Chapter 2 , “The Importance of Organizational Culture ”
Part II: Learning for Better Testing
Both technology and the craft of testing are continually evolving, and lines between different disciplines are becoming more blurred. Even
experienced practitioners have to keep growing their skills. This part includes examples of what testers and other disciplines such as business
analysis and coding need to know to meet more difficult testing challenges. We explain the benefits of generalizing specialists and list some of the
intangible thinking skills and specific technical testing skills that help testers and teams improve. Different aspects of what and how to learn are
covered in the following chapters:
Chapter 3 , “Roles and Competencies ”
Chapter 4 , “Thinking Skills for Testing ”
Chapter 5 , “Technical Awareness ”
Chapter 6 , “How to Learn ”
Part III: Planning—So You Don’t Forget the Big Picture
Planning “just enough” is a balancing act. While we need to work in small increments, we have to keep an eye on the larger feature set and the
entire system. This part covers different aspects of test planning, from the release level down to the task level. It also explores different models such
as the agile testing quadrants and some of the adaptations people have suggested.
Chapter 7 , “Levels of Precision for Planning ”
Chapter 8 , “Using Models to Help Plan ”
Part IV: Testing Business Value
If, like so many agile teams, you deliver robust code in a timely manner, only to find it isn’t what the customers wanted after all, the information in
this part will help. We cover tools and practices, particularly those from the agile business analysis profession, to help you test ideas and
assumptions early and ensure that everyone knows what to deliver. We address other overlapping disciplines and expanding mindsets. This is a big
area, so there are several chapters:
Chapter 9 , “Are We Building the Right Thing? ”
Chapter 10 , “The Expanding Tester’s Mindset: Is This My Job? ”
Chapter 11 , “Getting Examples ”
Part V: Investigative Testing
The programmers have delivered some code to test. Where do you start? If you or your team lacks experience with exploratory testing, you’ll find
some help here. We outline several exploratory testing techniques such as using personas and tours to help generate test charter ideas, as well as
managing charters with session-based test management and thread-based test management.
Along with all those different ways to do exploratory testing, we look at other ways to verify that delivered code meets a wide range of business
and user needs. This part covers ways to mitigate risks and generate useful information in several different types of testing that present challenges to
agile teams. The investigative testing chapters are
Chapter 12 , “Exploratory Testing ”
Chapter 13 , “Other Types of Testing ”
Part VI: Test Automation
We see more and more teams finding ways to succeed with test automation. However, for many teams, automated tests produce sporadic failures
that are expensive to investigate. The time (cost) spent on each failure may be more than the test is worth. There are plenty of pitfalls in automating
tests. In this part we give examples of ways to make technical debt in testing visible. We look at different ways to use the agile testing pyramid
effectively to help you think about how to plan your automation. We’ve introduced a few alternative pyramid models to approach automation from
different perspectives. You’ll learn ways to design automated tests for optimum reliability and ease of maintenance. This part also includes examples
of scaling test automation in a large enterprise company.
The chapters in Part VI are
Chapter 14 , “Technical Debt in Testing ”
Chapter 15 , “Pyramids of Automation ”
Chapter 16 , “Test Automation Design Patterns and Approaches ”
Chapter 17 , “Selecting Test Automation Solutions ”
Part VII: What Is Your Context?
Your approach to agile testing will naturally depend on your context. Do you work with large enterprise systems? Maybe you’re newly tasked with
testing mobile apps or embedded software. Perhaps your team is challenged with finding good ways to test data that helps businesses make
decisions. Have you wondered how agile can work in testing regulated software? Finally, we look at the synergies between testing and the DevOps
movement. The chapters in this part cover a variety of areas, so we have included a number of stories from people who are currently working in
those situations. Some of these chapters may not apply to your working environment today, but tomorrow—who knows?
Chapter 18 , “Agile Testing in the Enterprise ”