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I have provided my view points on what is agile testing an what is not agile testing. Would appreciate your views and sharing your agile test adoption experiences

#1. If you follow weekly release model and every week you do manual testing. This is NOT AGILE testing

#2. Objective of adapting to agile is automate along with development so that on continuous releases you have enough automation to support qa efforts

#3. Adopting mix of white box and black box test approach to cover maximum scenarios

#4. Continious updating automation suite with production bugs / feature changes. I have often seen cases where automation takes second priority when it demands time

#5. Do you follow provided guideline http://blog.scrumpad.com/2008/11/7-practices-to-agile-qa.html. They are very good. I have seen developers providing builds without documentation and verbal explanation to feature implementations ?

#6. Context of agile is misused for not providing enough details on implementation / no documentation / push buggy code to production and keep fixing it in iterative builds

Without White box testing, automation adoption Agile test adoption would not add any value. Testers learning technical implementation plus moving towards white box testing would help and add value to adopt to agile testing.

I hope you would have seen some of the scenarios in your projects. Would love to hear your experience.

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    Are you actually asking a question here?
    – Tom77
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 15:05
  • Yes, If you had been through similar situations any best practices / learnings.
    – Siva
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 15:52
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    Perhaps it would help to punctuate questions with question marks. For example, item number 5, while lacking a question mark, appears to be a question.
    – user246
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 16:14
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    I really fail to see what the question is here.
    – Kevin McKenzie
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 15:29
  • I think a good approach here would be for the questionner to self-answer (a perfectly fine practice in my opinion and allowed by the system) andmove the 'answer' bits in the question to that answer. Or make them more 'questionny' and 'answery' if they should be in both
    – Michael Durrant
    Commented Dec 10, 2018 at 19:54

1 Answer 1

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Debating whether a testing practice is Agile can be entertaining in the same way that it is entertaining to debate whether a restaurant is authentic or a John Coltrane performance was Bebop or Hard Bop. One can gain insight into one's beliefs by debating labels, but ultimately, labels are meaningless.

Agile practices are not ends in themselves, but rather a means to an end. There are many paths to that end. If a new practice promotes quality better than an old practice, does it matter whether it is Agile? (Or is a good testing practice necessarily Agile?)

Every development team is different. Each must choose practices that work for them, regardless of labels. The most important thing is to be honest about what you practice, to pay attention to the outcomes of those practices, and to be fearless about changing them. As I understand it, that is also the root of being "Agile".

I sense there is another, more important question hiding behind the questions you asked: why does it matter to you whether someone applies the Agile label to something that you consider non-Agile?

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  • True, Totally understand. There need to be atleast basic guidelines to define 'Agile Implementation'. By Terming as Agile and releasing weekly builds - and doing same testing on weekly basis with reduced time bandwidth. I am not against better practices but they need to be practical, productive and measurable. There is a considerable portion of industry which is implementing 'NON-Agile' practices but categorizing them as Agile.
    – Siva
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 16:01
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    Perhaps the solution to the problem you describe is not to label a practice "NON-Agile" but rather to point out its specific flaws. Whether something is inside or outside the Agile box is subjective and open to endless debate, because everyone has a different Agile box.
    – user246
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 16:11
  • Yea you are right. To look at specifics few questions. With manual testing Is it possible to have agile implementation ?. Second, Automation effort + Mix of white box and black box testing would be a good approach to save efforts while moving to agile implementations. I understand processes / team culture but over all I'm only trying to establish entry criteria for agile implementation
    – Siva
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 16:23
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    You cannot rely on the Agile label to answer your questions. Instead, you must look deeper. First, ask yourself which aspects are Agile are important to you. Second, ask yourself why those aspects are important. And finally, ask yourself whether the practices you mentioned are compatible with those reasons. Surely this will be more work than asking others, "Is this Agile or not?", but it will also be more meaningful and valuable.
    – user246
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 16:45
  • Yea thanks for your comments. It helps. Yes, I agree to the objectives / intentions for moving for agile. You are right with your comments on self assessment. Asking questions to see Is it Agile or not ? This questions is more of an outcome trying to implement/educate agile practices in the right way.
    – Siva
    Commented Jul 7, 2011 at 16:54

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