Using Models to Help Plan Tests in Agile Projects

This chapter is from the book

More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team

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This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team

Learn More Buy

Summary

Models are a useful tool for planning. In this chapter, we covered the following points:

• The agile testing quadrants provide a model for thinking about testing in an agile world.

  • The Quadrants help to emphasize the whole-team responsibility for testing.
  • They provide a visible mechanism for talking about the testing needed.
  • The left side is about guiding development, learning what to build, and preventing defects—testing early.
  • The right side is about critiquing the product, finding defects, and learning what capabilities are still missing.
• Gojko Adzic provides an alternative way to think about the Quadrants if you are in a lean startup or continuous delivery environment.
• We also introduced an alternative quadrant diagram from Elisabeth Hendrickson that highlights confirmatory checks versus investigative testing.
• There are already many tools in our agile testing toolbox, and we can combine them with other models such as the Quadrants to make our testing as effective as possible.
• FURPS and ACC are additional examples of models you can use to help plan based on risk and a variety of quality characteristics.
• The automation pyramid is a reminder to think about automation and to plan for it at the different levels.