

● Share and discuss

● Commonly forgotten items

● Captures ideas and strategy.


Development


Everyone wants quality.

Whole Team Owns Quality


Developer Demos★ Demo early.

★ Guided with Exploratory Testing.

★ Opportunity to find issues before Dev moves on.


What to Learn When a Bug Gets Out

• How could we have prevented this?

• Is it worth fixing?

• Share what you learn with the entire

team/organization

Triage1) What’s the bug?2) What’s the impact?3) What’s the state of the fix?4) What’s the risk of patching?5) What’s the risk of not patching?6) Should we patch?7) What systems should we patch or

delay?8) When should we patch?

Don’t:

- Blame- How could we

prevent?- Why wasn’t it

caught in XX?


Today We LearnedToday We Learned

Very brief summary of what happened

What happened?Give the details on what happened.

● Avoid specific names (every effort is a team effort, use position instead of name)

● Avoid judgement

● Keep the tone neutral/factual

What was the fix?


Today We Learned - Cont.

How did this issue not get caught…

…in automated tests?

…in manual testing?

…in reviewing?

…in QA/FIT?

…at runtime/lead to an exception?

What can we learn from this?


Bugs Queue

Customer reported bugs assigned and fixed quickly.

Make eliminating bugs queue a priority.

Not all bugs need/should be fixed.


Initiating Change


How?Small incremental changes

Low hanging fruit

Experiment is a great word

Talk to the team individually

Contrasting statements - Not Saying / I Am Saying


What You Should Walk Away With

agile qa & test: a shift in mindset from finding to preventing bugs

Software