Background: Following are not my assumptions or expectations but in my last couple of interactions with different project teams, I am seeing these patterns where it is expected (from testing by the overall project team):
Assumptions:
1).Test Coverage:Where all or most of testing are aimed(by project team) to be covered in either unit tests or automated user acceptance tests.
2).No automation spillover between sprints:In each sprint, all testing for that sprint should be completed in that very same sprint and no spillovers expected in terms of what is still left as manual testing activity once the sprint ends.
3).Full automated Regression Testing: From regression testing perspective, there should not be any accumulated leftover manual testing from each sprint which is still being done manually.
4).Product Quality & Continuous Delivery: As the team aiming for Continuous delivery, the overall expected product quality is very high where the product can/will be delivered anytime to production.
Technical Debt: And if we still have something which we are testing manually after few iterations then it is considered as a technical debt of testing by the project team standards. What I am trying to understand here is: is it a reasonable/right expectation of testing in general?
which brings me to the overall larger question:
Question: Once "Manual Testing" starts becoming a technical debt in a agile team, and where team is highly focused working in short, tight (no spillover), fast sprints and aiming to achieve continuous delivery, what can the team do to reduce it over a period of time?
Expectation: I am looking for the valuable thoughts/experiences of fellow QA folks, who have been in similar situations and particularly what worked for them ultimately.
Disclaimer: These are not my thoughts but my perception of the expectations from a couple of different project teams.