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Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams

(A Mike Cohn Signature Book)

Lisa Crispin (Contributor),

Janet Gregory,

Mike Cohn (Foreword),

Brian Marick (Foreword)

3.83 · Rating details · 1,043 ratings · 67 reviews

Testing is a key component of agile development. The widespread adoption of agile methods has brought the need for effective testing into the limelight, and agile projects have transformed the role of testers. Much of a tester's function, however, remains largely misunderstood. What is the true role of a tester? Do agile teams actually need members with QA backgrounds? Wha ...more

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Paperback, 533 pages

Published January 9th 2009 by Addison-Wesley Professional (first published 2008)

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Sep 28, 2013 Aleksander rated it liked it

Agile testing is a useful book, a decent introduction to somewhat neglected aspect of agile software development. It is also a book that could have benefitted from a sharper focus and more editing.

There are plenty of books on agile for project managers and programmers, testers are not so fortunate. Strange when you think about it. Testing is more profoundly affected than programming. Good programmers have been doing programming and unit and integration testing in parallel for ages, since long be Agile testing is a useful book, a decent introduction to somewhat neglected aspect of agile software development. It is also a book that could have benefitted from a sharper focus and more editing.

There are plenty of books on agile for project managers and programmers, testers are not so fortunate. Strange when you think about it. Testing is more profoundly affected than programming. Good programmers have been doing programming and unit and integration testing in parallel for ages, since long before agile became a buzzword. Testers in good organisations might have been involved from the start of the project even in staged projects, but their work was clearly divided into distinct planning and execution phases, and they had at best an arms-length relationship to the programmers. In agile they work closely with the programmers in cross-functional teams, concurrently designing and executing tests. They are no longer the gatekeepers to production, the quality police. Indeed, there is no strict delineation between the role of programmers and testers. Programmers test, testers pair with programmers in behaviour and test-driven development,

The agile and lean processes also have other profound implications for how testing is done. They prescribe frequent delivery of working software, in lean even on continuous delivery. That cannot be done without automation. Doing comprehensive regression testing manually will just take too long.

So, a book on agile testing is absolutely called for. This contains a lot of useful information. The most useful part of the book, is the division of testing into a two-by-two matrix. Along one axis you divide tests into those that support development and those that critique the product, along the other into those that are technology-facing and those that are business-facing.

In Quadrant 1, technology-facing tests that support development, you find unit, component and integration tests, the tests of test-driven development, the tests that usually are automated using frameworks such as JUnit. More often than not these are done by programmers, but on agile teams testers should not be shy to help.

In Quadrant 2, business-facing tests that support development, you find system-level functional tests, but also prototypes of various fidelities for user experience testing. The functional tests in this quadrant should be stated in the language of the users. The test serve as functional design artifacts for the system. These are the tests of behaviour- or example-driven development that can be automated using frameworks such as Fit, Fitnesse or Cucumber. Most of these tests should be done below the GUI layer, as the GUI usually is more fluid and GUI tests brittle. These tests should also be automated. Quite a departure for testers used to manually test against specification through the GUI.

In Quadrant 3, business-facing tests that critique the product, you find among other things exploratory testing, demonstrations, user-acceptance testing and usability testing. Exploratory testing is not the same as ad-hoc testing, it is a process of concurrent test design and execution, testing based on hypotheses ("smells") and learning. It can be highly effective in finding those insidious bugs, but without automation in the first two quadrants, there will rarely be enough time for this. Demonstrations, user-acceptance testing and usability testing are different in that they often involve people from outside the team.

In Quadrant 4, technology-facing tests that critique the product, you find tests of the -ilities, non-functional attributes such as performance and security. Interestingly the authors here include static analysis, which is not really a form of testing, but rather automated variants of that other family of quality control techniques, inspections. Manual inspections, in agile often done as pair-programming, is only lightly touched on in the book.

The authors stress that the four quadrants says nothing about when the different types of tests should be performed. If feasible and productive, they are all done in the sprints, but sometimes it can only be done later in the end game of the release.

The book also include parts on what testers should do in the various stages of an agile project such as release planning, sprint planning, during the sprint, after the sprint and at the end of the release; and how to handle the change from staged to incremental development - both organisational change and changes to the test of legacy software. These parts are unfortunately not as to-the-point as the part on the test quadrants. The authors seem to be repeating themselves and also rehashing a lot of non-test-specific material on agile. The book could have done with a sharper focus on testing and more editing, dare I say it -- yes, refactoring. As it is, it is a bit lengthy and somewhat trite. A final note, this is a book that will start showing its age as the tool landscape is changing rapidly, but this is not a major problem as the book is not handbook in using the various tools. ...more

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Nov 25, 2013 Sergey rated it it was ok

I even don't know how to evaluate this book. One the hand I made about 20 notes, got some ideas and link to read from it, but on the other hand, in my mind, this book has too many useless explanations and stories that just blow you away from the main topic.
Several good ideas from this book:
- Shout-out box for the project
- Issue log might be your hidden feature log. Think about it.
- Pairing programmer and tester together for working on a feature
...
will not reveal the others :) just read this ~600 ...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Beverly Ho rated it really liked it

Good explanation on how it's like to be a tester in an Agile team. It also mention the potential challenges during Agile Transformation and the drag factors that can slower down a team from taking the full benefit of being Agile.

...more

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Apr 21, 2014 André Heijstek rated it did not like it

Shelves: engineering, agile, it

Far too many motherhood statements and far too little actionable advice.

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Jan 18, 2014 Boris rated it it was ok

This book would benefit from reediting in an attempt to make it more to the point with less text.

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Mar 05, 2019 Amir Reza rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 12, 2016 James Taylor rated it it was ok

Shelves: own

When my employer transitioned to use agile, we participated in agile training which consisted of an all-day lecture with provided notes, plus they joined in the “agile ceremonies” to lead the sessions and provide ideas.

There are some key ideas to agile which ensure quality throughout the process, and to provide small, incremental releases. Such ideas includes automation, test-driven development, flexible roles and more. This book does contain this information with examples of the author's (Lisa ...more

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May 12, 2016 Miguel rated it it was ok

Shelves: software-engineering

Should have been called

"Agile development from a tester's perspective"

Really didn't like this book. For the thickness, I was expecting a book about how to test in an Agile project, instead it focused more on how to work in general in an agile project.

Reviews on Amazon said this book was a bit outdated and the new version "More Agile Testing" mentions that the views they had are outdated in this book, but I figure I'd get some nuggets of knowledge.

Only part I can take with me for the future is ...more

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Jun 08, 2018 Philip rated it it was ok

The target audience for this book seems to be: software testers with a background that's not in an agile environment. Since I am working in an agile environment, but only partially as a tester, this book didn't fully resonate with me.

Also, I was kinda annoyed that the tester was portrayed as the center point in about everything that the team does. While I get that testing isn't just something that you do after development, I think this aspect was over-stressed and belittled the roles of other pe ...more

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Oct 13, 2016 Oleksandr Molodetskyi rated it liked it

The book is really valuable and contains much useful information. But it is overloaded with information and also there is lot of text which wasn't necessary and just makes the book bigger and hard to read. That's why it's hard to keep focus and do not lost in all this information. May be it would be better to create several separated books if authors wanted to put so much or make the book more focused on the most important stuff. ...more

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Nov 29, 2017 Jörn Dinkla rated it liked it

Shelves: computer-science

This book is good, but a little bit old. Back then (2008) the authors presented a radical change of software testing and for me it would have been a 5/5. The book still contains some valuable insights today (2017). This book definitely needs a new and updated edition.

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Dec 21, 2017 Kevin Van Slyke rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

Excellent read for a first time tester or someone who migrated from support into product development. Will be recommending a selection of chapters as must read material for new team members.

Chapters 18 & 20 provide a great overview of the entire development process for a new tester.

Chapters 1-5 address very real culture issues around testing and how to transition into a healthier place.

Chapters 14-18 are the real meat of this book with lots of real examples of projects and interactions between p ...more

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Dec 10, 2019 Tiago rated it liked it · review of another edition

Good book to learn more about testing in the world of agile. It's heavily inspired by XP practices, which makes it a bit dated given that XP is not as huge as it once was. Though that doesn't make many of the suggestions any less relevant.

The many examples that the book provide are great illustrations, but sometimes there are so many you get tired of them.

That all said, I recommend this book for those wanting to do better at testing with agile. Also good for non-testers who want to learn more ab ...more

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Apr 01, 2018 Nathalie Karasek rated it liked it

Shelves: _m_hardcopy, software-engineering, test-driven-development, 2018

The most important take away for me are the 4 Quadrant overview and the tips and tricks that come from practice. I expected something way more technical but it reads quite easily and is suitable for non tech readers. I felt that some concepts have been repeated ovher and over again which was pretty annoying to me. I would have preferred a more focused and to the point style. Still a book to recommend.

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Dec 21, 2019 Bart Decaigny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I admit: I didn't read it through completely. The first few chapters introduce a framework (quadrants) and explain it high level. That in itself is absolutely worth the 5 stars. The rest of the book then goes in detail further, which is for me (personally) not really need. Still: recommended for anyone when the title rings a bell ...more

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Jan 12, 2019 Dan Stewart rated it it was amazing

This was a great book on how testing can be accomplished in an Agile team. This book taught me that the testers can be involved at the planning, through programming, and into a release. It also taught me the importance of test automation to meet deadlines. It was easy to read and very practical.

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Jul 13, 2019 Warun rated it it was amazing

Come with lots of real-experience examples. Answer the question when need to transit to Agile world such as documentation and some activities. Coverage for full SDLC. I love to read it even it contains too much text and not much pictures. Best even newbie or revisit knowledge you already known.

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Aug 16, 2018 Diana Pinchuk rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: testing

It was better than I expected. I thought it will be outdated and obvious, but it still has some useful tips and good description of agile approach at work

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Oct 22, 2018 Chandan Khatwani rated it it was amazing

Great book on agile testing. Must read for every tester involved in agile development.

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Feb 20, 2019 Michael Plattner rated it really liked it

This book was a slog and not fun to read but it does have lots of great information.

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Feb 25, 2019 Algirdas rated it it was amazing

Shelves: testing

Very good for those who starts testing in agile team.

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Oct 04, 2019 Cal rated it it was amazing

Hands down, the best book I've read so far for modern software testing. ...more

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Feb 01, 2020 Klára rated it did not like it

This book is not about testing.

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Mar 01, 2020 Felix rated it liked it

Shelves: management

The books serves for setting up a general vision to start working with agile teams however the examples are explained mostly in general terms.

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May 25, 2020 Evgeniy Kravchenko rated it liked it

Can not name it very useful in nowadays. Most of advices, approaches are already in the air and used by default.

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Jul 17, 2020 Zuzana rated it really liked it

We used this for our QA team book club. While not all of it is relevant/applicable to our work, it is a good overview and a helpful conversation starter for QA teams.

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Feb 01, 2021 Claudine Suor rated it really liked it

Shelves: professional

Used this as a Book Club study with my QA team. Great book for dialogue

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Dec 29, 2020 Erik Brickarp rated it liked it

One of several retroactive reviews just to keep track of older reading.

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Oct 20, 2012 Edward rated it really liked it

Shelves: software

A nice addition to agile literature that focuses on testing aspects of an agile project. The authors emphasize how testing on an agile project should be quite a different and much more collaborative experience than what most "manual" testers experience on traditional "waterfall" projects. The authors break down testing into four types: Supports Team, Business Facing, Tech Facing and Critique Product. From here they create four quadrants.

Q1: Tech Facing tests that Support the Team: these are most ...more

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May 02, 2013 Gloria rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed, project-management

I read the book since it was recommended reading from the Project Management Institute. This books is a real resource of information on testing. The book helps to understand how not to backload projects so that testing is done at the very last minute. I not only like the book, but I think Lisa and Janet are really experts and I now follow everything they say on testing.

I am not a testing specialist. I manage projects. The number one challenge in Information Technology (IT) projects is to deliver ...more

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