Software Quality Assurance Engineering Business
THE EARLY MAJORITYMOVES TO THE CLOUD of business: 60% + 80%DevOps world have raised the bar on collaboration, cross-organizational visibility,of businesses are adopting or expanding DevOps culture and processesof businesses are now operating in the cloud DEVOPS AND THE CLOUD— A NATURAL PAIRLet’s start with DevOps.Forrester Research dubbed 2018 the year of DevOps. And it’s … Continue reading FUTURE OF DEVOPS
Thanks for joining me! A good company on a journey makes the way seem better. — learn Arlle
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Class probably
Kubernetes (commonly stylized as K8s) is an open-sourcecontainer-orchestration system for automating computer application deployment, scaling, and management. It was originally designed by Google and is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. It aims to provide a “platform for automating deployment, scaling, and operations of database management systems”. It works with a range of container tools and runs containers in a cluster, often with images built using Docker. Kubernetes originally interfaced with the Docker runtime through a “Dockershim”; however, the shim has since been deprecated in favor of directly interfacing with the container through containerd, or replacing Docker with a runtime that is compliant with the Container Runtime Interface (CRI) introduced by Kubernetes in 2016.
Many cloud services offer a Kubernetes-based platform or infrastructure as a service (PaaS or IaaS) on which Kubernetes can be deployed as a platform-providing service. Many vendors also provide their own branded Kubernetes distributions.
The design principles underlying Kubernetes allow one to programmatically create, configure, and manage Kubernetes clusters. This function is exposed via an API called the Cluster API. A key concept embodied in the API is the notion that the Kubernetes cluster is itself a resource / object that can be managed just like any other Kubernetes resources. Similarly, machines that make up the cluster are also treated as a Kubernetes resource. The API has two pieces – the core API, and a provider implementation. The provider implementation consists of cloud-provider specific functions that let Kubernetes provide the cluster API in a fashion that is well-integrated with the cloud-provider’s services and resources.
Kubernetes is commonly used as a way to host a microservice-based implementation, because it and its associated ecosystem of tools provide all the capabilities needed to address key concerns of any microservice architecture.
Are you building a new website? Be sure to discuss the importance of performance early on and set targets. That way, you have a faster load speed from the beginning and don’t have to implement fixes later.
Are you seeing a pattern here? 😉 Testing is crucial! Before you launch, load and test your website multiple times to make sure you can handle the traffic of real site visitors. This is especially important for sites with complex hosting, such as load-balanced configuration.
To be clear, there’s no “get fast quick” scheme for site load speeds. But there is a tried-and-true template that will put you ahead of the curve. That includes making use of modern image formats, enabling compression on the server via Gzip, and leveraging browser cache. Find some more low-hanging fruit here.
Good websites have great graphic content – but they also take into account how images impact load speed. You can improve image performance by considering file formats, image compression, and lazy loading.
More and more people surf the web on their phone these days, which makes mobile-optimized sites a huge priority! Since mobile users tend to use slower, less stable Internet connections, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMPs) are a great way to get them content faster.
First impressions matter – and your above-the-fold content can make or break them! Consider inline styling for above-the-fold, then loading your code in chunks. This type of asynchronous loading can create a faster perceived load time for the user.
Third-party scripts are a great tool – but can make your website feel a little crowded. Assess the performance of external scripts on your site load speed, and replace or remove those that are negatively impacting user experience.
Improving your site load speed is always a brilliant idea!
Here’s why you should take a look at it now:
With every year that passes, web surfers are more impatient with slow-loading sites 🌊
That means once a site visitor lands on your site you have a very small window of time to convince them not to leave.
In fact, visitors form their first impression about your site within 50 milliseconds (that’s .05 seconds)! So you want to make sure to impress.
Fast facts about site speed:
📉 Page load times longer than 2 seconds result in a 50% drop in conversion rates.
📱 53% of mobile visits end when a page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
😱 For every extra second of page load time, 10% of users will leave.
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If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment. —B. F. Skinner
One view of DevOps is that it helps take on that last mile problem in software: value delivery. The premise is that encouraging behaviors such as teaming, feedback, and experimentation will be reinforced by desirable outcomes such as better software, delivered faster and at lower cost. For many, the DevOps discourse then quickly turns to automation. That makes sense as automation is an environmental intervention that is relatively actionable. If you want to change behavior, change the environment!
In this context, automation becomes a significant investment decision with strategic import. DevOps automation engineers face a number of design choices. What level of interface abstraction is appropriate for the automation tooling? Where should you separate automation concerns of an infrastructure nature from those that should be more application centric?
These questions matter because automation tooling that is accessible to all can better connect all the participants in the software delivery process. That is going to help fos‐ ter all those positive teaming behaviors we are after. Automation that is decoupled from infrastructure provisioning events makes it possible to quickly tenant new project streams. Users can immediately self-serve without raising a new infrastructure requisition.
We want to open the innovation process to all, be they 10x programmers or citizen developers. Doing DevOps with makes this possible, and this blog will show you how.
This is a practical guide that will show how to easily implement and automate powerful cloud deployment patterns using. The container management platform provides a self-service platform for users. Its natively container-aware approach will allow us to show you an application-centric view to automation.
Now that we have those newly-raised table stakes covered, let’s talk about how to stand out and deliver faster than your cloud- based DevOps competition. To jump ahead of the tech herd, you need to provide your DevOps team tools that increase your software delivery speed, quality, and security.
To do that in this age of exploding data volumes and complex processes as possible, while gaining (or maintaining) full control of binary and dependency sets.
Automation is great, but not if it forces your developers to go speed also needs to integrate instantly with tech your teams
In other words, the minute you deploy, you boost productivity immediately through integration with your ecosystem and DevOps tools. When you can do that, you also save time and money through easy management of the DevOps pipeline.
Can you see how this is all coming together?
THE WORKINGS OF A SUPERIOR REPOSITORY MANAGER
To achieve all of the above, a universal binary repository manager like JFrog Artifactory gives developers a powerful possible. It provides a searchable and clickable repository for binaries, saving them hours, even days, reinventing the wheel.
But it’s not that simple. It needs to be more than that.
in the cloud, superior pipeline tools—like Artifactory—needs to natively integrate with security scanning and compliance solutions. Enter JFrog Xray.
Through a tool like Xray, you empower developers to identify and mitigate known security vulnerabilities and open source license violations. You give them the tools to provide impact and new components have on your overall system.
It also lets them drill down to identify all dependencies of each build package and Docker layer using deep recursive scanning, allowing them to continuously govern and audit artifacts consumed and produced in your CI/CD pipeline.
And Xray does it all while protecting against open source security vulnerabilities using the most comprehensive vulnerabilities database in the industry.
THE EARLY MAJORITY
MOVES TO THE CLOUD
of business:
60% + 80%
DevOps world have raised the bar on collaboration, cross-organizational visibility,
of businesses are adopting or expanding DevOps culture and processes
of businesses are now operating in the cloud
DEVOPS AND THE CLOUD— A NATURAL PAIR
Let’s start with DevOps.
Forrester Research dubbed 2018 the year of DevOps. And it’s no wonder, with over half of enterprises implementing or expanding existing DevOps practices. So why are they doing that? Here are a few good reasons to consider it:
DEVOPS OFFERS YOUR ORGANIZATION:
• Greater productivity and faster delivery of products
• Greater visibility and collaboration across projects,
departments, and individuals
• Less siloing
So, DevOps removes friction; and as a practical environment for DevOps, the cloud just makes sense.
HOW THE CLOUD ENHANCES YOUR DEVOPS ORGANIZATION
•
• Rapid deployment of new environments
• Reduced IT costs through subscription and SaaS (pay as you go) payment structures
• Moving from CapEx expenditures for hardware to OpEx expenses for SaaS
• Fast, agile scalability
So why the urgency to make these innovations? The truth is, they’re not really innovative anymore. it’s already happened.
The bar has been raised and you need a new edge.
GAUGE YOUR DEVOPS PROGRESS
Institute Agile practices that focuses on communication, collaboration, customer feedback, and small and rapid releases. Agile operations remove rigidity from your processes and allow for greater innovation, while keeping accountability and increasing goal focus
Deploy a multi-cloud strategy with Kubernetes or other intermediary layer for cloud-agnostic and resilient infrastructure
Build cloud-native systems for core products, with lift-and-shift for systems that don’t require much scalability
Create microservices in containers over monolithic apps to increase your agility and your ability to innovate with less downtime
1 A UNIVERSAL, END-TO-END 3
SOLUTION FOR ALL BINARIES
• Compatibility with all build and integration tools on the
• packaging formats and integrating with all the moving parts of the ecosystem
and all other major package formats (25+ and growing)
• Supports Maven, npm, Python, NuGet, Gradle, Helm,
2 SCALABILITY AND REDUNDANCY
• pay-only-for-what-you-use cloud model
• Security that all data is stored in multiple locations
3 MANAGEMENT OF MANY BINARIES ACROSS DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS THAT SOLVES FOR
and providers
• Lack of metadata context
• Policy enforcement
5 SECURITY, ACCESS, CONTROL AND TRACEABILITY
• Information access management through authenticated users and access control
• Full artifact traceability to fully reproduce a build and debug it
• Secure binaries by identifying vulnerabilities and
6 RELIABLE REMOTE REPOSITORIES
• Consistent and reliable access to remote artifacts
• Local caching of artifacts eliminates the need to download them again as well as removes the dependency on unreliable networks and remote public repositories
7 ACTS AS A SECURE, ROBUST DOCKER REGISTRY
• docker registries
• Smart search for images
• Full integration with your building ecosystem
• Security and access control
8
A KUBERNETES REGISTRY
• Additional insight to your code-to-cluster process while relating to each layer for each application
• As your main Kubernetes Docker registry, collects trace content, dependencies and relationships with other Docker images which cannot be done using a simple Docker registry
1 Don’t focus on reinventing the wheel
The expectations of you are probably lower than you think, because, hey, you’re brand new!
You’ll find a wealth of ready-made packages and libraries of code online to use at your disposal. Do your research and be sure to sense-check the quality, but don’t be afraid to use these resources to help you spend less time “reinventing in the wheel” and more time developing your skills and knowledge in other areas.
Which ties nicely with the next tip:
2 Make Google your friend
Seeking a solution online is often the most efficient first step towards a solution.
A great piece of advice is to “get good at Googling”. Someone has run into the same problem as you, you just need to find it. Once you’ve found it, try to understand the what, why and how before copying and pasting it. This is an opportunity to learn and develop your knowledge.
3 Be kind to yourself (and your team!)
It may sound cliché – and perhaps a little cheesy – but it’s important to be kind to yourself when starting out in your development career, as nobody becomes an award-winning developer overnight 🤷♀️
While it is sometimes easier said than done, don’t put too much pressure on yourself and make sure you allow yourself the time to learn, grow and most importantly, make mistakes!
And you will make mistakes – just remember that it’s solving these mistakes that will help you become a stronger developer. And try not to strive for perfection – aim to write clean, reusable and easy to read code in a timely manner.
And don’t forget to be kind to your team too and remember nobody comes to work to do a bad job. The key to a successful development team is helping and supporting each other. A happy team will always produce the best work – and it’s less likely to feel like a job!
1 Expose your ignorance
Ouch – this one can be a tough one for some. It’s only natural that you don’t want to look ignorant but you must fight this urge and speak up.
If you don’t understand something or haven’t heard of a term or technology – ask. If you don’t, it’s a missed opportunity to learn and verify your understanding. Software development is a multifaceted industry, you can’t know everything and you’re not expected to, but you can always gain knowledge by speaking up.
2 Communication is key
This one might surprise you, but your communication skills are just as important as your software development skills. Take the time to practice writing – you’ll use it more in your job than you might think.
And get comfortable explaining what you do to non-developers. Especially in the world of consulting and cross-team projects, you’ll likely be communicating with people who don’t have the same technical background as you do.
Miscommunication is perhaps the biggest threat to any project. You need to be able to effectively communicate with other developers, project managers and clients. Clear, concise and timely written or verbal communication can go a long way. It might take some practice, but if you’re aware of this from the start, it will become a strong skill for you going forward!
3 Develop your project management skills
Similar to social skills and communication, you need to be able to communicate your progress on development tasks.
Tools like Trello, Jira and Azure DevOps support developers in task management, planning and scheduling. These skills will help you when you’re fixing a bug or writing a new piece of functionality; breaking down a larger task into smaller pieces making it more manageable for you as well as making it easier to present an overview to your manager or other team members.
1 Create your own GitHub account
When starting out, create your own GitHub account where you can start adding your own projects and snippets of code as you go along. Not only is this a great place to build up a reference library of code, it also helps when showcasing your work to potential employers too.
You’ll find that when you’re interviewing for roles, most employers appreciate being able to see some code you have written.
2 It’s important to know what’s cooking now – and in the future
Keep yourself up to date with whatever develops within your field – it’s crucial to know what’s cooking.
Explore and try out different areas within web development and different technologies. If you want to work with web development, try working with one CMS and becoming an expert in that – e.g. sqaeb. It will help you get a better idea of where you want to focus on later.
In the long run, I think you need to pick a specific area and master it – and this also means keeping yourself updated on this particular area!
3 Be curious – learn from others
The support you can get from your colleagues, friends and the online developer communities (like us) is invaluable, and you should never be afraid to ask for help.
If you’re struggling with some code, the chances are that someone has struggled before you and has already solved your exact problem! By having the confidence to reach out to those around you or online, you’ll find solutions much more quickly, increasing your knowledge in the process.
Get practical tips and best practices for using Metadata for Confluence from real-life use cases.
Assemble Your Product Portfolio in a Flash
For users who simply need an overview of the company’s product portfolio, it’s frus- trating to have to search through every single product page. They would also need to be familiar with the product name or related keywords to find the content. For new team members, the task becomes harder as they lack the basic information to even begin searching.
The solution is to create a directory page with all the relevant information your users may need about the company products. By adding metadata to individual product pages, you can then populate all the information across those pages through addi- tional macros, filtered by the metadata values.
Whether for marketing initiatives or for customer support, product pages with meta- data come in handy whenever you need well-organized information on a product.
Just make sure to set up appropriate metadata sets that your users can fill out every- time they create a new product page. To configure your product metadata sets, simply create a form that is required when a product owner or developer creates a new page, as shown below:
You’ll have predefined fields associated with the product page template, which allows teams to easily identify the critical information about the product.
Learn the basics of metadata and how it makes Confluence great again.
To organize the collective intelligence from multiple business functions, you first need to design an intuitive content structure to make sure that information is discov- erable, whether through site navigation or search queries.
User-generated Labels Lead to Content Chaos
You may already be familiar with Confluence’s labelled content feature – the primary method for organizing content.
However, letting your team members freely add page labels can create problems. You’ll end up with a raging storm of tags that only brings more chaos to the wiki space. Not only does this approach require constantly keeping track of all the avail- able tags, you’ll also have to correct misspellings and updating teams with the right taxonomy.
Let’s face it. Even with a labelling system in place, with every new page comes a new topic and a plethora of new labels. And having all users consistently follow your label- ling rules is wishful thinking.
Page Properties Fall Short
So, aside from labels, what are other ways to help teams effectively manage content?
What your team really wants is to have the right information in front of them when they want it. Much like searching on “Atlassian” in Google and immediately getting a neat summary of all the information about the company Atlassian.
Confluence out-of-the-box comes with basic data categorization via the page proper- ties macro. With this function, your user can generate a table containing key informa- tion about the content and have it shown on a “summary page.”
Here’s an example, based on the properties created including Title, Owner, Due Date, and Status. The user can report the information about all project pages in a table.
However, similar to the limitation of labels, page properties lack the flexibility to present collective information that matters to different users. Plus, it requires tedious macro setup along with user-generated parameters. Which means you’ll end up with yet again more clutter than before.
This is where metadata comes in.
Metadata Brings Order to It All
In a nutshell, metadata refers to information about a page and its content, such as creator and creation date, among other details.
With metadata, it’s extremely easy to add predefined categories to pages. This allows you to pull information from those pages and display only relevant data in a table format for quick insights into the content.
There are three main categories of metadata for Confluence:
Descriptive metadata: Information that enables content discoverability Structural metadata: Information about the page structure Administrative metadata: Information about the source of content
Using Metadata for Confluence, you can skillfully conjure myriad content manage- ment capabilities, including:
Maintain a structural space organization and improve usability Enhance content discoverability, regardless of naming conventions Implement a more user-friendly Confluence navigation
Build a directory based on content from multiple sources
Make sure only relevant content is shown to a particular user
In the next chapter, we’ll let you in on our secrets to building a robust content plat- form using Metadata for Confluence app.
As a Confluence admin, you’re entrusted with a mission-critical system for day-to-day business operations. Your teams count on you to bring institutional information to life on a wiki space, so that everyone can work more efficiently without constraints on knowledge.
While it’s common to think that the more content available, the more reliable your Confluence will be, we beg to differ.
Navigating Confluence can be challenging when you have thousands of pages scattered in many places, in different templates, and with no standardization. New information gets buried and never gets to see the light of day.
In fact, the biggest challenges for any Confluence admin include orga- nizing the magnitude of content, maintaining organizational transpar- ency, and ensuring the smooth flow of work.
What if there was a way to revitalize your Confluence site, organize pages, and maximize usability? That’s exactly why we built Metadata for Confluence app.
No gimmicks needed. With metadata, creating a structured wiki and organized content is simple. Metadata doesn’t just bring contour and clarity to your team spaces. It gives you new capabilities as a Conflu- ence wizard. Want to embed structured page properties? Check. Need to assemble information from thousands of pages for reporting? Check. You can do all kinds of amazing things with metadata, from building personalized intranet experiences to standardizing workflow implementations.
This serious of posts uncovers several use cases for Metadata Confluence app, so you can learn how to apply and create your own Confluence applications across your organization.
Let the magic begin! 🪄🦄
Make it relevant and personal
Bring end-user data into the conversation by connecting your mailing list, CRM or customer database to our digital human platform. With the volume of user data available at your fingertips, there are plenty of opportunities to create value through the use of analytics and user preferences. A virtual barista could easily learn and recommend your favorite drink, or a virtual product genius would already know which brands you prefer.
Value-add integrations
UneeQ digital humans integrate into a number of third-party services, such as translation tools, real-time data-driven APIs and knowledge bases that enhance your capabilities at scale. Consider which your users would find most valuable depending on your use case.
Manage latency through optimization
The quality of your technical implementation is imperative to ensure the experience is natural and seamless. In the same way talking to a real human would be jarring if there were large delays, latency in your digital human responses will create a difficult-to-navigate experience. Efficient NLP design and technical architecture will ensure a seamless and humanlike interaction.
Analyze and craft performance
Add your favorite analytics platform or other behavior-tracking tools to capture user sessions, clicks and utterances. Watch for opportunities to improve the digital human’s response in your NLP service and quash any unmatched user questions.
99%
personalization has improved their customer relationships.
Preparing for the next web experience
As Web 4.0 “the symbiotic web” continues to develop, early signs show it will be about a linked web experience that communicates with us, like we communicate with each other. While Web 5.0 “the emotional web” will create an entirely new human to machine experience. Aspects of these trends can be used today by pairing a digital human with an interactive user interface.
Use UI to your advantage
Unlike the human face, your digital human is a multimodal digital interface. Consider the use of speech, on-screen displays, image and video content, interactive elements, and escalation features all as tools to create a balanced and versatile experience. A great example of this is the ability to walk a user through a home loan application, all while answering the user’s questions throughout the process.
Stage and test the journey
Whether it’s escalating to a human, sending the user an email, creating an account for them or helping them fill out a form, plan the many ways your digital human conversations can end. You can then work backwards to find the many ways your users will get there. Iterate on your journey with A/B testing to help smooth over tricky interactions and provide an optimized experience for the end user.
Environmental restraints
Consider the environment in which your users will interact. There may be design and deployment considerations for certain situations including, environments that are too loud, lack the necessary privacy or have poor internet connection, for example.
49%
… of consumers say the best thing brands can do to improve CX is integrate physical and digital channels.
Great conversation design begins with role play
As you begin to think through your conversational design, and especially if you are evolving a chatbot into a digital human experience, review and role play how key interactions should make you feel. Written content is not always appropriate for spoken performance; using simple sentences and amending scripts to be suitable ‘for the ear’ is key. Role playing and documenting your own expressions and sentiment throughout the conversation will help guide the inputs and identify any content that is difficult to perform and mis-aligns with the desired user experience.
Guiding the conversation
Similar to the customer journey for your website (maybe even in parallel), it’s vital you continue to guide the user through a conversation. The good news is that a digital human, unlike a chatbot or even voice assistant, is more helpful to guide the user mainly due to the fact that it’s not just command driven.
Small talk versus on-topic conversation
As you design the conversational path and role play through the emotional impact, also keep in mind the ability to include small talk. There are several great small talk conversational engines out there including Blenderbot or even GPT-3. The digital human advantage here is the ability to plug into many different “brains” or natural language processing engines, and layer the experience with highly curated content. So while GPT-3 is guiding small talk, Watson (or any other NLP) is the foundation for your guided or on-topic conversation.
Embody your brand
Your customers love and trust you because your brand, your story and your tone of voice is aligned to their personal values. Make sure all those things come through in your digital human experience design.
Know your audience
Understanding your audience and targeted personas will help to confirm specific details in the conversational tone. For example, a healthcare digital human should focus less on using humor and witty replies, and instead focus on establishing credibility, nurturing and building trust.
Train for emotional connection
82%
… of customers say they want more human interaction as automated technologies continue to proliferate.
Personality is more about expressions and non-verbal cues than it is about the words. Your digital humans’ differentiation is about bringing a personality to an experience and doing it better than any other alternative. Use this to your advantage.
Create moments
If a smile was currency, how would you make the experience as lucrative as possible? Put a smile on users’ faces by delighting them and surprising them. Make solving their problems fun.
Whether you are creating a virtual product expert, automating a complex financial form or introducing a virtual life health coach, it’s vital to the project’s success that you take into consideration each of the pillars we’ve outlined in this blog.
“Be very clear in what you want to achieve from this digital human – because the potential is limitless.”
Shashank Shekhar, CEO of Arcus Lending
We suggest that as you go through this blog, take some notes, jot down some questions and let us assist you in your journey. Our conversational AI specialists are eager to connect and help you implement best practices at each step.
So in line with that, let’s jump in a get started. The four pillars of an amazing digital human experience include both digital and tech imperatives, as well as highlighting the need for conversation, interaction and fun.
Often referred to as avatars, artificial humans, or even virtual assistants, digital humans are AI-powered lifelike beings that look, sound and interact like real people.
Accessible 24-7-365 and fluent in over 70 languages, digital humans add empathy, compassion, engagement and a personality to any experience. Powered by conversational AI from Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and other global tech leaders, digital humans are revolutionizing how we interface with brands, educators, healthcare workers, financial experts and other professions on a daily basis.
We’ve created new posts as a best practice guide to build amazing and engaging digital human experiences. Of course, best practices are always evolving, so we’d love to hear from you and what you’ve learned in your own journey. As always, visit us more often for information and connect with us on social media.
Perks and benefits that save employees money in the long run are always a valuable addition to a paycheck. Addition being the keyword here.
Because no amount of pizza parties can supplement the 10% increase in salary that people could get at the other agency across the street. Except, that’s not the case, the statistics surrounding this, point in the exact opposite direction:
So if culture makes up for the differences in salary between your agency and the agency next door, how do you structure the salaries in your company to both attract and retain top talent?
A point he brings up is: If you give that employee a raise, will you give everyone else who is also performing well a raise as well? What about the employees who are performing just as well, but their personality prevents them from asking directly?
Apart from being approachable overall, managers and senior agency members can adopt these two methods to focus these conversations and help employees feel more valued and heard:
1. Monthly walk and talk:A manager and employee go for a half-hour walk outside of the office, talking about current projects, plans for future projects, the progress of the employee and any problems they might be having
2. Yearly progress conversation: Performance reviews are usually seen as a negative process because of the negative associations that people usually have with them. Walk and talks remove the need for quarterly performance reviews at a scary meeting room table.
But a walk and talk is not really the place to sign contracts and obsess over spreadsheets. So how about a yearly progress review, close to the end of the year, talking strictly about the employee’s progression path and salary?
That way, both current problems can be addressed from month to month, and larger issues or achievements can be accumulated over time.
When hearing the words ’’non-linear’’, if your mind immediately jumps towards video games, you already sort of get the point.
In a non-linear game progression system, you start at the same spot as every other player. But when you arrive at a crossroads, instead of going straight down the first path like you usually would, you get to choose if you want to go left, right, or even take a step back and see if you can get to your current position again, by taking another path. This progression helps you pick up new skills and new experiences that will make the path ahead much easier.
This is also how the current trend in career progression looks. Companies no longer expect people to stay in the same career path for decades, slowly working their way up the corporate ladder. This rings especially true for agencies, where skills from different career paths transfer almost seamlessly and complement each other with a broader outlook on the problems being solved.
As an example, if you have a frontend developer who discovered she likes designing more than she likes coding, you should give her a chance because:
If your agency has people who have invested in their craft to the point where they are considered experts, top talent, or masters, their progression will eventually hit a plateau.
And while just existing at the top and using your skills to their full potential is a fantastic feeling… ultimately, the need for self-improvement and innovation that got them to the top of the talent pool will make them want to progress further. But you can’t really go further up than the top, so where do you go?
This is where people start considering switching jobs or pursuing entrepreneurship because it seems like the only challenging way forward.
The classic solution to this “problem” is to promote them to the management level. Clearly, if someone is performing exceptionally well as a specialist they will automatically become an exceptional manager… Right?
The solution is not always that simple and pushing someone to become a manager (or a manager of a bigger team than before) is not for everyone. Some top talent enjoy being a specialist and would rather spend their time performing their tasks, than managing a team.
“In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
– Laurence J. Peter, Author of The Peter Principle
The previous quote refers to what is known as the Peter principle, a concept of management developed by Laurence J. Peter. The principle suggests that people tend to get promoted outside of their skillset and competence, based on previous success.
Meaning: Your best front-end developer is first and foremost… a front-
end developer. Having 10 award-winning projects under his belt does not make him an instant candidate for managing the next project. That requires knowledge of front-end and an additional management skill set, lack of which could lead to disaster down the line.
The modern solution to the problem is working with non-linear progression and promotion. Instead of the career path only going one way – towards management – you can set an alternative path. This could be anything from giving your top talent more influence on projects or a seat at the table when tough decisions are made to simply giving more freedom to perform tasks their own way. Once you start thinking outside the box you’ll be amazed at the possibilities there are for non-linear progression.
And the result?
Happier top talent that gets a truly unique position at your agency, which they won’t be able to find anywhere else.
At SQAEB, most of our junior employees start out in the SWAT department, helping our users with day to day issues. This helps them naturally and quickly get an overview of all the other departments, the products, and how everything fits together. Later they can choose to transition into newly opened positions in the company that they find interesting or get places in completely new positions based on their specializations.
Fun is a fickle thing. Everyone inherently knows what fun is, but if you had to define fun at the workplace, it would not be as easy as it first sounds. Looking up the definition of fun will also get you reprimanded by the dictionary, and there is no one sure way to define it. The only sure thing is that if the most interesting thing at the office on the first day is the photocopier, the new employee getting the tour will probably start looking for another job during the lunch break.
The overall feeling of fun at the workplace impacts productivity. And so it’s
a topic without any specific bullet points, but a topic to think about and discuss nonetheless.
If you want to have fun at the workplace but can’t manage to play chess
on one screen while maintaining your focus on coding… or your keyboard shortcut hand is also your balloon tying and juggling hand… you will probably need to interact with other people eventually. But there is only a limited level of friendship and camaraderie that you can build with people when talking about code and sending each other design files.
When was the last time someone asked a different water cooler question than: ’’So, how was the weekend/any plans for the weekend?’’ In most agencies, it has probably been a while. And that’s expected. If you work in a consistent and focused environment, there are only so many topics that can come to mind.
But if you change up the setting, if you do different activities together, you might build more than just classic coworker bonds. You might build friendships. And what could be nicer than looking forward to Monday morning at the office to see your friends?
But not everyone comes to work looking for friendship. Especially top performers who just want to put on their headphones and forget that they are in an office environment.
Sadly headphones run out of battery, the wifi goes down, and progress meetings exist. Eventually, even the most focused people have to talk to their coworkers. And since you spend most of your day at work, people would prefer to cut down on the dry, corporate jargon and instead discuss or do something… fun.
This again brings us to the topic of shared values. The job of a back-end developer and the job of a UX designer require different personalities. So if your agency wants to have a varied offering of skills and backgrounds, you will have to find values that connect with every group.
But not just the ’’standard’’ values that are put on the agency “about us” page. The values that make up the constantly evolving personality of your agency. If you do this, you will eventually have an agency full of like minded individuals that don’t need to act corporate 24/7 and might even joke around from time to time.
Sadly, there is a thin line between having fun at the workplace and being overly quirky and disrupting everyone’s work. Unfortunately, you can also never get full value-alignment with every person that has been hired. But an agency where people think of each other as nothing more than colleagues and only spend time together at work is an agency that will have trouble scaling and keeping up with the more friendly teams later on.
Your culture and environment both have an impact on the quality of your work.
You have to spend money to make money. And you have to invest in top talent to retain top talent. Achieving maximum focus in an office setting where a million things are gunning for your attention is tough.
All of that can be managed with a good work culture and processes. But if you don’t have the right equipment and tools, you’ll never be as efficient as you could be.
Maybe a chair is not comfortable. Maybe you can still hear your sales team in the other room, even with your headphones on. Maybe you found a SaaS tool that would save you hours upon hours of repetitive tasks.
If someone asks for a new keyboard, new tool, or new screen, it’s never a good idea to dismiss them right away. The person asking rarely brings up an issue like this on a whim, it has to be premeditated in some way, and that means that the problem they are facing is a recurring one.
“The way management treats
their associates is exactly how the associates will treat the customers.”
– Sam Walton, Founder of Walmart
A one-time investment, no matter how large, is actually pretty small when looking at it as a long term investment in focus and productivity. If an agency shows that it cares about its employees in all the ways that matter, the employees will return it multiple times over. Here are some small or large things in no particular order that could make or break an employee relationship with the company:
A promotion: While most talented people love what they do, as they repeat the same tasks day after day, eventually, they will find ways of improving the process or get ideas for new ventures that the team should pursue. And there is only so much one can do from the bottom of the corporate ladder. Career growth is a key part of goal setting strategies for high performersand agencies need to provide these opportunities if they want to retain their top talent. Otherwise those people might look for those higher positions elsewhere. Please note, that a “regular” promotion is not always the best option; we’ll cover that later in our post “Non-linear progression”.
A raise: Usually going hand in hand with a promotion. However, while every promotion should come with a raise, not every raise has to come with a promotion. Many people are not after the responsibility that comes with
a promotion, they just like what they do, and so they take on more tasks, spend more time at the office or even work weekends. But maybe they aren’t looking to delegate their tasks to their would-be replacements. Maybe they just want to feel like their extra time is seen as valuable by the agency. And seeing as time is money, sometimes the answer is as simple as that.
While all of the above will probably make your agency employees happy and get your agency valuable, educated and dedicated employees for a long time
to come, there are also smaller ways to improve productivity faster.
Courses and conferences: There are always new books and courses popping up, covering the latest and greatest developments in the industry.
If your top performers ask about you helping fund their education, it’s one of the best ways to show them that you are counting on them in the future.
Maybe there is a developer conference coming up that would help them meet some like minded people and gather industry knowledge?
While it may seem like a big investment to send one or multiple developers away for a few days, the new knowledge and energy they bring back will pay dividends now as well as in the future. If they have valid arguments for going, why not give it a shot?
Schools and degrees: A similar approach to the one about courses and conferences, to an even higher degree (forgive the pun), should be taken if an employee asks about the possibility of returning to school.
Maybe they got this job straight after finishing their bachelor’s degree. Maybe they want to go for a manager position and think that an MBA would greatly improve their outlook.
Or maybe they want to slowly transition to another position, but wish to stay at the agency. Customer lifetime value and return on investment are some of the most important metrics that agencies need to keep an eye out. But try
to imagine the “employee lifetime value”, of someone who you helped put through school.
Every movie about an office work environment has managed to, in one way or another, demonize the monotony of sitting at a cubicle doing the same work every single day. And who can blame them? Doing the same thing over and over again is widely referred to as the definition of insanity.
No one wants to feel like they aren’t progressing in their job. And this rings especially true when we are talking about top talent. If someone wants
to stay at the top (where you probably want to keep them), they need to continually have an eye on the newest developments in their field.
The information gathering and processing is on them – allowing for an environment where they can test new ideas, that’s on the agency.
There are many ways to help talented employees fuel their passion for their work. Every person is looking for something different, but we have a few ideas that should be universally interesting for most people.
Allowing for a full five-day remote work schedule is not something that can be implemented instantly, it’s something that agencies have to build towards over time.
For a large portion of agencies, a full week of remote work might not even make sense at all. But giving people the freedom to work from home as needed on special occasions can remove a lot of unnecessary stress. If a person needs to take care of some errands, look after the kids, or maybe they are not feeling well enough to drive to the office, but well enough to work, why not have the option of working from home?
Let’s say you have a single developer dedicated to taking care of your agency website. He has tasks that he doesn’t actively collaborate with anyone else on. He gets a mockup of the website, some copy, and gets to work. He might also be actively trying to sell his apartment. In most companies, this would mean that he has to run back and forth between the apartment and the office, sometimes multiple times a day, to deal with the buyers, real estate agents and contractors. But does he really have to?
Would it not be more comfortable for him to stay at home and work between meetings? And would it not make it easier for his team members and managers not to have to keep track of his travel schedule? And if the work gets done in the right time frame, does his physical presence at the office really matter? I’ll discuss this further in “Is it time to go fully remote?” post.
SQAEB TIP
At SQAEB, everyone has a setup that allows for secure remote work, and in case of sickness, family emergencies, schoolwork or other unforeseen events, they are always welcome to work from home. We give people the benefit of the doubt / assume positive intent, and so far, it has always paid off.
Freedom is often hailed as the ultimate solution to happy employees. But most people have an easier time being creative when there are some restrictions in place.
Example: If your agency needs you to write as many slogans as possible selling pineapples in the next 10 minutes. When do you think you will produce more? A) If the 10 minutes is the only restriction. B) If you have a 10 minute restriction, you cannot use the word pineapple and all the slogans have to be under 10 words or less?
Studies show that B is the right answer – even though you have more freedom in A. Sidenote: We tried it at our office and we are currently considering a new venture in ’’Spiky yellow fruit’’ advertising.
So does this prove that freedom may not be the answer to an infinitely creative and productive workplace culture?
Of course not – because we had the freedom to choose those restrictions.
Client expectations and agency needs dictate the tasks that have to be solved. Every agency also needs to have some time and budget restrictions to prevent a project getting out of hand.
Other than that, the freedom to solve the problem in any way possible is one of the most significant benefits you can grant your employees:
If you find the perfect balance in the above, you should have the How and Why of task management covered. But freedom in the workplace is a complicated thing. The How and Why are questions that have to be answered or the work will never get done. But why not take more weight off of people’s shoulders by not having them stress over the When and Where as well?
Hiring and onboarding new employees is one thing. But as we know, the costs of employee turnover is high. If you don’t work on having a great environment where your employees thrive, then it’s going to be very costly for you to keep replacing everyone.
Employees changing jobs is impossible to stop – especially in the tech industry – but there are things you can do to keep your turnover rate low.
This post could just be called ’’culture in the agency space’’ because that is the true key to acquiring and keeping top talent.
But what is company culture?
The 17-word, aka the short answer: Company culture is the combination of all the values, social interactions, and psychological behavior in an organization.
The 340-word, aka the long answer:Company culture is hard to define in specific terms, because unlike most essential things in business, it is entirely intangible, a feeling. Branding is closely intertwined with culture in every interaction that the company makes with any of its outside stakeholders. And if you want your brand to be consistent across all channels, you have to work towards a work culture that aligns with your corporate messaging.
A brand is a reflection of your company in the minds of your stakeholders.
That is why it takes on new forms in every piece of content shared on social media, every meeting with a possible client, and every shared lunch break with Debbie from the agency next door. A brand consists of many moving parts, some tangible, some not. The tangible can be boiled down to visual identity, messaging, and imagery, if need be. These can all be changed with a new set of guidelines, a new designer, or a new marketing department, but how do you control a culture?
Culture is not just a code of conduct, communication strategy, or a list of processes. Company culture includes all the small details:
Culture has to be built and continuously monitored and maintained.
You can tell a lot about an agency culture:
There are many things a person needs to know on their first day at a company. And there are a lot of things that they will definitely not remember. To prevent information overload, it’s preferable to keep some essential things for the rest of the week so the fresh hire will pick them all up eventually. So what should they know on their first day?
That’s about it, any other information would probably be too much, and
as we all know, if you go for a handshake tour with every department immediately, you forget the first person’s name while shaking the third one’s hand.
Onboarding a new person to the team is a masterclass in taking your own medicine for a lot of agencies. Every good agency prides itself on an in- depth understanding of user journeys and user experience, but what is the experience of joining your agency like?
Placing someone behind a desk, giving them access to your password manager, and asking them to start developing right away is the equivalent of ordering a pizza and giving the delivery guy just your zip code. It takes so much more, and a good onboarding experience can make or break your company’s ability to foster new top talent.
Generally, tech companies started adopting ’’a multiple interview approach’’ that not only gives applicants a coding test or some homework, but also goes over their background and culture fit in the same depth. More and more agencies are now doing the same. This is where our hiring journey once again splits into two paths, this time, based on if you chose the internal hiring strategy or the headhunter/recruiter strategy.
The recruiter can take care of the searching, first impressions and the technical fit, but you should always have the most promising candidates meet the current team for a short and sweet meet and greet before you consider hiring them.
If the agency conducts the entire hiring process in-house, there is a lot of leeway in the process. Try new approaches and strategies, and eventually, you will find what works for you. But if you want a hint from a company that put culture first and has been doing so for 3 years, here’s how we do it at SQAEB:
Now that you’re done recruiting and have hired the right person, the real work starts: onboarding. Hiring the right candidate is one thing; but if you don’t manage to give them a proper onboarding experience they will not perform as well as they could. Onboarding is the first step towards nurturing top talent.
Agencies have a lot of ways to get new talent in the door. You might do all the recruitment in-house, outsource it to a headhunter/recruiter or grow to a point where a dedicated HR department or in-house recruitment person is the way to go.
But no matter which option is the most viable for you, always keep the cultural fit in mind. You might find out that the person with the most extensive resume might be too far in their career to adapt to the workflow that works for the rest of the team. There are also cases of people with less impressive qualifications, who fit in so well with the rest of the team, that they hit the ground running and start producing work way above their estimated skill-level right away.
Making your agency a cultural paradise for top talent pays off in more than one way:
On one hand, you will attract those who have already proven to be top talent, which can give the quality and speed of work an instant boost. And if they are the ones who come to you looking to join, you’ll have a much larger talent pool to choose from.
On the other hand, you will be nurturing potential top performers from their career infancy and help them grow into top talent with the right personality traits to perform at your company. That has a ROI that can only be beaten by time travelers going back in time and buying stocks in Apple.
This whole train of thought is where agencies might learn something from the world of sports, where it’s a common philosophy in some football clubs (or soccer if that’s the term you prefer to use):
”We don’t sign superstars, we make them”.
– Arsène Wenger, Manager of the Arsenal F.C.
But how do you make sure that your candidates are a cultural fit? And how can you make sure that they can do the work once they get hired?
Contrary to what you might think from our previous arguments about “personality > skills”, it’s important to start with the skills first. At the end of the day you need to know which skills you’re looking for before you can start evaluating personality and cultural fit.
When the hiring process is handled by the department or team that is looking for a new member, the senior members or managers are usually in charge of the process. If there is an obvious need for a specialist that the team doesn’t yet have, creating the requirements should be as easy as simply writing down the tasks that need to be done and translating them into skills. However, if there is just more work coming in for a specific skill set (UX, .NET Developer, etc.), the existing team members should be consulted so that the new hire can complement their skill set.
Once you are settled on the skills it’s time to consider the personality you’re looking for. Are you looking for a person with an extraordinary drive to grind it out 50 hours a week? Or maybe a true team player that makes everyone around them better? There’s no right or wrong answers here – but it’s important to have an idea of which personalities you’re looking for.
The tone of voice varies from agency to agency and even from team to team, and the structure of a job posting can vary quite a bit. But there are still some evergreen tips that could save you and potential candidates some time:
It’s fair to assume that people who can be considered top talent in their respective disciplines probably got there through a combination of hard work, dedication, and professionalism. Then it would be more than fair if they expect the same qualities from their potential new employer.
This is why you need to have an in-depth look at every part of the job posting, so both parties know if they are a match even before they finally meet face to face.
A good starting point for your ’’first point of recruitment’’ (not the first point of contact, because that’s probably your landing page) is to create a clear value proposition for the inbound job candidates. Until your agency reaches a certain size, you can’t cater to everyone’s wishes concerning work-life balance. Your hiring decisions should always be based on a cultural fit more than a technical fit.
While technical skills are clearly important, it’s much easier to improve a skill than it is to change
a personality. If we want to go into specifics, we can go back to the user experience analogy. When writing a value proposition on the careers page, you need to think about what kind of agency you really are.
’’We are looking for dedicated people to help bring the most innovative web solutions to life for our clients by day, and help us put up new shelves for all these awards by night…’’
That statement will attract a certain kind of people:
Then on the other side of the spectrum, you could have:
’’ You bring the talent, we bring the perks. At AUE Inc. (Agency Used as an Example), we value strategy and planning above everything else. And thanks to our in-depth research and planning, clients always get the solution they need, instead of the solution they think they want. This also means that our employees never have to worry about scope creep or staying at work past 5 PM. Oh, and did we mention possibilities of
working from home or the 4 day work week?”
A few sentences like this on your career page could go a long way towards attracting people that:
Sections like ”International Workplace” or ”Fun Squad” shows that we care about an open and fun work environment, where your colleagues also become your friends.
Before we get any further it’s time to address the tiny elephant in the room:
What’s more important – personality or skills?
To answer that question, you only need to scroll back up a few pages to find our list of characteristics for top talent. Notice how there’s only 1 called skill, while the rest are primarily based on personality?
That’s no coincidence. While skill alone is incredibly important, it’s what makes them capable of doing their job after all, it’s not necessarily the thing that makes them top talent. If they are an amazing coder, but can’t be depended on to meet deadlines or have issues working together with their team, it’s hard to call them top talent.
At the end of the day it’s important to remember that skills can be taught and improved, but personality and culture can’t. And if you want your entire team to perform – not just the individual – it’s important to have the right mix of personalities and culture. If the right culture is there, you’ll see skills improve for everyone and soon you’ll have a team full of top talent that performs day in and day out.
SQAEB TIP
For 99 % of our job postings we use this to highlight our people- first focus:
”We care about people. That’s why the most important qualification is your personality: who you are, what values you have and how you interact with other people. We are looking for people with passion and energy to be part of something bigger than themselves and who are willing to dedicate their time and skills towards building great products and services in collaboration with talented and friendly colleagues.”
Recruitment. Love it or hate it, this is where it all starts if you want to attract top talent for your agency. But there’s so much more to recruitment than job postings and hiring recruiters. It’s in the recruitment phase that the first bit of onboarding starts. While it is 100% the candidate’s responsibility to find out as much as possible about the agency he wants to join, why not show your values and culture even at the earliest stages and make it easier for them?
We are drawn to leaders and organizations that are good at communicating what they believe. Their ability to make us feel like we belong, to make us feel special, safe and not alone is part of what gives them the ability to inspire us
– Simon Sinek, Author of ’’Start with Why’’
It’s no secret that even the most basic one-page websites have an “about us” section. But imagine being a top talent developer or specialist looking for new opportunities. They might go through 50 “about us” pages every day. Does your mission and vision statement stand out of the crowd? Do you communicate having a culture that provides a constant stream of challenging problems to solve? Do you have a hilarious video of your founder switching places with your human-sized-rabbit-office-mascot and shooting confetti at your unsuspecting support staff?
SQAEB TIP
Do you want to show your values to potential clients? Then video is the way to go. It doesn’t have to be a big production – the only thing it has to do, is to show your company values and culture.
Letting your mission, vision and culture shine through in your recruiting process helps you immensely in not only standing out from the crowd, but also in attracting the right people for your company.
Before we start our deep dive into the obvious and not-so-obvious ways of attracting and retaining top talent, let’s take a moment to define:
What exactly is top talent?
Top talent is one of those terms that does not have a clear cut definition that people can point to. However, when talking about the agency world, there are certain characteristics that come up time and time again when discussing high performers:
Skill – The go-to metric for determining top talent. Whether it’s due to natural talent or 10,000 hours of practice, if someone is exceptionally skilled, they are on the best possible path to be considered top talent at any agency.
Ambition – The goal to become the top of their field. Ambition drives people to always keep up with the newest trends and developments in their field and continuously improve their skills.
Integrity – When they say something will get done, it gets done at all costs. And if both the managers and team members know they can count on someone when the going gets tough, that person becomes irreplaceable.
Communication – Knowing how to clearly communicate with managers and executives that speak the language of money on one side, while communicating with the technical team members who speak in code and high fidelity mockups on the other is a skill that should be paid in gold.
Teamwork – Everyone can excel at their individual tasks, but sharing a task or working efficiently in a team is a must-have for those that want to become the top performers in any agency
Creativity – Some creatives are a constant source of ideas during a brainstorming session. Some always see a problem from 3 more angles than everyone else. And while creativity manifests in a lot of ways, sometimes it’s the main thing behind a person’s top-talent status.
Leadership – Leadership is not just a skill for managers or team leads. People who join fresh out of college can find themselves at the top of the pyramid in any team within a few months, even with no direct effort. If an individual is approachable, facilitates a good workflow, or solves problems with a leveled head, they will soon become respected by their peers as a leader, even with no title involved.
Devotion – The green ’’you can talk to me’’-light next to the monitor turns red. The headphones go on.
6 hours, 3 cups of coffee, 1 missed lunch, and a single stretching session later, one individual just saved a 10-person project from being one week late. That’s how people become legends. And top talent.
Being considered top talent does not mean that a person has to have all of these qualities fully formed. It doesn’t even mean that top talent and top performers have to achieve all of these qualities eventually. A person who fully masters 3-4 of these qualities should quickly rise to become a prime asset to any agency. And if your agency finds itself hiring a person that displays most or all of these qualities, then you should do everything you can to keep them around until they decide it’s time to retire.
Every day we are moving towards a world that is both more efficient and more digital than any sci- fi cartoon from the 70s could have predicted. One of the forces at the helm of this digital revolution is the creative, design, and web agencies that are facilitating this change for everyone else.
Whether it’s by helping businesses that previously had no digital presence be represented in the digital space or taking established businesses and expanding their opportunities with new online solutions… the role that agencies play is undeniable.
But to try and fuel this innovation, the agencies need a constant supply of developers to fill a multitude of general and specialist roles. And while the demand for developers is at an all-time high, the quantity in both University graduates and self-trained professionals is not even close to enough.
Multiple surveys of over the last couple of years have pointed at a worldwide shortage in developers. The top three issues software businesses face are a mix of:
With almost 9 out of 10 IT businesses saying that hiring new talent is ”hard” (and 36% calling it ”very hard”), it’s starting to become evident that calling this a developer shortage might be an understatement.
Recruiters often refer to this situation somewhere along the lines of: ’’worldwide developer shortage crisis’’. So if hyperboles are on the table, what if you wanted to make your recruitment even more selective? If you don’t want to settle for just having any ol’ developer, but instead, you want to attract the top talent in the industry, with all the perks they might bring to your agency. Well then, you must be prepared to rethink or tweak some things about the way you operate.
If that sounds like a hassle, or you already have a team filled with top of the line developers, you might want to think about retention instead because employee turnover costs you more than you know, both directly and indirectly:
Now that talented developers are more scarce than ever… you might be wondering:
How does one identify this ’’top talent’’? And once you’ve done so, how do you recruit, onboard and retain them?
If your web agency handles digital marketing for your clients, you’ll need a specific marketing tech stack. But since that could be a whole white paper in itself, we’ve chosen to focus on two categories that no agency can go without. Website tracking and reporting
Every successful agency has some sort of key performance indicators (KPIs) that they use to track the success of their activities for end clients. To do so, you’ll need anything from more complex metrics, like customer acquisition costs or customer lifetime value, to simpler ones like ’’which link did the user click to get to the shop?’’
If you want your marketers to have complete control of what information you gather about your users, Google Tag Manager is the way to go. With Tag Manager, you get a tag management platform where you can set up tracking for pretty much anything your users do on your website and pass that data to any analytics and advertising tools you use. Google Tag Manager also comes with multiple pre-built tags that make your life easier by letting you customize and implement tags without any coding knowledge, especially within the Google Marketing Platform suite of apps.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: Whatever you can negotiate with Google’s sales team, but the free option will take you a long way.
Notable features:
Adobe has been in the creative software market for about 30 years, and they are still the industry gold standard for all things design. Their ever-expanding cloud suite of creative products makes them a one-stop-shop for any agency looking for a full suite of tools and resources. These include Photoshop and Illustrator for your raster and vector image needs, or Premiere Pro and After Effects for video editing and motion graphics. In addition to more than 20 different creative apps, your subscription to Adobe Cloud can also provide you with useful resources such as fonts, stock images, and tutorials, or even a portfolio page.
Free option: No
Pricing starts at: $79.99/month/per user for the entire suite or $33.99/month/per user/per app
Notable features:
If you use at least one other Microsoft 365 solution in your business, you might want to consider adding Microsoft Onedrive as well. In 2017 the Microsoft blog published some impressive numbers:
’’What do our customers think? With over 85 percent of the Fortune 500 companies having OneDrive and SharePoint across250,000 organizations worldwide, we are delivering on our vision of a more connected workplace. In fact, usage of OneDrive for Business has more than doubled in the last year alone.’’
And numbers like that usually have some pretty amazing products behind them, and OneDrive is no exception. With seamless integration into both the existing Microsoft 365 suite and your workflow, you will have your files available anytime, anywhere.
Free option: No
Pricing starts at: $5.00/month/per user
Notable features:
So if step one is to track data, what do you do once you have it? Well, unless your client specifically asks for an Excel document, it would be nice if you could somehow visualize the data. This is where data reporting dashboards enter the process.
Google Data Studio is a very customizable, straightforward to use, free data reporting dashboard. And for most agencies, Google Data Studio provides everything you need. You can use it to pull your data from most of your existing analytics software and dashboards. And you can then take all of this data and visualize it together in a way that gives you the best overview of your business-critical metrics. Everything from the Google dashboards is easily shareable, so the distribution of the reports should not be a problem, and collaboration in real-time feels seamless.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: No paid options, but you might need paid data connectors to pull in data from all the platforms you use.
Notable features:
File sharing tools are another important part of every agency tech stack. File sharing tools help you organize and distribute media files with your colleagues and clients. They are critical to streamlining workflows and building up processes, and in most cases, reinforcing security at the same time.
Dropbox is an industry staple, and for a good reason. It’s reliable, secure, fast, and for the value that combination provides, relatively cheap. It makes it easy to sort all your files based on projects/clients in a very familiar and intuitive user interface. You can also automatically have your files sync with the cloud and never worry about accidentally losing some work. Accompanying its best-of-breed features, there are integrations with most tools you could want and the possibility to scale along with your team and your needs. And since it has wide adaptation on a personal level, you’re sure that clients and employees are already familiar with the interface.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: €10.00/month/per user – starting at 3 users Notable features:
The onboarding process in an agency mostly centers around getting you up and running with the currently used tech stack. This includes sharing passwords for every piece of software, which can be a very tedious task without a password manager. Every website/software provider has its own guidelines for what they think a strong password is nowadays. And for the user, that results in creating variations of one master password for every piece of software in your tech stack. This can get extremely frustrating without keeping a spreadsheet, and solutions like that become a huge security threat over time. Luckily there are alternatives to encrypted USB sticks locked inside safes behind office paintings.
Reliable, secure, convenient, and exactly what you would want from a password manager. Lastpass makes keeping track of current passwords, creating and sharing new passwords, or on/off-boarding new team members a breeze. And thanks to a combination of securely generated passwords, an overall security score, and 2 factor authentication, you will never have to get another ’’Forgot your password, eh?’’ email ever again. In addition to taking care of your passwords, LastPass can also remember your credit card information for faster checkouts or even fill out contact forms for you automatically.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: $4.00/month/per user (for 5-50 users)
Notable features:
Airtable is to spreadsheets what Trello is to bullet-lists. And just like Trello, teams can go months or years using Airtable and not even realizing that they are on the free plan. Unlike Trello, Airtable’s strengths lie in the complexity it is able to achieve while still keeping a straightforward user interface.
The pricing plans are set up in a way where small teams don’t even need to upgrade based on the number of entries, as long as they clean up their backlog every now and then. There are, of course, some very beneficial features in the higher pricing tiers.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: $10/month/per user
Notable features:
To be clear, this won’t help you know how many billable hours you have on a project or a client. But sometimes you don’t need to track how much time you spend on a project or task. Sometimes, you just need to focus. This is where Pomodoro comes in. The Pomodoro technique has a very straightforward ruleset to help you stay focused and maximize your productivity.
HOW TO DO IT
After that, just rinse and repeat. (Get it? Because Pomodoro is the italian word for tomato… moving on.)
Free option: Yes
Popular Pomodoro tracker sites:
The free time tracking tool for any company that just needs the most basic features for a lot of users. With Clockify, you only pay for extra features, and there are no volume restrictions on the basic tracking features. You get unlimited time tracking for unlimited users. And this also includes unlimited projects… and unlimited reports. If you need something more, there are some very friendly app and API integrations.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: $9.99/month
Notable features:
Ever since mankind realized that average walking speed could carry a message to the other floor of the office building faster than the fax machine, we have been looking for a more convenient way to connect with our coworkers while successfully avoiding human contact. Email became the go-to solution for office communication for a long time, but in an agile and fast-paced work environment, chat and instant messaging has taken over.
Slack helps you segment your company communication into multiple chat- channels that can be used for communication/file sharing inside teams,
or across projects. There are, of course, person to person conversation options or smaller group chats as well. These feel just like any non-corporate messaging app that you are already used to. This makes conversations quicker than email and makes them feel a little more personal, which may… or may not be, exactly what you are looking for.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: €6.25/month/per 5 users
Notable features:
There are specific use cases for every type of project management software. But if you want every department to be unified under one project management roof, while keeping the necessary customization options, you should be looking at Monday. Monday can be best described as a suite approach to project management software, thanks to all the different types of boards that you can create and manage from a single main dashboard. While there is no free tier, you can always give Monday a try through their two-week free trial and see if it fits with your company.
Free option: No
Pricing starts at: $39/month/per 5 users
Notable features:
While time tracking is certainly essential, it’s just as important to keep track of WHAT you need to be doing.
There are a lot of different styles and frameworks to set up your taskboard, but who are the best providers? Quick note: we did not include any development task boards like Azure Boards, but only looked at tools that could be used by all teams in an agency.
If you need a simple project board setup within a couple of minutes, Trello is the right place to be. Trello is one of those magical tools that you can use for years at scale, never having to spend a single cent (if you don’t need to expand past the basic feature set and storage, of course). Also, compared to a tool like Airtable, the app is much more simple. This benefits projects that require quick navigation or if you mainly use Trello for its mobile app. For projects that require more complicated overviews, we would suggest something like Airtable.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: $9.99/month
Notable features:
Time is literally money when you’re working on client projects. Therefore being sure that you are spending your time on the right things is the single most important metric in any agency. Proper time management can help speed up your development time, make planning much easier, and even help you charge more per project. So what are the industry standard tools when it comes to time tracking?
Toggl is a simple time tracking tool with all the productivity and reporting features you could ever want. You can follow all your tasks separately or
get an overview of the entire project at once. You have the option to gather actionable insights from your data/team dashboards and create other useful data visualizations. If you are not a fan of real-time time tracking, you can also input your entries manually or integrate Toggl with your calendar. There’s also an option to put in your billable rates and figure out just how much your time is worth.
Free option: Yes
Pricing starts at: $10/month/per user
Notable features:
This section considers the following fundamental concepts:
Usability is the extent to which a software product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use. Usability testers should be aware that other definitions may be used in organisations.
The user interface consists of all components of a software product that provide information and controls for the user to accomplish specific tasks with the system.
Usability evaluation includes the following principal activities:
A usability problem is a software defect which results in difficulty in performing tasks via the user interface. This affects the user’s ability to achieve their goals effectively, or efficiently, or with satisfaction. Usability problems can lead to confusion, error, delay or outright failure to complete some task on the part of the user. In safety-critical systems such as medical systems, usability problems can also lead to injuries or death.
A software product can work exactly to specification and still have serious usability problems, as shown by the following examples:
Usability always relates to the context of use and can be considered in different components. As the following examples show, user expectations of usability are rather different for these components.
| Component | Component Name |
| 1 | Users |
| 2 | Tasks |
| 3 | Equipment |
| 4 | Environment |
Description of Component in Context of Use
1. A user is a person who interacts with a software product by providing inputs, or by using the output of the software product.
2. Particular activities performed by users or particular groups of users (e.g., inexperienced users, administrators).
3. Equipment relates to the hardware, software and materials required to use a software product.
4. The environment consists of the physical, social and technical conditions in which a user interacts with a software product. The social conditions include the organisational conditions.
The following scenarios describe different contexts of use for the same software product:
User experience describes a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use and/or anticipated use of a product, system or service.
User experience includes the following user characteristics that occur before, during and after use:
User experience is influenced by:
Usability criteria such as effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction can be used to assess aspects of user experience such as brand image and presentation (satisfaction), functionality (effectiveness) and software product performance (efficiency).
Accessibility is the degree to which a product or system can be used by people with the widest range of characteristics and capabilities to achieve a specified goal in a specified context of use.
The key objectives of usability evaluation, user experience evaluation and accessibility evaluation are compared in the following table and discussed in more detail in subsequent sections.
Type of evaluation
Usability evaluation
User experience evaluation
Accessibility evaluation
Target group
All users
Key objective
Evaluate the direct interaction between users and the software product.
Evaluate the direct interaction between users and the software product, focusing on understanding problems related to accessibility barriers, rather than general efficiency or satisfaction.
The principal techniques applied in usability evaluation, user experience evaluation and accessibility evaluation are shown in the following table and discussed in more detail in later chapters.
Technique
Usability review
Usability testing
User surveys
Users involved?
Optionally and Yes
Key characteristic
Experts and users evaluate the user interface of a software product for usability problems; the evaluation is based on their experience.
Users are observed while they perform typical tasks with the software product.
Users fill out questionnaires regarding their satisfaction with the software product.
Specific techniques
Informal usability review
Expert usability review
Heuristic evaluation
Think aloud testing
International Software Testing
Qual = Qualitative usability evaluation
Quant = Quantitative usability evaluation
A process through which information about the usability of a system is gathered in order to improve the system (known as formative evaluation) or to assess the merit or worth of a system (known as summative evaluation).
There are two types of usability evaluation:
Both types of evaluation can be conducted iteratively.
Usability evaluation relating to software products. Usability evaluation can also be applied to other products or services where usability is important, such as with user guides, vending machines, aircraft cockpits, medical systems and train stations.
Usability evaluation addresses the direct interaction between users and the software product. The direct interaction occurs via a screen dialogue or other form of system use. Usability evaluation can be based on a software application, on design documents and on prototypes.
The objectives of usability evaluation are:
Usability evaluation addresses the following:
Effectiveness:
Efficiency:
Satisfaction:
If users are involved, a usability evaluation can be carried out by performing usability testing, conducting user surveys and performing usability reviews. If users are not present, usability reviews may still be performed. If software will be used by disabled individuals, include them early in usability reviews (i.e., color blind users).
A qualitative usability evaluation enables identification and analysis of usability problems, focusing on understanding user needs, goals and reasons for the observed user behaviour.
A quantitative usability evaluation focuses on obtaining measurements for the effectiveness, efficiency or satisfaction of a software product.
User experience describes a person’s perceptions and responses resulting from the use or anticipated use of a software product.
Usability is part of the user experience. Consequently, usability evaluation is a part of user experience evaluation. The principal techniques used for user experience evaluation are the same as those used for usability evaluation.
User experience evaluation addresses the whole user experience with the software product, not just the direct interaction. User experience includes:
User experience can be evaluated using the principal techniques outlined in the tables above. In a user experience test, time gaps can be bridged during a usability test session.
Accessibility evaluation is a usability evaluation which focuses on the accessibility of a software product. It addresses the direct interaction between a user with disabilities or limitations and the software product.
The following advice applies specifically to accessibility evaluation:
1. Define the ambition level for accessibility
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) document defines three priority levels for accessibility; A, AA and AAA. It is recommended to adopt conformance level AA, which implies satisfying the most basic requirements for web accessibility and the biggest barriers for users with disabilities.
2. Create or adept guidelines for accessible design.
These guidelines should comply with legal requirements. They should also be in accordance with the chosen ambition level for accessibility. Additionally, the usability of the guidelines for developers should be verified.
3. Train development teams in order to prevent as many accessibility problems as possible. This includes factors such as:
4. Accessibility testing focuses on the following aspects:
Accessibility evaluation should consider relevant accessibility standards.
Human-cantered design activities and their interdependence. Human-cantered design is an approach to design that aims to make software products more usable by focusing on the use of the software products and applying human factors, ergonomics, and usability knowledge and techniques.
The human-cantered design process can be summarised as follows:
The human-cantered design activities are based on the following three key elements:
1. Users
Observe and interview users in their work environment. Users are involved throughout the design stage by discussing designs and alternatives with them directly (where possible), or with representative users. In agile software development, representative users are typically the product owners, who are an integral part of the development team and enable frequent feedback to be given to designers and developers on usability issues.
2. Evaluation
Perform usability evaluation on the software product. A usability evaluation may take place at any time during human-cantered design, from early analysis through software product delivery and beyond. A usability evaluation may be based on a prototype, as mentioned above, or on a completed software product. Usability evaluations that are conducted in the design phase can be cost effective by finding usability problems early.
3. Iterations
Iterate between design and usability evaluation.
Considering the human-cantered design process, the most frequent iterations take place between the activities “Produce design solutions” and “Evaluate design solutions”. This generally involves the successive development of a prototype, which is a representation of all or part of a software product’s user interface. Although prototypes are limited in some way, they can be useful for usability evaluation. Prototypes may take the form of paper sketches or display mock-ups, as well as software products under design. Starting with an initial prototype, the following activities are performed:
These activities are repeated until the usability requirements are achieved. When prototypes are developed in iterations, the steady refinement gives the user a more realistic impression of how the finished product will look and feel. Additionally, the risk of forgetting or ignoring usability issues is reduced.
Both usability and accessibility must be considered during the design phase. Usability testing often takes place during system integration and continues through system testing and into acceptance testing.
A usability requirement is a requirement on the usability of a component or system.
It provides the basis for the evaluation of a software product to meet identified user needs. Usability requirements may have a variety of sources:
Examples of usability requirements (in this case described as user stories) are:
Usability evaluations are also suitable in agile software development.
Agile software development is a group of software development methodologies based on iterative incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between members of a self-organising team.
In agile software development, teams work in short iterations, each of which has the goal of designing, implementing and testing a group of features.
The following usability evaluation approaches work well with agile software development:
Thousands of Tesla car owners were locked out of the vehicle
According to reports in the US, it was a simple software update that caused a malfunction in which thousands of car owners of the company were locked out of their vehicles.
A simple software update has caused thousands of Tesla car owners to be locked out of their cars, U.S. media reported
Tesla, unlike other automakers that are just now entering the field, takes the approach that the car is a technological-upgradeable product, meaning that through software updates it is possible to increase engine power, release speed and charge limits and also install new applications.
This approach, despite the considerable benefits inherent in it, can sometimes also become problematic. In a case that happened in the US yesterday, a technical malfunction in the cellular application that the company uses completely disconnected thousands of car owners from the car itself and from Tesla. That is, not only could the phones not communicate with the car – they could not communicate with the company. , Which is able to “talk” to the smartphone, the immediate result was locking the vehicle owner out of the car for long periods of time.
Upon learning of the problem, thousands of Tesla owners in the United States tried to get into their car and rushed to report on social media that the car refused to allow them to enter the car via cell phone and even locked them out of the car in some cases.
Tesla itself has gone through a difficult week, after its shares have fallen since Alon Muskab’s statement during the annual shareholders’ meeting. Although Musk noted that Tesla will produce its first popular car in three years at a price of $ 25,000, he also stressed that Tesla’s revolutionary cybertrack will be produced in over 300,000 units, By Musk.
Smart integration of the worlds of manual, automated and mass testing is a weakness in many companies, and has a direct impact on the decision whether to release a product or version to market or return it for further work. A new approach offers a holistic solution and optimization in the world of testing. A software company must have a good idea, great developers and creative interface designers, but without strict and thorough software testers all work can go down the drain. The QA departments are responsible for ensuring that the software or application exits the company gates without any glitches, no matter who the user is, which operating system is installed on the device and in which language it is running; They are an important part of a chain that determines the customer experience, and accordingly the success of the product and its compliance with consumer expectations.
Software testers perform the tests in a variety of methods and ways. Some are designed to make sure there are no glitches, some are usability tests, some are done manually by the company’s QA team, some are performed by masses (Crowd Testing) and some using automated tools. In order to enter the market with a perfect product, companies must perform a combination of tests: Test automation provides more reliable and faster results, enabling versions of applications to be released to the market more quickly. When manual tests are added to this, which are amplified with mass testing (Crows-testing), a picture is obtained that complements the coverage gaps of the automatic tests, helps to verify faults and provides a complete and reliable overview of the product quality.
Indeed, most companies and organizations rely on automated and manual testing in their testing strategy, but most of them run the tests simultaneously and separately and are not synchronized with each other, so that unnecessary and less quality tests are often performed. At the end of the process the QA managers need to concentrate all the feedback from all the tests into one place, and only then start working on improving and correcting the problems found.
leads to unnecessary and cumbersome work, waste of time and resources and the need for double budgeting. A little mess and disorder in the results obtained is enough, and the conclusions may harm the company’s business goals and the chances of success of the software or application. To date, QA departments have required a great deal of effort to manage the vast amount of information flowing from the variety of quality tests performed and to examine the information on many dashboards, in order to get a snapshot of the tests, their quality and results.
results, the integrated testing approach has been developed, which allows for a holistic perspective on all test results and thus make decisions quickly and efficiently. This approach combines in one place all the information and results of all types of tests – understandable and incomprehensible, manual or automatic; Design tests, usability, accessibility and more. This way the QA teams have a look at and complete control over all the testing processes and all the results, and they can easily conduct an in-depth investigation of each problem.
An integrated solution can completely reduce the complexity and loads often created as a result of the multiplicity of testing platforms, and even makes it possible to grow and expand the work environment for all business units.
An integrated solution includes several components and features. The dashboard, the main screen in the system, shows the complete list of tests – manual or automatic – and whether they succeeded or failed. When this information appears in one place, it is easier to identify patterns of faults and the connections between different failed tests, so that managers can make a quicker and more informed decision about releasing the product or continuing to work on it.
The integrated approach seamlessly supports the CI / CD workflow process, and when a new software or version is ready for testing you can quickly create a new test cycle and see the results on the screen in real time.
First the results of the automatic tests appear, as they are faster, and then the manual tests and the mass tests. From there you can perform manual tests or repeat mass tests, in order to prevent False Negatives from the automatic tests, and the repeat test results are also updated on the dashboard. All test history is available at all times and can be used to understand trends and strengthen testing strategy, and test results and bugs can also be exported to other systems like JIRA.
Each company must conduct tests before the product arrives on the market, and each one makes its own considerations in choosing the types of tests. But testing management, which leads to making decisions that affect the product and the company, seems to be a weakness in many of them, a point that can be strengthened using tools that exist in the market and can save valuable time in all departments and management.
Organisations need confidence that critical business processes, such as order-to-cash procedures, human resource on-boarding, or production planning, can be performed without disruption. This is known as “business process assurance” and it is an essential objective of acceptance testing. In this context, two standards exist that provide a common language for business analysts and testers for graphically representing business processes and business rules: Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and Decision Model and Notation (DMN). These models support the design and implementation of tests and help to determine the priority for execution.
Business process/rule models describe the business flow and the expected behaviour of the test object. Representing business processes and rules to be tested using a graphical notation helps to establish a common understanding of what is expected. A business process corresponds to a flow of tasks, alternative paths, and the various events at the start, the end or possibly during the control flow. Business rules define explicit criteria for guiding behaviour, shaping judgments, or making decisions.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), maintained by the Object Management Group (OMG), is a recognised standard for business process modelling which uses a flowcharting technique. In this article, a subset of the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) notation is used that is sufficient to draw simple business process models in the context of acceptance testing activities.
Decision Model and Notation (DMN), also standardised by the Object Management Group (OMG), is complementary to the BPMN standard. While Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is used to represent workflows, DMN is used to represent decisions, business rules and outcomes/output within the workflow. In this article, a subset of the Decision Model and Notation (DMN) notation is used that is sufficient to define business rules in conjunction with simple business process models in Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN).
A business process model with business rules, described with the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and/or Decision Model and Notation (DMN) notations, provides a precise definition of the scenarios to be tested, including the cases related to business rules. It is a good basis for generating acceptance tests using coverage-based test selection criteria as defined in a model-based testing approach.
Coverage-based test selection follows the principle that the business analyst and tester agree on the coverage items that shall be fully tested. Typical coverage items for business process models when generating acceptance tests include the following:
Once the coverage items are defined, the tester then identifies a set of test cases that covers those items. Full coverage is achieved if the test suite covers each occurrence of the coverage item in the model at least once during execution.
Different coverage criteria may be combined to meet the acceptance testing objectives. For example, the objective may be to cover all paths of a given main scenario, but only one path of each alternative scenario.
Business process/rule models describe the business flow and the expected behaviour of the test object. The use of business process/rule modelling in the context of acceptance testing is based on good modelling practices and supports visual ATDD practices.
The following good practices should be considered when using Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and Decision Model and Notation (DMN) for acceptance testing:
During the refinement sessions for requirements and user stories, the business process and business rule models will help the team to get into the details of the expected behaviour and the acceptance criteria. The representation of workflows in Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and of rules in Decision Model and Notation (DMN) directly enable testers to design appropriate test cases that verify the acceptance criteria.
Business process modelling for ATDD is based on the following principles:
Business process/rule modelling in ATDD provides a visualisation of the workflows to be tested. This is the major difference from the Gherkin language used in BDD.
Specifying acceptance criteria is an important acceptance testing task. It helps to refine requirements or user stories and provides the basis for acceptance tests. Business analysts and testers should collaborate closely on the specification of these criteria. This collaboration ensures high business value from the acceptance testing phase and increases the chance of a successful iteration or product release.
Writing acceptance criteria forces business analysts and testers to think about functionality, performance, and other characteristics from a stakeholder or usage perspective. This supports early verification and validation of the related requirement or user story and provides a better chance of detecting inconsistencies, contradictions, missing information or other problems.
The following good practices should be considered when writing acceptance criteria:
As with requirements and user stories, acceptance criteria should be reviewed through walkthroughs, technical reviews, iteration planning meetings or other methods (if necessary).
This section addresses the test techniques and approaches frequently used for acceptance testing.
In a requirements-based approach to acceptance testing, the tester derives test cases from the acceptance criteria related to each requirement or user story using black-box techniques such as equivalence partitioning or boundary value analysis.
Acceptance testing may be augmented with other test techniques or approaches:
Acceptance criteria should be verified by acceptance tests and traceability between the requirements / user story and related test cases should be managed.
In ATDD and BDD, acceptance tests are often formulated in a structured language, referred to as the Gherkin language. Using the Gherkin language, test cases are phrased declaratively using a standardised pattern:
The pattern allows business analysts, testers and developers to write test cases in a way that is easily shared with stakeholders and may be translated into automated tests.
The “Given” block aims to put the test object in a state before performing test actions in the “When” block. The “Then” block specifies the consequences that can be observed from the actions defined in the “When” block. Test cases written in Gherkin do not refer to user interface elements but rather to user actions on the system. They are structured natural language test cases that can be understood by all relevant stakeholders.
In addition, the structure “Given – When – Then” can be parsed in an automated way. This allows automated test script creation using a keyword-driven testing approach.
Initially, Gherkin was specific to some software tools supporting BDD, but it is now synonymous with the “Given – When – Then” acceptance test design pattern.
All experience-based test techniques described in are relevant for acceptance testing. This section is focused on how exploratory testing can be used for acceptance tests, and on beta testing as a source of feedback on system usage.
Exploratory testing is an experience-based test technique that is not based on detailed predefined test procedures. In exploratory testing, all activities are carried out within an uninterrupted period of time called a session. The testers are domain experts. They are familiar with user needs, requirements and business processes, but they are not necessarily familiar with the product under test.
During an exploratory testing session, the tester accomplishes the following:
It is a good practice in exploratory testing to use a test charter. The test charter is prepared prior to the testing session (possibly jointly by the business analyst and the tester) and is used by the person in charge of the exploratory session (either a business analyst, tester or another stakeholder). It includes information about the purpose, target, and scope of the exploratory session, the test setup, the duration of the session, and possibly some tactics to be used during the session (such as the type of user that shall be simulated during the exploratory session). Time-boxed sessions help to control the time and effort dedicated to the exploratory session. It is also good practice to perform exploratory testing in pairs or as team work.
In Agile development, exploratory test sessions can be conducted during an iteration by the product owner and/or the testers for acceptance testing of user stories assigned to the iteration.
Exploratory testing should be used to complement other more formal techniques in acceptance testing. For example, it may be used to provide rapid feedback on new features before methodical testing is applied.
Beta testing is a form of acceptance testing that is often used for Commercial Off-the-Shelf Software (COTS) or for Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms. It is conducted to obtain feedback from the market after development and in-house testing are completed.
Unlike other acceptance testing forms, beta testing is performed by potential or existing users at their own location. Beta tests neither impose predefined test procedures nor a test charter. Apart from the observed findings, the test activities are usually not documented at all.
Because the product is tested in various realistic configurations by actual users in their business process context, beta testing may discover defects that escaped during the development process and previous test levels. Resolving issues found by beta tests helps organisations avoid costly hot-fixes or product recalls on a larger scale.
Acceptance testing should not be limited to beta testing. Beta testing is not systematic or measurable. There is no guarantee that all requirements or user stories are covered by the tests. Moreover, beta testing is performed late in the development process whereas tests based on acceptance criteria support the “Early Testing” principle.
Compliance testing is a very involved process. There are lengthy submission forms to be filled and ITL compliance fees are often much higher than gaming quality assurance testing fees. Therefore, prior to submitting a product to an ITL, a machine manufacturer should ensure the quality of the product being submitted by performing gaming quality assurance testing.
Gaming quality assurance testing activities align with the fundamental test process. The following test activities are performed to ensure the product is tested for quality:
Gaming quality assurance testing is an iterative process with development. Defects are logged and then the product is returned to development to fix the logged defects. Once the logged defects are fixed, the product comes back to gaming quality assurance for further testing. This cycle continues until the product reaches the quality levels desired, as defined by the gaming quality assurance testing exit criteria.
The test types performed during gaming quality assurance testing include, but are not limited to:
Compliance testing occurs when a machine manufacturer wants to enter a jurisdiction with a new or modified product, be it a game, platform, hardware or system. Based on the jurisdiction, the machine manufacturer needs to submit the product with a request for certification to either an ITL or government-based compliance test lab. In some jurisdictions, it goes through both.
The formal submission documents are fully detailed, what is being submitted and what certifications are being requested for the product.
Once the product has passed compliance testing, the test lab will provide a certificate of compliance evidencing the certification of the rules and regulations that were to be met.
Once the regulatory commission has seen proof of the required certifications, it will allow the product to be installed in the gambling establishments in their jurisdictions.
When performing compliance testing, standard test plans are created and specific compliance checklists are used. These may include, but are not limited to:
Many areas of the compliance testing will be the same as those performed in gaming quality assurance testing, but they are tested against the jurisdictional specifications and not the game specifications.
Some of the areas that are covered during compliance testing include:
The gaming industry ecosystem is composed of the following organisations:
The regulatory commission licenses the machine manufacturer to deploy the game in casinos or on online gaming sites in that specific jurisdiction. A game may be shipped to a casino before licensing; however, it cannot be deployed. The game must be licensed by the regulatory commission before it is deployed into the jurisdiction. Should any major defects be found in the casino, the regulatory commission can force the machine manufacturer to pull their game out of all casinos or demand that the online sites remove access to the game in that jurisdiction.
As indicated by the name, VLTs always have a video display for the game. VLTs either have standalone or server-based outcome architectures. In the standalone model, each VLT contains an RNG from which game outcomes are generated. In the server-based outcome architecture, VLTs obtain their outcomes from the server. This architecture has two possible models: the RNG model or the pre-determined finite pool model. In the server-based RNG model, the server generates the outcome it will provide to the VLT using an RNG located in the host. In the pre-determined finite pool model, the server obtains the outcome from a database of pre-determined outcomes. This model is similar to instant tickets and is often referred to as electronic instant tickets.
The types of games typically found on a VLT are: mechanical reel games, poker games and keno games. Most VLTs are multi-game machines, meaning multiple games are available for a player to choose from through a screen menu.
VLTs are frequently operated in a distributed environment over a Wide Area Network. For example, a few VLTs deployed in bars and/or pubs are connected to a central server through a Wide Area Network connection.
The VLT ecosystem is composed of:
The EGMs are the machines on which the players choose to play the games. Each machine communicates to a site controller and/or bank controller and one or more central servers through a communication interface board using an electronic communication language referred to as a protocol. When VLTs are installed in a distributed environment, each retail location has a site controller to which the VLTs at that location are connected. The site controller serves multiple functions:
When VLTs are installed in a venue environment (i.e., a non-distributed environment), they are connected to a bank controller which functions like a site controller minus the retailer functions. A bank controller can support connection of several hundred VLTs, whereas one site controller typically supports fewer than 100 connected VLTs.
The VLTs and bank controllers and/or site controllers are connected to various central servers based on the functionality offered by a jurisdiction. At a minimum, VLTs installed in a venue environment include the following:
Other central servers may include additional features, not limited to:
The other servers available are based on the functionality offered in the jurisdiction.
Slot machines may have a video display or mechanical reels which have actual physical reels that spin.
Slot machines outcome architectures come from the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, a 1988 US Federal law that establishes the jurisdictional framework that governs Indian Gaming in the US, This law provides definitions for Class I, Class II and Class III architectures. Class I relates to traditional Indian gaming and will not be discussed further in the context of casino gaming. Class II and Class III define the two outcome architectures used by slot machines. Class II (also know as electronic bingo) is defined in the Act as “the game of chance commonly known as bingo whether or not electronic, computer or other technological aids are used”. Class III (also known as traditional slot machines) has a broad definition in the Act. It states “all forms of games that are neither Class I nor Class II. Games commonly played at casinos, such as slot machines and table games, e.g., blackjack, craps, roulette, etc., fall in the Class III category.
The types of games typically found on a slot machine are: mechanical reel games, bingo games, poker games and keno games. Many slot machines are single-game machines, meaning only one game is available for play on the gaming machine.
Slot machines are typically operated in a venue environment such as a casino.
Slot machines (also known as Vegas style slot machines) are:
Machines usually include a currency input device, such as a coin acceptor or a note acceptor, and a currency output device, such as a coin hopper.
The slot machine ecosystem is composed of:
Each slot machine contains an SMIB that is linked to the data collection unit or bank controller. Historically, an SMIB was a small board that was put into every mechanical or electro-mechanical machines. These early SMIBs connected to a wiring harness that would detect when a mechanical meter was incremented, or a mechanical door switch was opened. As time passed, these SMIBs evolved and now communicate electronically with the gaming machine and are often responsible for implementing the protocol that is used to communicate with the data collection unit or bank controllers and the remote central servers. The SMIBs, at a minimum, capture:
Data collection units or bank controllers, as suggested by the name, are used to collect and store the data obtained from the SMIBs.
The data collected by the data collection unit or bank controller is communicated to the servers to update the data needed for the functionality provided by the servers.
Bingo machines (also know as electronic bingo machines), are:
Each bingo machine contains an SMIB that is linked to the bingo server and other servers. The SMIBs, at a minimum, capture:
The Network Switches are used to provide multi-player capabilities. Once a minimum number of players required for a specific game is met, the actual bingo game can start. The bingo server is the system that allows players to join a game until the group is at the minimum required and that provides the outcomes to the slot machines.
There are other central servers, such as the casino accounting server that tracks the amounts wagered and amount won, and the reporting server that allows the casino operators to report on the collected data.
The lottery ecosystem is composed of systems and devices deployed at the lottery and at each retail location.
The main device is the point of sale (POS) lottery terminal. The POS lottery terminal facilitates the sale of traditional lottery tickets by allowing the retail employee to either scan a selection slip containing the player selected numbers, or to select a Quick Pick option where the POS lottery terminal randomly selects numbers for the player. The POS lottery terminal then prints the tickets on the attached printer. The POS lottery terminal facilitates the sale of instant tickets by scanning the instant ticket sold. The attached customer display unit (CDU) allows the customer to view all steps of the sales transaction. The POS lottery terminal must coordinate all lottery ticket sale transactions with the lottery CMS. The POS Lottery terminal, printer and CDU/PDU unit are either separate devices or, in some cases, these devices can be integrated into one unit. When a player is ready to validate a ticket, the player can choose to have the retail employee scan the ticket using the POS Lottery terminal or perform the validating themselves on a POS Self-Serve Terminal.
The final device at the retail location is the multimedia display. The multimedia display is used for in-store advertising of lottery products, upcoming lottery promotions and winning numbers.
Once the numbers are drawn, the numbers are entered into the lottery CMS. Using the data stored in the database of the CMS, reports can be generated indicating how many winning traditional lottery tickets were sold and which retail location sold the ticket(s). For instant tickets, the barcode data of each ticket is stored in the CMS database. This allows the lottery employees to generate reports indicating how many tickets remain unsold and manage replenishment of physical tickets to retailers. The lottery CMS is responsible for storing all transactional data of tickets sold at each retail location. It also manages the advertising content to be displayed on the multimedia display units at the retail locations and downloads the appropriate content to the POS lottery terminal from which the multimedia display unit displays the content.
Lotteries are beginning to introduce alternative means by which to purchase lottery tickets. For example, purchases can be made at self-serve vending machines for instant tickets, self-serve ATMs like kiosks for traditional lottery tickets or online at their website for lottery tickets. These alternative devices and components must also coordinate all sale transactions with the lottery CMS.
Some of the areas that are covered during functional testing of the lottery ecosystem include:
Being a gaming industry tester means that you must understand both testing in general, and the unique set of skills for the gaming industry ecosystem. This ecosystem is filled with proprietary, complex, multifaceted gaming software, hardware, platforms, firmware and operating systems. The objective of this article is to provide the regular Tester graduates with the specific knowledge that is required for a career in gaming industry testing.
Some of the specific testing for the gaming industry, not present in other testing areas, include the following:
1. Gaming industry ecosystem – The unique hardware, firmware and operating systems that are proprietary to the gaming industry.
2. Gaming industry compliance testing – There are over 440 different certification boards worldwide for gaming industry games. These boards have rules that games in the gaming industry must comply with. These rules impact hardware, software, platform, operating systems, visual and auditory functionality, mathematics, and return to player (RTP) calculations. One gaming industry game can be played in multiple gaming jurisdictions and needs to comply with the laws of each location.
3. Fun factor or player perspective testing – This is something unique to gaming industry games, since they are an entertainment product. Not only are casino games supposed to work intuitively and provide the player pleasure, they must also be fun to play. This requires a unique insight into game design, with experience and information about the user group and what that group enjoys.
4. Math testing – Testing the multitude of pay tables, permutations, Random Number Generator (RNG) results and RTP computations. This type of testing requires the tester to understand what triggers different types of payout behaviour and to understand financial return to the player and how these triggers can be treated by different parameters. Understanding math testing is critical to succeed in this field.
5. Audio testing – Creating sound or playing media is common in software. However, gaming industry game music must engage the user in the game and enhance the game play. Not only should the audio play without stuttering or missing elements, it should also add to the game play. This requires extensive audio skills and specific understanding of game audio.
6. Multiplayer testing – This type of testing is performed when many players are simultaneously interacting with casino games, with computer-controlled opponents, with game servers, and with each other. Typical risk-based testing is followed to ensure against using unlimited amounts of time testing different scenarios. Understanding multiplayer game design, and how to test it efficiently, is required knowledge for this type of testing.
7. Interoperability Testing is common in all software that communicates with other software, systems and/or components. Casino/Video Lottery games have a unique aspect in that they must implement interoperability using gaming industry open protocol standards or proprietary protocols as per the specifications of the central server deployed in the jurisdiction to which the game is deployed.
Background
To understand gaming industry testing and its ecosystem specificities requires a review of the business model, activities, and artefacts as they pertain to the gaming industry.
Gaming can be defined as follows:
What is a gaming machine? A gaming machine is a machine that enables the wagering of money or something of value. Examples of gaming machines are: electronic or mechanical slot machines, a roulette table or even a computer for online gaming.
There are three categories of casino games: table games, electronic gaming machines (EGMs) and random number ticket games.
Examples of table games are roulette, blackjack, baccarat or poker, which typically are not tested unless they are an electronic table game version of these games.
The second group are EGMs, typically known as video lottery terminals (VLTs) or slot machines. These are usually played by one player at a time and do not require the involvement of casino employees to play. These games need to be tested, i.e., the game software, the machines, the operating systems, and platforms that they are based on.
VLTs and slot machines are both gaming machines that allow players to bet on the outcome of a game. Physically, VLTs and slot machines are very similar in nature. The main difference between a VLT and a slot machine is that VLTs are gaming machines that are operated by government lotteries while slot machines are gaming machines operated by private organisations such as casinos.
Both VLTs and slot machines are regulated and require licenses to be operated within their jurisdictions. Many countries around the world offer legalised VLT or slot play. For example:
Other terms by which a VLT and slot machine are referred to: EGM, Video Gaming Terminal, Video Gaming Device, Video Slot Machines and Interactive Video Terminal.
The third casino game category is random number ticket games such as Keno and simulated racing. These games are based on the selection of random numbers, either from a computerised RNG or from other gaming equipment.
A lottery is a form of gaming that involves selling numbered tickets and giving prizes to holders of winning tickets. The prize can be a fixed amount of cash or goods, but more commonly, the prize fund is a fixed percentage of the revenues from the tickets sold.
There are typically two-forms of lottery products sold: traditional lottery tickets and instant tickets.
Traditional lottery tickets are numbered tickets that are sold for regularly scheduled draws, most often weekly. On the draw date, random numbers are drawn either using a ball drop machine or electronically. Most lotteries that have moved to electronic draws still have ball drop machines as a backup in case of failures with the software solution. Once the numbers are drawn from the ball drop machine, they are entered into the lottery central management system (CMS).
The chances of winning a lottery jackpot can vary widely depending on the lottery design, and are determined by several factors, including:
Instant tickets are numbered tickets from a pre-determined finite pool of outcomes. The most common form of instant tickets is the scratch card. Scratch cards are typically made of paper, with the outcome printed and hidden by an opaque substance that needs to be scratched off, hence the name of these tickets. The cards usually present the information in the form of a game, such as Tic-Tac-Toe, Bingo, Crossword or some other puzzle, to help add entertainment value. A variation of the scratch card is the break-open (also know as pull-tab) ticket in which, instead of scratching off an opaque substance to reveal the outcome, the player opens a perforated cardboard cover which is hiding the outcome. Since outcomes of scratch and break-open tickets are pre-determined, the cards do not need to be scratched or opened to be validated.
A barcode on the ticket can be scanned by the lottery CMS to determine if it is a winner or not. The scratching or breaking open is there for entertainment value to the player only.
The chances of winning on a scratch card are typically much higher than on a traditional lottery, but prize amounts are typically much smaller. The probability of winning on a scratch card can be calculated using the odds found on the back of the scratch ticket.
When it comes to lottery operations, it is critical that all parties are confident with the process. For everyone involved, including players, to feel confident, those running the lottery operations must acquire and uphold a secure environment that is documented and accessible. To address this, the Security Control Standard was put in place by the World Lottery Association and lottery organisations are audited against this standard on a regular basis.
Race and sports wagering is also called sports betting. It is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome. Although most sports betting wagers are placed against amateur and professional level sports, sports betting is sometimes extended to non-athletic events such as reality show contests and political elections, or sometimes to non-human athletics such as horse racing and greyhound racing.
Sports betting can be performed at the sports betting outlet in a casino, with bookmakers (also know as a sports-book) or online through a computer or mobile device. The types of sports bets include:
Money-line bets (also known as win bets) are bets in sports wagering. It is one of the most popular wagers that can be placed and is easy to understand. It is used in almost every sport a player can bet on and is a wager on who the player thinks is going to win a match, game or other event. It does not have a spread or handicap (explained below). It should be noted that the predicted winner, i.e., the competitor expected to win, pays lower odds then does an underdog.
Spread betting is defined as wagers that are made against the spread. The spread is a number assigned by the bookmaker which handicaps one team and favours another. This type of betting is similar to the Money-line win, in that the player is choosing which team he/she thinks will win, but there is a significant difference. A point spread is created to effectively make the two teams equal favourites in terms of betting. This means the player either backs the favourite to win by at least the size of the spread, or the player backs the underdog to win or lose by no more than the size of the spread. For example, the odds for this week’s National Football League games are posted and the point spread in the Washington Redskins versus Dallas Cowboys game looks like this: Dallas-4.5 Washington +4.5. The favourite team is associated with a minus (-) value, so Dallas is favoured by 4.5 points in this game. Consequently, the underdog is shown with a plus (+) value, which means Washington are 4.5-point underdogs. A wager on Dallas would be made if a player believe Dallas can win the game by 5 points or more. So, if Dallas wins the game 20-14, then the team not only wins by 6 points but also covers the 4.5-point spread as the favourite. However, if Dallas wins the game 20-17, then they win by 3 points and have NOT covered the 4.5 points, but Washington has because they stayed within the spread.
Proposition bets (also known as Props or Specials) are wagers made on events that are not related to the final outcome. Example events are: who will win the first round of a boxing match or which team will score first in a match.
Over/Under bets (also known as Totals) are wagers made on whether an outcome will be under or over an estimated outcome set by the bookmaker. For example, how many three-point shots will LeBron James make tonight?
– Over 2.5
– Under 2.5
In this example, notice how the Prop takes the form of a traditional game total wager. This is a simple wager to understand – if the person making the wager thinks that LeBron James can make three or more three-point shots tonight, bet on the over. If the player making the wager thinks LeBron cannot do that, take the under.
There are specific odds for both the over and under bet. Payments depend on the odds at the time the bet is made.
Parlays (also known as accumulators) involve multiple bets and rewards a successful player with a large payout. These types of bets are hard to predict because they involve making more than one selection as part of a single wager. For example, the player might place a single wager on what team will win the next five football matches. If the player successfully wagers, the payout is substantially higher than if the player had wagered on each game separately. The downside is that the player would lose his/her complete wager if the team he/she selected lost any one of the five games. Based on the number of selections, the parlay can receive a unique name. For example, “Double” when it contains two games, or “Treble” when it is composed of three games.
Progressive Parlays are similar to parlays in that they involve making more than one selection as part of a single wager. However, they differ from a Parlay in that a player will be rewarded even if some of the bets lose. If all bets are won, the player will be awarded the full payout which is not as large as a regular parlay but will receive a reduced payout if some of the selections within the parlay lose.
Future Wagers (also known as Outright wagers) are wagers placed on future events. Although all sports wagers are on future events, with a future bet, there is a long-term horizon measured in weeks or months. Future wagers usually are made before the season starts. Winning bets will not pay off until the end of the season. For example, the player might make a futures wager on a team winning the National Hockey League (NHL) Stanley Cup. The wager must be placed before the regular NHL season begins and the payoff will not be made until after the Stanley Cup playoffs end.
Online gaming includes all areas of gaming offered via Internet, mobile, wireless in-venue, and interactive-TV channels. The online gaming space contains all the different types of gaming that have been discussed thus far, i.e., slot games, table games, lottery, and sports betting
Online gaming has become one of the most popular and lucrative businesses present on the internet. Legalisation of online gaming varies based on the type of online gaming product and the jurisdictions in which they are offered. For example, purchasing traditional lotto tickets through online websites is legal in many jurisdictions. However, not all jurisdictions have legalised casino style gaming such as poker or slot games through online gaming websites.
Mobile gaming is online gaming on a mobile device such as a tablet or smart phone. There are two types of mobile gaming. The first is the online gaming at casino websites that can be accessed through a mobile device either through a website or through a mobile app. The second is in-venue mobile gaming which allows on premise casinos to add mobile technology and content to their existing offerings. Products are accessible to players on the gaming machines on the casino floor and on mobile devices inside the casino.
For the online and mobile gaming ecosystem, the player needs to be able to access the casino’s online gaming products. This can be done in two ways:
If the player chooses to play through a browser-based casino website, the games are available through the player’s browser while on the online casino’s website.
If the player chooses to play through a downloadable application, he/she must first install the online casino’s software to his/her computer or mobile device. This option usually offers better graphics, sound and game play than the browser-based option. Then, in order to play at the online casino, the player must have a means of transferring money to and from the online casino. This can be accomplished by an electronic wallet (also known as a digital wallet), such as PayPal. When performing mobile in-venue gaming, some casinos have internal electronic wallets as part of the casino management system which are often associated to a player’s account. In this scenario, the player would deposit funds into or withdraw funds from the casino’s electronic wallet solution at the cashier booth.
To ensure online or mobile gaming is performed only where it is legal, geolocation, micro-technology and triangulation are used to confirm the location of the player. Geolocation is the estimation of the real-world geographic location of an object, i.e., the computer or mobile device a player is using to play online gaming. Micro-location technology is used for in-venue mobile gaming. This technology works by using the casino’s existing WIFI network or Bluetooth beacons to give accuracy of a player’s location to within a few feet. For out-of-venue online gaming, some jurisdictions have decided on mobile phone triangulation to confirm the location of players. This triangulation method determines which cellular towers are closest to the player’s mobile phone and ensures that the player is in the right geographical location. Mobile phone triangulation technology is accurate to within a mile of where the client resides. Other jurisdictions have decided to use Wi-Fi to verify geolocation for out-of-venue online gaming. This geolocation technology is accurate to within a few feet of the user’s residence.
Individuals looking to circumvent restricting online gaming to specific locations use technical measures such as proxy servers to try to bypass restrictions imposed by geolocation software. Some online gaming sites can detect the use of proxies and anonymises and block their access to the online gaming systems.
A progressive jackpot is a prize or payout which increases each time the game is played but the jackpot is not won. A small percentage of each wager placed by a player on the game contributes to the jackpot award amount. The game that the progressive jackpot is attached to can be any type of game (e.g., mechanical reels, poker, etc.).
When the progressive jackpot is won, the jackpot for the next play is reset to a predetermined value, and resumes increasing under the same conditions. The progressive jackpot win is often associated with the highest winning combination on the gaming machine in which it is being played. In order to win the progressive jackpot, in most games, the player needs to have placed a maximum bet as the wager for the play.
Progressive jackpots are available both on VLTs and slot machines. There are three types of progressive jackpots:
A standalone progressive has a jackpot on the individual EGM. Only bets placed on that specific EGM increment the jackpot.
Local area linked progressives are games within a venue that are linked together to contribute to a common progressive jackpot. This type of jackpot is usually found in a casino. This type of network can include as few as a dozen EMGs and as many as hundreds of these.
Multi-site (also known as Wide Area) linked progressives link gaming machines from multiple venues to participate in the progressive jackpot. Due to jurisdictional rules being different, Multi-site linked progressives usually only link machines within the same jurisdiction, often across casinos operated by the same organisation. However, some examples of multi-jurisdiction progressive jackpots exist. For example, in July 2006, the Multi-State Lottery Association in the US introduced the first multi-jurisdictional progressive jackpot called Ca$hola. This progressive jackpot linked EGMs at nine lottery run casinos; three in Delaware, two in Rhode Island, and four in West Virginia. This linked progressive was replaced in 2011 by the Megabits jackpot and now includes two additional states: Ohio and Maryland.
A linked progressive jackpot solution adds some additional devices to VLT and slot machine ecosystems:
The progressive jackpot display or sign is used to display the current amount of the progressive jackpot.
The progressive jackpot controller is used by the venue to manage the progressive jackpot. The jackpot controller links the games contributing to the progressive jackpot and communicates the jackpot value to the progressive jackpot display.
The progressive jackpot server is used to manage multiple jackpot controllers and different progressive jackpot games that may exist across a venue. It will also monitor and collect all progressive related data to allow for analytics and auditing of progressive jackpots.
The Random Number Generator is a computational or physical device designed to generate a sequence of numbers that lack any pattern, so they are random, or they appear unrelated. RNGs are used in gaming, statistical sampling, computer simulations and other areas where producing an unpredictable result is desirable. Any machine-base gaming involves an RNG.
The RNG is a vital part of all gaming machine operations. Where unpredictability is essential, such as in security applications, hardware generators are generally preferred over pseudo-random algorithms.
The RNG is certified by either an ITL or by the jurisdiction’s regulatory board.
The selection process or the “did I win?” process is another key concept of the gaming industry. All gaming machines such as EGMs use some type of win selection process to determine and display the outcome of the game. This means if the player pulls a lever or presses a button, something happens on the screen and then there’s an outcome that says “Yeah! I’ve won!” or” No, I’ve lost!”.
What is also important about the selection process is that it can be performed on the EGM itself or on a server. In some cases, the whole process from “spin the wheel”, “get a response”, “you won or lost” is done on a standalone EGM.
The technology being used and the specific jurisdictional rules of where the game is being played will influence the selection process and whether it is performed on the EGM or on the servers.
This selection process will involve the following:
Privacy laws in most jurisdictions mandate that any player’s information being tracked, whether for responsible gaming or player loyalty program purposes, adheres to the storage and use of personal information regulations set forth by those laws. An example of testing player privacy is verifying that the solution makes the player information available to only those that should have access, and that any such information is encrypted when being transferred between devices and systems.
Some responsible gaming and player loyalty programs require knowing where the player is located. Testing this function consists of ensuring the geolocation functions accurately restrict play based on the rules mandated by the location from which the player is playing.
Compliance testing is also called jurisdictional testing. Each jurisdiction has its own rules, regulations, guidelines (also known as regulatory or jurisdictional specifications or rules) that must be tested. This testing is usually performed by an ITL.
In the United States, there are over four hundred regulators and jurisdictions. Canada has at least one per province. South America has at least one jurisdiction per country that has legalised gaming. Europe, Asia and Africa also usually have one jurisdiction per country. Germany has lottery companies by province. Australia has at least one per state. Within these jurisdictions, there is usually an organisation that is responsible for issuing licenses and regulating the licensee or the people who have the licensee. These organisations are typically known as licensing authorities.
Every jurisdiction controls the potential manufactures who need a licensee to operate in that jurisdiction. Manufactures cannot legally operate in any jurisdiction where they do not have a licensee. If a product fails compliance testing, it must be fixed and returned to the ITL for certification testing until it passes 100% of the mandatory certification tests. The product can be returned many times before it passes the compliance tests.
Before gaming products are ready for compliance testing, a full range of gaming QA testing must occur. Some examples of test types and test techniques that are done for the gaming industry includes exploratory testing, functional testing, regression testing, pre-compliance testing, system integration testing, performance testing, penetration testing and failover testing.
Background
Gaming industry testing uses many of the common test metrics. However, there are a few that are specific to the gaming industry.
First pass percentage identifies the percentage of games that receive certification from the ITL on the first submission of the product.
The importance of receiving a first pass for a gaming product is related to both product cost and its time-to-market. If the product does not receive a first pass, there are extra costs for additional development, testing and product certification. A gaming product that does not receive a first pass is delayed from entering the market until it is certified.
These metrics measure data relating too escaped defects that do not comply with the jurisdictional rules or regulations and are found by the ITL or in the field.
The resubmit factor is the number of times a game must be resubmitted to the ITL to pass certification testing. For example, if on average each game is resubmitted 4.5 times to achieve certification, the resubmits factor would be equal to 4.5.
The number of revocations tracks how many games have been pulled from the field per time period, due to escaped compliance defects. For example, if two games have been removed from the field in a year, that would mean two revocations for the year. If a jurisdiction asks for a game to be removed due to an escaped compliance defect the manufacturer has a limited amount of time to remove the game.
These two metrics are important because having escaped defects in a jurisdiction can impact a manufacturer’s right to be in that jurisdiction, negatively impacting their brand, making them lose revenue if the EGM and table games is not working on the casino floor. There are a fixed number of EGMs and table games in any casino. Manufacturers fight for floor space amongst themselves, so a revocation might also mean that a manufacturer loses that floor space to a competitor.
The Gaming Software Development Lifecycle follows the sequential development model.
Game Concept and Design is the first phase of the gaming software development lifecycle. It starts with a game idea that is storyboarded and is reviewed. Game and sound designers, artists, video, and gaming experts, software architects and game developers, and gaming jurisdictional experts create a game prototype. The prototype is then scrutinised for innovation and playability by the targeted audience focus group. This group may be composed of internal (IT-professionals), external (non-employees, sometimes non-IT professionals), or a mix of both resources. The Game Concept and Design phase is an iterative process. The Game Concept and Design phases’ ultimate deliverables are documents which become the blueprint for the development team, artists, mathematicians, and sound designers.
The Game Concept and Design documents include the following:
The Alpha phase, not to be confused with alpha testing, is next. During this phase, game play functionality is developed and implemented, math functionality is completed, video and audio components are partially finished, and the game contains the major features. Black-box testing, especially functional, usability testing, exploratory testing, regression testing, math testing, and RTP testing occur.
The Code Complete phase is next. All features, audio, video and math components are finalised. At this phase, code is no longer added to the game, unless a change is needed to fix defects. Standard black-and white-box testing are typically performed at this phase. The emphasis is on test automation, testing for memory leaks, confirmation testing, and regression testing.
The Beta Build phase, not to be confused with Beta Testing, continues until no failures occur that prevent the game from being certified. Pre-certification testing is performed by the internal gaming quality assurance test team to assess the game versus the requirements of each jurisdiction. This phase is not a formal certification test cycle. It is a precursor to the ITL certification testing. Any defects discovered at this time will be corrected and the new builds are tested, and regression tests are performed.
The Release Build phase is the one that is sent to the ITLs to ensure that the game complies with the requirements of each required jurisdiction. This build receives the final certification sign-off, which allows the game to be sent to casinos or be made available online. If the game fails this certification, it is sent back to the game developer and the process starts over.
Once the pre-certification phase is completed by the machine manufacturer, the game is ready to be certified by an ITL (also known as the Authorised Test Facility). If this is a game that will be played in North America and in Australia, it must be tested for all applicable jurisdictions which means approximately 450 jurisdictions for these two parts of the world.
Once the ITL has tested the game for all applicable jurisdictions, if it fails in any of the jurisdictions, the game is returned to the machine manufacturer or game developer who make the changes in the game or in the EGM and return it for another ITL certification test.
The only way to be an accredited ITL is to be accepted by each gaming regulatory commission. This is a lengthy and costly process and thus there are only a few ITLs who can certify games world-wide. A few of the jurisdictions have government-based certification test labs that play the role of the ITL.
Once the ITL has certified a game, the regulatory commission allows the game to be played in all casinos in their jurisdiction. However, the regulatory commission will revoke or pull a game from all its casinos if a major field issue arises. A major field issue is usually a defect that stops the game from playing, provides erroneous payouts or deviates from any of the rules of engagement that are required for certification. The machine manufacturer will have to immediately remove that game from every installation in the jurisdiction.
There are also minor field issues that will force the machine manufacturer to modify a game that is in the field, within a given timeframe. In this case the game must be certified again at an ITL and approved by the regulatory commission.
While it is certainly true that the roles and responsibilities of the tester and the business analyst are different, it is also true that their activities are complementary; work done by one group may greatly affect, either positively or negatively, that of the other. This is especially true in acceptance testing which is performed to assess the system’s readiness for deployment and its use by the customer (end-user). Good collaboration between business analysts and testers is particularly important for a proper consideration of the business implications at this test level.
Business analysts first must understand the organisation’s overall business goals and identify current business processes and stakeholders. Once that is done, they describe specific business needs and determine a business case that addresses those needs. Once this high-level work has been completed, requirements can be elicited for the business solution that shall be developed.
Business goals, business needs, business requirements, and product requirements describe, at different levels of abstraction, what shall be achieved. In Agile development, the same principles apply, but different terms may be used (for example features and user stories).
In this document, the term “requirements” refers both to business requirements and to product requirements.
During requirements elicitation, business analysts and testers (possibly together with developers) should begin to create specific acceptance criteria and develop acceptance tests as a joint effort. This ensures that there is a mutual understanding of what “acceptable” means from the business, development, and testing perspectives, right from the beginning of the project.
Acceptance criteria relate directly to a specific requirement or user story. They are either part of the detailed description or an attribute of the related requirement. If user stories are used, acceptance criteria are part of the user story’s definition and extend the story.
In all cases, acceptance criteria are measurable criteria, formulated as a statement (or a set of statements), which can be either true or false. They are used to check whether a requirement or user story has been implemented as expected. Acceptance criteria represent the test conditions which determine “what” to test. They do not contain the detailed test procedures.
Acceptance test cases are derived from acceptance criteria. These tests specify how the verification of the acceptance criteria should be performed.
If acceptance criteria and tests are based on requirements, user stories, and/or acceptance criteria that are vague or ambiguous, it is likely that testers will make assumptions about stakeholder expectations and business needs. In this case, the resulting acceptance tests may be flawed. This will lead to rework or, even worse, the running of invalid tests, thus creating unnecessary costs as well as risks and uncertainty about product quality assurance.
It is critical for testers to work closely with business analysts to make sure that requirements are clear and well understood by all stakeholders concerned. Ambiguities should be resolved and assumptions should be clarified so that the resulting acceptance tests are valid and are a meaningful way to determine the product’s readiness for release.
In Agile development, the INVEST criteria define a set of criteria, or checklist, to assess the quality of a user story. These may be used by business analysts / product owners, developers, and testers to ensure the quality of user stories.
Too often, business analysts and testers work in their own separate silos, which can lead to misunderstandings about business and customer expectations. Those misunderstandings may stay hidden until the release approaches. By taking advantage of the complementary skills and by working together, business analysts and testers can positively affect the development process. This can be accomplished both by considering acceptance criteria and acceptance testing as early as possible and by coordinating efforts to make sure that the product has been tested appropriately prior to release at acceptance test level.
The following are the main elements of the business analysis activities:
The business analyst is responsible for identifying business needs of stakeholders and for determining solutions to business problems with the aim of introducing change which adds value to the business. An important aspect of the business analyst’s role is to establish consensus between quality engineers, testers, developers, system integrators, product managers and project managers.
A test process consists of the following main groups of activities:
Quite a few of the associated activities and tasks relate to both business analysis and testing. The following examples illustrate the relationship between the two disciplines in the context of acceptance testing:
Requirements engineering in business analysis vs. test planning, test analysis and test design:
Solution evaluation in business analysis vs. test implementation, test execution and test completion:
There is a strong and symbiotic relationship between the two roles and their respective activities, starting at the very beginning of a project and continuing until acceptance or release of the solution.
The common goal for business analysts and testers is to support the production of products with the highest possible value for the customer. Given their position within the organisation, business analysts and testers have various opportunities to collaborate during the acceptance testing activities described in the previous section. Apart from joint discussions and reviews of generated artefacts, business analysts and testers collaborate in other areas. For example, collaboration on test planning based on risk analysis is a good opportunity to ensure that the appropriate test cases will be developed and prioritised.
In addition to the direct benefits of working together and supporting each other’s efforts during acceptance testing, there is an important opportunity to cross-train team members. The more testers know about business needs and stakeholder requirements, and the more business analysts know about structured testing, the more likely the two groups will understand and appreciate each other’s work and better collaborate within the project.
The wide acceptance of Agile software development practices has influenced how acceptance testing relates to requirements elicitation and other business analysis activities. In sequential lifecycle models, acceptance test analysis, design, and implementation are activities to be handled by the testers after the requirements are finalised. With the Agile lifecycle model, acceptance criteria and acceptance test cases are created during requirements analysis, requirements refinement sessions, and product backlog refinement. This allows the implementation of the “Early Testing” principle by using the design of test cases as part of the requirements definition activities.
In the following two approaches, acceptance test analysis and design are formally part of the requirements engineering process:
There are certain testing practices that can be followed in every development project (agile or not) to produce quality products. These include writing tests in advance to express proper behaviour, focusing on early defect prevention, detection, and removal, and ensuring that the right test types are run at the right time and as part of the right test level. Agile practitioners aim to introduce these practices early. Testers in Agile projects play a key role in guiding the use of these testing practices throughout the lifecycle.
Test-driven development, acceptance test-driven development, and behaviour-driven development are three complementary techniques in use among Agile teams to carry out testing across the various test levels. Each technique is an example of a fundamental principle of testing, the benefit of early testing and QA activities, since the tests are defined before the code is written.
Test-Driven Development
Test-driven development (TDD) is used to develop code guided by automated test cases. The process for test-driven development is:
The tests written are primarily unit level and are code-focused, though tests may also be written at the integration or system levels. Test-driven development gained its popularity through Extreme Programming, but is also used in other Agile methodologies and sometimes in sequential lifecycles. It helps developers focus on clearly defined expected results. The tests are automated and are used in continuous integration.
Acceptance Test-Driven Development
Acceptance test-driven development defines acceptance criteria and tests during the creation of user stories. Acceptance test-driven development is a collaborative approach that allows every stakeholder to understand how the software component has to behave and what the developers, testers, and business representatives need to ensure this behaviour.
Acceptance test-driven development creates reusable tests for regression testing. Specific tools support creation and execution of such tests, often within the continuous integration process. These tools can connect to data and service layers of the application, which allows tests to be executed at the system or acceptance level. Acceptance test-driven development allows quick resolution of defects and validation of feature behaviour. It helps determine if the acceptance criteria are met for the feature.
Behaviour-Driven Development
Behaviour-driven development allows a developer to focus on testing the code based on the expected behaviour of the software. Because the tests are based on the exhibited behaviour from the software, the tests are generally easier for other team members and stakeholders to understand.
Specific behaviour-driven development frameworks can be used to define acceptance criteria based on the given/when/then format:
Given some initial context,
When an event occurs,
Then ensure some outcomes.
From these requirements, the behaviour-driven development framework generates code that can be used by developers to create test cases. Behaviour-driven development helps the developer collaborate with other stakeholders, including testers, to define accurate unit tests focused on business needs.
A software system may be tested at different levels. Typical test levels are, from the base of the pyramid to the top, unit, integration, system, and acceptance. The test pyramid emphasises having a large number of tests at the lower levels (bottom of the pyramid) and, as development moves to the upper levels, the number of tests decreases (top of the pyramid). Usually unit and integration level tests are automated and are created using API-based tools. At the system and acceptance levels, the automated tests are created using GUI-based tools. The test pyramid concept is based on the testing principle of early QA and testing (i.e., eliminating defects as early as possible in the lifecycle).
Testing quadrants, align the test levels with the appropriate test types in the Agile methodology. The testing quadrants model, and its variants, helps to ensure that all important test types and test levels are included in the development lifecycle. This model also provides a way to differentiate and describe the types of tests to all stakeholders, including developers, testers, and business representatives.
In the testing quadrants, tests can be business (user) or technology (developer) facing. Some tests support the work done by the Agile team and confirm software behaviour. Other tests can verify the product. Tests can be fully manual, fully automated, a combination of manual and automated, or manual but supported by tools. The four quadrants are as follows:
During any given iteration, tests from any or all quadrants may be required. The testing quadrants apply to dynamic testing rather than static testing.
Throughout this article, general reference has been made to Agile methods and techniques, and the role of a tester within various Agile lifecycles. This subsection looks specifically at the role of a tester in a project following a Scrum lifecycle.
Teamwork
Teamwork is a fundamental principle in Agile development. Agile emphasises the whole-team approach consisting of developers, testers, and business representatives working together. The following are organisational and behavioural best practices in Scrum teams:
These best practices maximise the likelihood of successful testing in Scrum projects.
Sprint Zero
Sprint zero is the first iteration of the project where many preparation activities take place. The tester collaborates with the team on the following activities during this iteration:
Sprint zero sets the direction for what testing needs to achieve and how testing needs to achieve it throughout the sprints.
Integration
In Agile projects, the objective is to deliver customer value on a continuous basis (preferably in every sprint). To enable this, the integration strategy should consider both design and testing. To enable a continuous testing strategy for the delivered functionality and characteristics, it is important to identify all dependencies between underlying functions and features.
Test Planning
Since testing is fully integrated into the Agile team, test planning should start during the release planning session and be updated during each sprint. Test planning for the release and each sprint should address the issues.
Sprint planning results in a set of tasks to put on the task board, where each task should have a length of one or two days of work. In addition, any testing issues should be tracked to keep a steady flow of testing.
Agile Testing Practices
Many practices may be useful for testers in a scrum team, some of which include:
These practices are in addition to other practices discussed in this article and previous articles on the basics pages.
A typical objective of testing in all projects, Agile or traditional, is to reduce the risk of product quality problems to an acceptable level prior to release. Testers in Agile projects can use the same types of techniques used in traditional projects to identify quality risks (or product risks), assess the associated level of risk, estimate the effort required to reduce those risks sufficiently, and then mitigate those risks through test design, implementation, and execution. However, given the short iterations and rate of change in Agile projects, some adaptations of those techniques are required.
One of the many challenges in testing is the proper selection, allocation, and prioritisation of test conditions. This includes determining the appropriate amount of effort to allocate in order to cover each condition with tests, and sequencing the resulting tests in a way that optimises the effectiveness and efficiency of the testing work to be done. Risk identification, analysis, and risk mitigation strategies can be used by the testers in Agile teams to help determine an acceptable number of test cases to execute, although many interacting constraints and variables may require compromises.
Risk is the possibility of a negative or undesirable outcome or event. The level of risk is found by assessing the likelihood of occurrence of the risk and the impact of the risk. When the primary effect of the potential problem is on product quality, potential problems are referred to as quality risks or product risks. When the primary effect of the potential problem is on project success, potential problems are referred to as project risks or planning risks.
In Agile projects, quality risk analysis takes place at two places.
Examples of quality risks for a system include:
As mentioned earlier, an iteration starts with iteration planning, which culminates in estimated tasks on a task board. These tasks can be prioritised in part based on the level of quality risk associated with them. Tasks associated with higher risks should start earlier and involve more testing effort. Tasks associated with lower risks should start later and involve less testing effort.
An example of how the quality risk analysis process in an Agile project may be carried out during iteration planning is outlined in the following steps:
The tester then designs, implements, and executes tests to mitigate the risks. This includes the totality of features, behaviours, quality characteristics, and attributes that affect customer, user, and stakeholder satisfaction.
Throughout the project, the team should remain aware of additional information that may change the set of risks and/or the level of risk associated with known quality risks. Periodic adjustment of the quality risk analysis, which results in adjustments to the tests, should occur. Adjustments include identifying new risks, re-assessing the level of existing risks, and evaluating the effectiveness of risk mitigation activities.
Quality risks can also be mitigated before test execution starts. For example, if problems with the user stories are found during risk identification, the project team can thoroughly review user stories as a mitigating strategy.
During release planning, the Agile team estimates the effort required to complete the release. The estimate addresses the testing effort as well. A common estimation technique used in Agile projects is planning poker, a consensus-based technique. The product owner or customer reads a user story to the estimators. Each estimator has a deck of cards with values similar to the Fibonacci sequence (i.e., 0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, …), or any other progression of choice (e.g., shirt sizes ranging from extra-small to extra-extra-large). The values represent the number of story points, effort days, or other units in which the team estimates. The Fibonacci sequence is recommended because the numbers in the sequence reflect that uncertainty grows proportionally with the size of the story. A high estimate usually means that the story is not well understood or should be broken down into multiple smaller stories.
The estimators discuss the feature, and ask questions of the product owner as needed. Aspects such as development and testing effort, complexity of the story, and scope of testing play a role in the estimation. Therefore, it is advisable to include the risk level of a backlog item, in addition to the priority specified by the product owner, before the planning poker session is initiated. When the feature has been fully discussed, each estimator privately selects one card to represent his or her estimate. All cards are then revealed at the same time. If all estimators selected the same value, that becomes the estimate. If not, the estimators discuss the differences in estimates after which the poker round is repeated until agreement is reached, either by consensus or by applying rules (e.g., use the median, use the highest score) to limit the number of poker rounds. These discussions ensure a reliable estimate of the effort needed to complete product backlog items requested by the product owner and help improve collective knowledge of what has to be done.
Many of the test techniques and testing levels that apply to traditional projects can also be applied to Agile projects. However, for Agile projects, there are some specific considerations and variances in test techniques, terminologies, and documentation that should be considered.
Agile projects outline initial requirements as user stories in a prioritised backlog at the start of the project. Initial requirements are short and usually follow a predefined format. Non-functional requirements, such as usability and performance, are also important and can be specified as unique user stories or connected to other functional user stories. Non-functional requirements may follow a predefined format or standard, such as [ISO25000], or an industry specific standard.
The user stories serve as an important test basis. Other possible test bases include:
During each iteration, developers create code which implements the functions and features described in the user stories, with the relevant quality characteristics, and this code is verified and validated via acceptance testing. To be testable, acceptance criteria should address the following topics where relevant:
In addition to the user stories and their associated acceptance criteria, other information is relevant for the tester, including:
Testers will often discover the need for additional information (e.g., code coverage) throughout the iterations and should work collaboratively with the rest of the Agile team members to obtain that information. Relevant information plays a part in determining whether a particular activity can be considered done. This concept of the definition of done is critical in Agile projects and applies in a number of different ways as discussed in the following sub-subsections.
Test Levels
Each test level has its own definition of done. The following list gives examples that may be relevant for the different test levels.
User Story
The definition of done for user stories may be determined by the following criteria:
Feature
The definition of done for features, which may span multiple user stories or epics, may include:
Iteration
The definition of done for the iteration may include the following:
At this point, the software is potentially releasable because the iteration has been successfully completed, but not all iterations result in a release.
Release
The definition of done for a release, which may span multiple iterations, may include the following areas:
Acceptance test-driven development is a test-first approach. Test cases are created prior to implementing the user story. The test cases are created by the Agile team, including the developer, the tester, and the business representatives and may be manual or automated. The first step is a specification workshop where the user story is analysed, discussed, and written by developers, testers, and business representatives. Any incompleteness, ambiguities, or errors in the user story are fixed during this process.
The next step is to create the tests. This can be done by the team together or by the tester individually. In any case, an independent person such as a business representative validates the tests. The tests are examples that describe the specific characteristics of the user story. These examples will help the team implement the user story correctly. Since examples and tests are the same, these terms are often used interchangeably. The work starts with basic examples and open questions.
Typically, the first tests are the positive tests, confirming the correct behaviour without exception or error conditions, comprising the sequence of activities executed if everything goes as expected. After the positive path tests are done, the team should write negative path tests and cover non-functional attributes as well (e.g., performance, usability). Tests are expressed in a way that every stakeholder is able to understand, containing sentences in natural language involving the necessary preconditions, if any, the inputs, and the related outputs.
The examples must cover all the characteristics of the user story and should not add to the story. This means that an example should not exist which describes an aspect of the user story not documented in the story itself. In addition, no two examples should describe the same characteristics of the user story.
In Agile testing, many tests are created by testers concurrently with the developers’ programming activities. Just as the developers are programming based on the user stories and acceptance criteria, so are the testers creating tests based on user stories and their acceptance criteria. (Some tests, such as exploratory tests and some other experience-based tests, are created later, during test execution) Testers can apply traditional black box test design techniques such as equivalence partitioning, boundary value analysis, decision tables, and state transition testing to create these tests. For example, boundary value analysis could be used to select test values when a customer is limited in the number of items they may select for purchase.
In many situations, non-functional requirements can be documented as user stories. Black box test design techniques (such as boundary value analysis) can also be used to create tests for non-functional quality characteristics. The user story might contain performance or reliability requirements. For example, a given execution cannot exceed a time limit or a number of operations may fail less than a certain number of times.
Exploratory testing is important in Agile projects due to the limited time available for test analysis and the limited details of the user stories. In order to achieve the best results, exploratory testing should be combined with other experience-based techniques as part of a reactive testing strategy, blended with other testing strategies such as analytical risk-based testing, analytical requirements-based testing, model-based testing, and regression-averse testing. Test strategies and test strategy blending is discussed in the basics Level pages.
In exploratory testing, test design and test execution occur at the same time, guided by a prepared test charter. A test charter provides the test conditions to cover during a time-boxed testing session. During exploratory testing, the results of the most recent tests guide the next test. The same white box and black box techniques can be used to design the tests as when performing pre-designed testing.
A test charter may include the following information:
To manage exploratory testing, a method called session-based test management can be used. A session is defined as an uninterrupted period of testing which could last from 60 to 120 minutes. Test sessions include the following:
The quality of the tests depends on the testers’ ability to ask relevant questions about what to test. Examples include the following:
During test execution, the tester uses creativity, intuition, cognition, and skill to find possible problems with the product. The tester also needs to have good knowledge and understanding of the software under test, the business domain, how the software is used, and how to determine when the system fails.
A set of heuristics can be applied when testing. A heuristic can guide the tester in how to perform the testing and to evaluate the results [Hendrickson]. Examples include:
It is important for the tester to document the process as much as possible. Otherwise, it would be difficult to go back and see how a problem in the system was discovered. The following list provides examples of information that may be useful to document:
The information logged should be captured and/or summarised into some form of status management tools (e.g., test management tools, task management tools, the task board), in a way that makes it easy for stakeholders to understand the current status for all testing that was performed.
Tools described in the basics Level pages are relevant and used by testers on Agile teams. Not all tools are used the same way and some tools have more relevance for Agile projects than they have in traditional projects. For example, although the test management tools, requirements management tools, and incident management tools (defect tracking tools) can be used by Agile teams, some Agile teams opt for an all-inclusive tool (e.g., application lifecycle management or task management) that provides features relevant to Agile development, such as task boards, burn-down charts, and user stories. Configuration management tools are important to testers in Agile teams due to the high number of automated tests at all levels and the need to store and manage the associated automated test artefacts.
In addition to the tools described in the basic Level pages, testers on Agile projects may also utilise the tools described in the following subsections. These tools are used by the whole team to ensure team collaboration and information sharing, which are key to Agile practices.
In some cases, Agile teams use physical story/task boards (e.g., whiteboard, cork-board) to manage and track user stories, tests, and other tasks throughout each sprint. Other teams will use application lifecycle management and task management software, including electronic task boards. These tools serve the following purposes:
In addition to e-mail, documents, and spoken communication, Agile teams often use three additional types of tools to support communication and information sharing: wikis, instant messaging, and desktop sharing.
Wikis allow teams to build and share an online knowledge base on various aspects of the project, including the following:
Instant messaging, audio teleconferencing, and video chat tools provide the following benefits:
Desktop sharing and capturing tools provide the following benefits:
These tools should be used to complement and extend, not replace, face-to-face communication in Agile teams.
As discussed earlier in this article, daily build and deployment of software is a key practice in Agile teams. This requires the use of continuous integration tools and build distribution tools. The uses, benefits, and risks of these tools was described earlier on the basics of agile page.
On Agile teams, configuration management tools may be used not only to store source code and automated tests, but manual tests and other test work products are often stored in the same repository as the product source code. This provides traceability between which versions of the software were tested with which particular versions of the tests, and allows for rapid change without losing historical information. The main types of version control systems include centralised source control systems and distributed version control systems. The team size, structure, location, and requirements to integrate with other tools will determine which version control system is right for a particular Agile project.
Some tools are useful to Agile testers at specific points in the software testing process. While most of these tools are not new or specific to Agile, they provide important capabilities given the rapid change of Agile projects.
Virtualisation allows a single physical resource (server) to operate as many separate, smaller resources. When virtual machines or cloud instances are used, teams have a greater number of servers available to them for development and testing. This can help to avoid delays associated with waiting for physical servers. Provisioning a new server or restoring a server is more efficient with snapshot capabilities built into most virtualisation tools. Some test management tools now utilise virtualisation technologies to snapshot servers at the point when a fault is detected, allowing testers to share the snapshot with the developers investigating the fault.
As described in the basics pages, test activities are related to development activities, and thus testing varies in different lifecycles. Testers must understand the differences between testing in traditional lifecycle models (e.g., sequential such as the V-model or iterative such as RUP) and Agile lifecycles in order to work effectively and efficiently. The Agile models differ in terms of the way testing and development activities are integrated, the project work products, the names, entry and exit criteria used for various levels of testing, the use of tools, and how independent testing can be effectively utilised.
Testers should remember that organisations vary considerably in their implementation of lifecycles. Deviation from the ideals of Agile lifecycles may represent intelligent customisation and adaptation of the practices. The ability to adapt to the context of a given project, including the software development practices actually followed, is a key success factor for testers.
One of the main differences between traditional lifecycles and Agile lifecycles is the idea of very short iterations, each iteration resulting in working software that delivers features of value to business stakeholders. At the beginning of the project, there is a release planning period. This is followed by a sequence of iterations. At the beginning of each iteration, there is an iteration planning period. Once iteration scope is established, the selected user stories are developed, integrated with the system, and tested. These iterations are highly dynamic, with development, integration, and testing activities taking place throughout each iteration, and with considerable parallelism and overlap. Testing activities occur throughout the iteration, not as a final activity.
Testers, developers, and business stakeholders all have a role in testing, as with traditional lifecycles. Developers perform unit tests as they develop features from the user stories. Testers then test those features. Business stakeholders also test the stories during implementation. Business stakeholders might use written test cases, but they also might simply experiment with and use the feature in order to provide fast feedback to the development team.
In some cases, hardening or stabilisation iterations occur periodically to resolve any lingering defects and other forms of technical debt. However, the best practice is that no feature is considered done until it has been integrated and tested with the system. Another good practice is to address defects remaining from the previous iteration at the beginning of the next iteration, as part of the backlog for that iteration (referred to as “fix bugs first”). However, some complain that this practice results in a situation where the total work to be done in the iteration is unknown and it will be more difficult to estimate when the remaining features can be done. At the end of the sequence of iterations, there can be a set of release activities to get the software ready for delivery, though in some cases delivery occurs at the end of each iteration.
When risk-based testing is used as one of the test strategies, a high-level risk analysis occurs during release planning, with testers often driving that analysis. However, the specific quality risks associated with each iteration are identified and assessed in iteration planning. This risk analysis can influence the sequence of development as well as the priority and depth of testing for the features. It also influences the estimation of the test effort required for each feature.
In some Agile practices (e.g., Extreme Programming), pairing is used. Pairing can involve testers working together in twos to test a feature. Pairing can also involve a tester working collaboratively with a developer to develop and test a feature. Pairing can be difficult when the test team is distributed, but processes and tools can help enable distributed pairing.
Testers may also serve as testing and quality coaches within the team, sharing testing knowledge and supporting quality assurance work within the team. This promotes a sense of collective ownership of quality of the product.
Test automation at all levels of testing occurs in many Agile teams, and this can mean that testers spend time creating, executing, monitoring, and maintaining automated tests and results. Because of the heavy use of test automation, a higher percentage of the manual testing on Agile projects tends to be done using experience-based and defect-based techniques such as software attacks, exploratory testing, and error guessing. While developers will focus on creating unit tests, testers should focus on creating automated integration, system, and system integration tests. This leads to a tendency for Agile teams to favour testers with a strong technical and test automation background.
One core Agile principle is that change may occur throughout the project. Therefore, lightweight work product documentation is favoured in Agile projects. Changes to existing features have testing implications, especially regression testing implications. The use of automated testing is one way of managing the amount of test effort associated with change. However, it’s important that the rate of change not exceed the project team’s ability to deal with the risks associated with those changes.
Project work products of immediate interest to Agile testers typically fall into three categories:
In a typical Agile project, it is a common practice to avoid producing vast amounts of documentation. Instead, focus is more on having working software, together with automated tests that demonstrate conformance to requirements. This encouragement to reduce documentation applies only to documentation that does not deliver value to the customer. In a successful Agile project, a balance is struck between increasing efficiency by reducing documentation and providing sufficient documentation to support business, testing, development, and maintenance activities. The team must make a decision during release planning about which work products are required and what level of work product documentation is needed.
Typical business-oriented work products on Agile projects include user stories and acceptance criteria. User stories are the Agile form of requirements specifications, and should explain how the system should behave with respect to a single, coherent feature or function. A user story should define a feature small enough to be completed in a single iteration. Larger collections of related features, or a collection of sub-features that make up a single complex feature, may be referred to as “epics”. Epics may include user stories for different development teams. For example, one user story can describe what is required at the API-level (middleware) while another story describes what is needed at the UI-level (application). These collections may be developed over a series of sprints. Each epic and its user stories should have associated acceptance criteria.
Typical developer work products on Agile projects include code. Agile developers also often create automated unit tests. These tests might be created after the development of code. In some cases, though, developers create tests incrementally, before each portion of the code is written, in order to provide a way of verifying, once that portion of code is written, whether it works as expected. While this approach is referred to as test first or test-driven development, in reality the tests are more a form of executable low-level design specifications rather than tests.
Typical tester work products on Agile projects include automated tests, as well as documents such as test plans, quality risk catalogs, manual tests, defect reports, and test results logs. The documents are captured in as lightweight a fashion as possible, which is often also true of these documents in traditional lifecycles. Testers will also produce test metrics from defect reports and test results logs, and again there is an emphasis on a lightweight approach.
In some Agile implementations, especially regulated, safety critical, distributed, or highly complex projects and products, further formalisation of these work products is required. For example, some teams transform user stories and acceptance criteria into more formal requirements specifications. Vertical and horizontal traceability reports may be prepared to satisfy auditors, regulations, and other requirements.
Test levels are test activities that are logically related, often by the maturity or completeness of the item under test.
In sequential lifecycle models, the test levels are often defined such that the exit criteria of one level are part of the entry criteria for the next level. In some iterative models, this rule does not apply. Test levels overlap. Requirement specification, design specification, and development activities may overlap with test levels.
In some Agile lifecycles, overlap occurs because changes to requirements, design, and code can happen at any point in an iteration. While Scrum, in theory, does not allow changes to the user stories after iteration planning, in practice such changes sometimes occur. During an iteration, any given user story will typically progress sequentially through the following test activities:
In addition, there is often a parallel process of regression testing occurring throughout the iteration. This involves re-running the automated unit tests and feature verification tests from the current iteration and previous iterations, usually via a continuous integration framework.
In some Agile projects, there may be a system test level, which starts once the first user story is ready for such testing. This can involve executing functional tests, as well as non-functional tests for performance, reliability, usability, and other relevant test types.
Agile teams can employ various forms of acceptance testing. Internal alpha tests and external beta tests may occur, either at the close of each iteration, after the completion of each iteration, or after a series of iterations. User acceptance tests, operational acceptance tests, regulatory acceptance tests, and contract acceptance tests also may occur, either at the close of each iteration, after the completion of each iteration, or after a series of iterations.
Agile projects often involve heavy use of automated tools to develop, test, and manage software development. Developers use tools for static analysis, unit testing, and code coverage. Developers continuously check the code and unit tests into a configuration management system, using automated build and test frameworks. These frameworks allow the continuous integration of new software with the system, with the static analysis and unit tests run repeatedly as new software is checked in.
These automated tests can also include functional tests at the integration and system levels. Such functional automated tests may be created using functional testing harnesses, open-source user interface functional test tools, or commercial tools, and can be integrated with the automated tests run as part of the continuous integration framework. In some cases, due to the duration of the functional tests, the functional tests are separated from the unit tests and run less frequently. For example, unit tests may be run each time new software is checked in, while the longer functional tests are run only every few days.
One goal of the automated tests is to confirm that the build is functioning and installable. If any automated test fails, the team should fix the underlying defect in time for the next code check-in. This requires an investment in real-time test reporting to provide good visibility into test results. This approach helps reduce expensive and inefficient cycles of “build-install-fail-rebuild-reinstall” that can occur in many traditional projects, since changes that break the build or cause software to fail to install are detected quickly.
Automated testing and build tools help to manage the regression risk associated with the frequent change that often occurs in Agile projects. However, over-reliance on automated unit testing alone to manage these risks can be a problem, as unit testing often has limited defect detection effectiveness. Automated tests at the integration and system levels are also required.
As discussed in the basics section, independent testers are often more effective at finding defects. In some Agile teams, developers create many of the tests in the form of automated tests. One or more testers may be embedded within the team, performing many of the testing tasks. However, given those testers’ position within the team, there is a risk of loss of independence and objective evaluation.
Other Agile teams retain fully independent, separate test teams, and assign testers on-demand during the final days of each sprint. This can preserve independence, and these testers can provide an objective, unbiased evaluation of the software. However, time pressures, lack of understanding of the new features in the product, and relationship issues with business stakeholders and developers often lead to problems with this approach.
A third option is to have an independent, separate test team where testers are assigned to Agile teams on a long-term basis, at the beginning of the project, allowing them to maintain their independence while gaining a good understanding of the product and strong relationships with other team members. In addition, the independent test team can have specialised testers outside of the Agile teams to work on long-term and/or iteration-independent activities, such as developing automated test tools, carrying out non-functional testing, creating and supporting test environments and data, and carrying out test levels that might not fit well within a sprint (e.g., system integration testing).
Change takes place rapidly in Agile projects. This change means that test status, test progress, and product quality constantly evolve, and testers must devise ways to get that information to the team so that they can make decisions to stay on track for successful completion of each iteration. In addition, change can affect existing features from previous iterations. Therefore, manual and automated tests must be updated to deal effectively with regression risk.
Agile teams progress by having working software at the end of each iteration. To determine when the team will have working software, they need to monitor the progress of all work items in the iteration and release. Testers in Agile teams utilise various methods to record test progress and status, including test automation results, progression of test tasks and stories on the Agile task board, and burn-down charts showing the team’s progress. These can then be communicated to the rest of the team using media such as wiki dashboards and dashboard-style emails, as well as orally during stand-up meetings. Agile teams may use tools that automatically generate status reports based on test results and task progress, which in turn update wiki-style dashboards and emails. This method of communication also gathers metrics from the testing process, which can be used in process improvement. Communicating test status in such an automated manner also frees testers’ time to focus on designing and executing more test cases.
Teams may use burn-down charts to track progress across the entire release and within each iteration. A burn-down chart represents the amount of work left to be done against time allocated to the release or iteration.
To provide an instant, detailed visual representation of the whole team’s current status, including the status of testing, teams may use Agile task boards. The story cards, development tasks, test tasks, and other tasks created during iteration planning are captured on the task board, often using colour-coordinated cards to determine the task type. During the iteration, progress is managed via the movement of these tasks across the task board into columns such as to do, work in progress, verify, and done. Agile teams may use tools to maintain their story cards and Agile task boards, which can automate dashboards and status updates.
Testing tasks on the task board relate to the acceptance criteria defined for the user stories. As test automation scripts, manual tests, and exploratory tests for a test task achieve a passing status, the task moves into the done column of the task board. The whole team reviews the status of the task board regularly, often during the daily stand-up meetings, to ensure tasks are moving across the board at an acceptable rate. If any tasks (including testing tasks) are not moving or are moving too slowly, the team reviews and addresses any issues that may be blocking the progress of those tasks.
The daily stand-up meeting includes all members of the Agile team including testers. At this meeting, they communicate their current status. The agenda for each member is:
Any issues that may block test progress are communicated during the daily stand-up meetings, so the whole team is aware of the issues and can resolve them accordingly.
To improve the overall product quality, many Agile teams perform customer satisfaction surveys to receive feedback on whether the product meets customer expectations. Teams may use other metrics similar to those captured in traditional development methodologies, such as test pass/fail rates, defect discovery rates, confirmation and regression test results, defect density, defects found and fixed, requirements coverage, risk coverage, code coverage, and code churn to improve the product quality.
As with any lifecycle, the metrics captured and reported should be relevant and aid decision-making. Metrics should not be used to reward, punish, or isolate any team members.
In an Agile project, as each iteration completes, the product grows. Therefore, the scope of testing also increases. Along with testing the code changes made in the current iteration, testers also need to verify no regression has been introduced on features that were developed and tested in previous iterations. The risk of introducing regression in Agile development is high due to extensive code churn (lines of code added, modified, or deleted from one version to another). Since responding to change is a key Agile principle, changes can also be made to previously delivered features to meet business needs. In order to maintain velocity without incurring a large amount of technical debt, it is critical that teams invest in test automation at all test levels as early as possible. It is also critical that all test assets such as automated tests, manual test cases, test data, and other testing artefacts are kept up-to-date with each iteration. It is highly recommended that all test assets be maintained in a configuration management tool in order to enable version control, to ensure ease of access by all team members, and to support making changes as required due to changing functionality while still preserving the historic information of the test assets.
Because complete repetition of all tests is seldom possible, especially in tight-timeline Agile projects, testers need to allocate time in each iteration to review manual and automated test cases from previous and current iterations to select test cases that may be candidates for the regression test suite, and to retire test cases that are no longer relevant. Tests written in earlier iterations to verify specific features may have little value in later iterations due to feature changes or new features which alter the way those earlier features behave.
While reviewing test cases, testers should consider suitability for automation. The team needs to automate as many tests as possible from previous and current iterations. This allows automated regression tests to reduce regression risk with less effort than manual regression testing would require. This reduced regression test effort frees the testers to more thoroughly test new features and functions in the current iteration.
It is critical that testers have the ability to quickly identify and update test cases from previous iterations and/or releases that are affected by the changes made in the current iteration. Defining how the team designs, writes, and stores test cases should occur during release planning. Good practices for test design and implementation need to be adopted early and applied consistently. The shorter timeframes for testing and the constant change in each iteration will increase the impact of poor test design and implementation practices.
Use of test automation, at all test levels, allows Agile teams to provide rapid feedback on product quality. Well-written automated tests provide a living document of system functionality. By checking the automated tests and their corresponding test results into the configuration management system, aligned with the versioning of the product builds, Agile teams can review the functionality tested and the test results for any given build at any given point in time.
Automated unit tests are run before source code is checked into the mainline of the configuration management system to ensure the code changes do not break the software build. To reduce build breaks, which can slow down the progress of the whole team, code should not be checked in unless all automated unit tests pass. Automated unit test results provide immediate feedback on code and build quality, but not on product quality.
Automated acceptance tests are run regularly as part of the continuous integration full system build. These tests are run against a complete system build at least daily, but are generally not run with each code check-in as they take longer to run than automated unit tests and could slow down code check-ins. The test results from automated acceptance tests provide feedback on product quality with respect to regression since the last build, but they do not provide status of overall product quality.
Automated tests can be run continuously against the system. An initial subset of automated tests to cover critical system functionality and integration points should be created immediately after a new build is deployed into the test environment. These tests are commonly known as build verification tests. Results from the build verification tests will provide instant feedback on the software after deployment, so teams don’t waste time testing an unstable build.
Automated tests contained in the regression test set are generally run as part of the daily main build in the continuous integration environment, and again when a new build is deployed into the test environment. As soon as an automated regression test fails, the team stops and investigates the reasons for the failing test. The test may have failed due to legitimate functional changes in the current iteration, in which case the test and/or user story may need to be updated to reflect the new acceptance criteria. Alternatively, the test may need to be retired if another test has been built to cover the changes. However, if the test failed due to a defect, it is a good practice for the team to fix the defect prior to progressing with new features.
In addition to test automation, the following testing tasks may also be automated:
Automation of these tasks reduces the overhead and allows the team to spend time developing and testing new features.
In an Agile team, testers must closely collaborate with all other team members and with business stakeholders. This has a number of implications in terms of the skills a tester must have and the activities they perform within an Agile team.
Agile testers should have all the skills mentioned in the basics section. In addition to these skills, a tester in an Agile team should be competent in test automation, test-driven development, acceptance test-driven development, white-box, black-box, and experience-based testing.
As Agile methodologies depend heavily on collaboration, communication, and interaction between the team members as well as stakeholders outside the team, testers in an Agile team should have good interpersonal skills. Testers in Agile teams should:
Continuous skills growth, including interpersonal skills growth, is essential for all testers, including those on Agile teams.
The role of a tester in an Agile team includes activities that generate and provide feedback not only on test status, test progress, and product quality, but also on process quality. In addition to the activities described elsewhere in this article, these activities include:
Within an Agile team, each team member is responsible for product quality and plays a role in performing test-related tasks.
Agile organisations may encounter some test-related organisational risks:
To mitigate these risks, organisations may consider variations for preserving independence discussed in this article.
Test tools can be used to support one or more testing activities. Such tools include:
Test tools can have one or more of the following purposes depending on the context:
Tools can be classified based on several criteria such as purpose, pricing, licensing model (e.g., commercial or open source), and technology used. Tools are classified in this article according to the test activities that they support.
Some tools clearly support only or mainly one activity; others may support more than one activity, but are classified under the activity with which they are most closely associated. Tools from a single provider, especially those that have been designed to work together, may be provided as an integrated suite.
Some types of test tools can be intrusive, which means that they may affect the actual outcome of the test. For example, the actual response times for an application may be different due to the extra instructions that are executed by a performance testing tool, or the amount of code coverage achieved may be distorted due to the use of a coverage tool. The consequence of using intrusive tools is called the probe effect.
Some tools offer support that is typically more appropriate for developers (e.g., tools that are used during component and integration testing). Such tools are marked with “(D)” in the sections below.
Tool support for management of testing and test-ware
Management tools may apply to any test activities over the entire software development lifecycle. Examples of tools that support management of testing and test-ware include:
Tool support for static testing
Static testing tools are associated with the activities and benefits described in the static testing page. Examples of such tool include:
Tool support for test design and implementation
Test design tools aid in the creation of maintainable work products in test design and implementation, including test cases, test procedures and test data. Examples of such tools include:
In some cases, tools that support test design and implementation may also support test execution and logging, or provide their outputs directly to other tools that support test execution and logging.
Tool support for test execution and logging
Many tools exist to support and enhance test execution and logging activities. Examples of these tools include:
Tool support for performance measurement and dynamic analysis
Performance measurement and dynamic analysis tools are essential in supporting performance and load testing activities, as these activities cannot effectively be done manually. Examples of these tools include:
Tool support for specialised testing needs
In addition to tools that support the general test process, there are many other tools that support more specific testing for non-functional characteristics.
Simply acquiring a tool does not guarantee success. Each new tool introduced into an organisation will require effort to achieve real and lasting benefits. There are potential benefits and opportunities with the use of tools in testing, but there are also risks. This is particularly true of test execution tools (which is often referred to as test automation).
Potential benefits of using tools to support test execution include:
Potential risks of using tools to support testing include:
In order to have a smooth and successful implementation, there are a number of things that ought to be considered when selecting and integrating test execution and test management tools into an organisation.
Test execution tools
Test execution tools execute test objects using automated test scripts. This type of tools often requires significant effort in order to achieve significant benefits.
The above approaches require someone to have expertise in the scripting language (testers, developers or specialists in test automation). When using data-driven or keyword-driven test approaches testers who are not familiar with the scripting language can also contribute by creating test data and/or keywords for these predefined scripts. Regardless of the scripting technique used, the expected results for each test need to be compared to actual results from the test, either dynamically (while the test is running) or stored for later (post-execution) comparison.
Model-Based testing (MBT) tools enable a functional specification to be captured in the form of a model, such as an activity diagram. This task is generally performed by a system designer. The MBT tool interprets the model in order to create test case specifications which can then be saved in a test management tool and/or executed by a test execution tool.
Test management tools
Test management tools often need to interface with other tools or spreadsheets for various reasons, including:
This is particularly important to consider when using an integrated tool (e.g., Application Lifecycle Management), which includes a test management module, as well as other modules (e.g., project schedule and budget information) that are used by different groups within an organisation.
The main considerations in selecting a tool for an organisation include:
As a final step, a proof-of-concept evaluation should be done to establish whether the tool performs effectively with the software under test and within the current infrastructure or, if necessary, to identify changes needed to that infrastructure to use the tool effectively.
After completing the tool selection and a successful proof-of-concept, introducing the selected tool into an organisation generally starts with a pilot project, which has the following objectives:
Success factors for evaluation, implementation, deployment, and on-going support of tools within an organisation include:
It is also important to ensure that the tool is technically and organisationally integrated into the software development lifecycle, which may involve separate organisations responsible for operations and/or third party suppliers.
A software development lifecycle model describes the types of activity performed at each stage in a software development project, and how the activities relate to one another logically and chronologically. There are a number of different software development lifecycle models, each of which requires different approaches to testing.
It is an important part of a tester’s role to be familiar with the common software development lifecycle models so that appropriate test activities can take place.
In any software development lifecycle model, there are several characteristics of good testing:
No matter which software development lifecycle model is chosen, test activities should start in the early stages of the lifecycle, adhering to the testing principle of early testing.
This article categories common software development lifecycle models as follows:
A sequential development model describes the software development process as a linear, sequential flow of activities. This means that any phase in the development process should begin when the previous phase is complete. In theory, there is no overlap of phases, but in practice, it is beneficial to have early feedback from the following phase.
In the Waterfall model, the development activities (e.g., requirements analysis, design, coding, testing) are completed one after another. In this model, test activities only occur after all other development activities have been completed.
Unlike the Waterfall model, the V-model integrates the test process throughout the development process, implementing the principle of early testing. Further, the V-model includes test levels associated with each corresponding development phase, which further supports early testing. In this model, the execution of tests associated with each test level proceeds sequentially, but in some cases overlapping occurs.
Sequential development models deliver software that contains the complete set of features, but typically require months or years for delivery to stakeholders and users.
Incremental development involves establishing requirements, designing, building, and testing a system in pieces, which means that the software’s features grow incrementally. The size of these feature increments varies, with some methods having larger pieces and some smaller pieces. The feature increments can be as small as a single change to a user interface screen or new query option.
Iterative development occurs when groups of features are specified, designed, built, and tested together in a series of cycles, often of a fixed duration. Iterations may involve changes to features developed in earlier iterations, along with changes in project scope. Each iteration delivers working software which is a growing subset of the overall set of features until the final software is delivered or development is stopped.
Examples include:
Components or systems developed using these methods often involve overlapping and iterating test levels throughout development. Ideally, each feature is tested at several test levels as it moves towards delivery. In some cases, teams use continuous delivery or continuous deployment, both of which involve significant automation of multiple test levels as part of their delivery pipelines. Many development efforts using these methods also include the concept of self-organising teams, which can change the way testing work is organised as well as the relationship between testers and developers.
These methods form a growing system, which may be released to end-users on a feature-by-feature basis, on an iteration-by-iteration basis, or in a more traditional major-release fashion. Regardless of whether the software increments are released to end-users, regression testing is increasingly important as the system grows.
In contrast to sequential models, iterative and incremental models may deliver usable software in weeks or even days, but may only deliver the complete set of requirements product over a period of months or even years.
Software development lifecycle models must be selected and adapted to the context of project and product characteristics. An appropriate software development lifecycle model should be selected and adapted based on the project goal, the type of product being developed, business priorities (e.g., time-to-market), and identified product and project risks. For example, the development and testing of a minor internal administrative system should differ from the development and testing of a safety-critical system such as an automobile’s brake control system. As another example, in some cases organisational and cultural issues may inhibit communication between team members, which can impede iterative development.
Depending on the context of the project, it may be necessary to combine or reorganise test levels and/or test activities. For example, for the integration of a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software product into a larger system, the purchaser may perform interoperability testing at the system integration test level (e.g., integration to the infrastructure and other systems) and at the acceptance test level (functional and non-functional, along with user acceptance testing and operational acceptance testing).
In addition, software development lifecycle models themselves may be combined. For example, a V-model may be used for the development and testing of the backend systems and their integrations, while an Agile development model may be used to develop and test the front-end user interface (UI) and functionality. Prototyping may be used early in a project, with an incremental development model adopted once the experimental phase is complete.
Internet of Things (IoT) systems, which consist of many different objects, such as devices, products, and services, typically apply separate software development lifecycle models for each object. This presents a particular challenge for the development of Internet of Things system versions. Additionally the software development lifecycle of such objects places stronger emphasis on the later phases of the software development lifecycle after they have been introduced to operational use (e.g., operate, update, and decommission phases).
Reasons why software development models must be adapted to the context of project and product characteristics can be:
Test levels are groups of test activities that are organised and managed together. Each test level is an instance of the test process, consisting of the activities described in the basics of testing article, performed in relation to software at a given level of development, from individual units or components to complete systems or, where applicable, systems of systems. Test levels are related to other activities within the software development lifecycle. The test levels used in this article are:
Test levels are characterised by the following attributes:
For every test level, a suitable test environment is required. In acceptance testing, for example, a production-like test environment is ideal, while in component testing the developers typically use their own development environment.
Objectives of component testing
Component testing (also known as unit or module testing) focuses on components that are separately testable. Objectives of component testing include:
In some cases, especially in incremental and iterative development models (e.g., Agile) where code changes are ongoing, automated component regression tests play a key role in building confidence that changes have not broken existing components.
Component testing is often done in isolation from the rest of the system, depending on the software development lifecycle model and the system, which may require mock objects, service virtualisation, harnesses, stubs, and drivers. Component testing may cover functionality (e.g., correctness of calculations), non-functional characteristics (e.g., searching for memory leaks), and structural properties (e.g., decision testing).
Test basis
Examples of work products that can be used as a test basis for component testing include:
Test objects
Typical test objects for component testing include:
Typical defects and failures
Examples of typical defects and failures for component testing include:
Defects are typically fixed as soon as they are found, often with no formal defect management. However, when developers do report defects, this provides important information for root cause analysis and process improvement.
Specific approaches and responsibilities
Component testing is usually performed by the developer who wrote the code, but it at least requires access to the code being tested. Developers may alternate component development with finding and fixing defects. Developers will often write and execute tests after having written the code for a component. However, in Agile development especially, writing automated component test cases may precede writing application code.
For example, consider test driven development (TDD). Test driven development is highly iterative and is based on cycles of developing automated test cases, then building and integrating small pieces of code, then executing the component tests, correcting any issues, and re-factoring the code. This process continues until the component has been completely built and all component tests are passing. Test driven development is an example of a test-first approach. While test driven development originated in eXtreme Programming (XP), it has spread to other forms of Agile and also to sequential lifecycles.
Objectives of integration testing
Integration testing focuses on interactions between components or systems. Objectives of integration testing include:
As with component testing, in some cases automated integration regression tests provide confidence that changes have not broken existing interfaces, components, or systems.
There are two different levels of integration testing described in this article, which may be carried out on test objects of varying size as follows:
Test basis
Examples of work products that can be used as a test basis for integration testing include:
Test objects
Typical test objects for integration testing include:
Typical defects and failures
Examples of typical defects and failures for component integration testing include:
Examples of typical defects and failures for system integration testing include:
Specific approaches and responsibilities
Component integration tests and system integration tests should concentrate on the integration itself. For example, if integrating module A with module B, tests should focus on the communication between the modules, not the functionality of the individual modules, as that should have been covered during component testing. If integrating system X with system Y, tests should focus on the communication between the systems, not the functionality of the individual systems, as that should have been covered during system testing. Functional, non-functional, and structural test types are applicable.
Component integration testing is often the responsibility of developers. System integration testing is generally the responsibility of testers. Ideally, testers performing system integration testing should understand the system architecture, and should have influenced integration planning.
If integration tests and the integration strategy are planned before components or systems are built, those components or systems can be built in the order required for most efficient testing. Systematic integration strategies may be based on the system architecture (e.g., top-down and bottom-up), functional tasks, transaction processing sequences, or some other aspect of the system or components. In order to simplify defect isolation and detect defects early, integration should normally be incremental (i.e., a small number of additional components or systems at a time) rather than “big bang” (i.e., integrating all components or systems in one single step). A risk analysis of the most complex interfaces can help to focus the integration testing.
The greater the scope of integration, the more difficult it becomes to isolate defects to a specific component or system, which may lead to increased risk and additional time for troubleshooting. This is one reason that continuous integration, where software is integrated on a component-by-component basis (i.e., functional integration), has become common practice. Such continuous integration often includes automated regression testing, ideally at multiple test levels.
Objectives of system testing
System testing focuses on the behaviour and capabilities of a whole system or product, often considering the end-to-end tasks the system can perform and the non-functional behaviours it exhibits while performing those tasks. Objectives of system testing include:
For certain systems, verifying data quality may also be an objective. As with component testing and integration testing, in some cases automated system regression tests provide confidence that changes have not broken existing features or end-to-end capabilities. System testing often produces information that is used by stakeholders to make release decisions. System testing may also satisfy legal or regulatory requirements or standards.
The test environment should ideally correspond to the final target or production environment.
Test basis
Examples of work products that can be used as a test basis for system testing include:
Test objects
Typical test objects for system testing include:
Typical defects and failures
Examples of typical defects and failures for system testing include:
Specific approaches and responsibilities
System testing should focus on the overall, end-to-end behaviour of the system as a whole, both functional and non-functional. System testing should use the most appropriate techniques (see test techniques) for the aspect(s) of the system to be tested. For example, a decision table may be created to verify whether functional behaviour is as described in business rules.
System testing is typically carried out by independent testers who rely heavily on specifications. Defects in specifications (e.g., missing user stories, incorrectly stated business requirements, etc.) can lead to a lack of understanding of, or disagreements about, expected system behaviour. Such situations can cause false positives and false negatives, which waste time and reduce defect detection effectiveness, respectively. Early involvement of testers in user story refinement or static testing activities, such as reviews, helps to reduce the incidence of such situations.
Acceptance Testing
Objectives of acceptance testing
Acceptance testing, like system testing, typically focuses on the behaviour and capabilities of a whole system or product. Objectives of acceptance testing include:
Acceptance testing may produce information to assess the system’s readiness for deployment and use by the customer (end-user). Defects may be found during acceptance testing, but finding defects is often not an objective, and finding a significant number of defects during acceptance testing may in some cases be considered a major project risk. Acceptance testing may also satisfy legal or regulatory requirements or standards.
Common forms of acceptance testing include the following:
Each is described in the following four subsections.
User acceptance testing (UAT)
User acceptance testing of the system is typically focused on validating the fitness for use of the system by intended users in a real or simulated operational environment. The main objective is building confidence that the users can use the system to meet their needs, fulfil requirements, and perform business processes with minimum difficulty, cost, and risk.
Operational acceptance testing (OAT)
The acceptance testing of the system by operations or systems administration staff is usually performed in a (simulated) production environment. The tests focus on operational aspects, and may include:
The main objective of operational acceptance testing is building confidence that the operators or system administrators can keep the system working properly for the users in the operational environment, even under exceptional or difficult conditions.
Contractual and regulatory acceptance testing
Contractual acceptance testing is performed against a contract’s acceptance criteria for producing custom-developed software. Acceptance criteria should be defined when the parties agree to the contract. Contractual acceptance testing is often performed by users or by independent testers.
Regulatory acceptance testing is performed against any regulations that must be adhered to, such as government, legal, or safety regulations. Regulatory acceptance testing is often performed by users or by independent testers, sometimes with the results being witnessed or audited by regulatory agencies.
The main objective of contractual and regulatory acceptance testing is building confidence that contractual or regulatory compliance has been achieved.
Alpha and beta testing
Alpha and beta testing are typically used by developers of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software who want to get feedback from potential or existing users, customers, and/or operators before the software product is put on the market. Alpha testing is performed at the developing organisation’s site, not by the development team, but by potential or existing customers, and/or operators or an independent test team. Beta testing is performed by potential or existing customers, and/or operators at their own locations. Beta testing may come after alpha testing, or may occur without any preceding alpha testing having occurred.
One objective of alpha and beta testing is building confidence among potential or existing customers, and/or operators that they can use the system under normal, everyday conditions, and in the operational environment(s) to achieve their objectives with minimum difficulty, cost, and risk. Another objective may be the detection of defects related to the conditions and environment(s) in which the system will be used, especially when those conditions and environment(s) are difficult to replicate by the development team.
Test basis
Examples of work products that can be used as a test basis for any form of acceptance testing include:
In addition, as a test basis for deriving test cases for operational acceptance testing, one or more of the following work products can be used:
Typical test objects
Typical test objects for any form of acceptance testing include:
Typical defects and failures
Examples of typical defects for any form of acceptance testing include:
Specific approaches and responsibilities
Acceptance testing is often the responsibility of the customers, business users, product owners, or operators of a system, and other stakeholders may be involved as well.
Acceptance testing is often thought of as the last test level in a sequential development lifecycle, but it may also occur at other times, for example:
In iterative development, project teams can employ various forms of acceptance testing during and at the end of each iteration, such as those focused on verifying a new feature against its acceptance criteria and those focused on validating that a new feature satisfies the users’ needs. In addition, alpha tests and beta tests may occur, either at the end of each iteration, after the completion of each iteration, or after a series of iterations. User acceptance tests, operational acceptance tests, regulatory acceptance tests, and contractual acceptance tests also may occur, either at the close of each iteration, after the completion of each iteration, or after a series of iterations.
A test type is a group of test activities aimed at testing specific characteristics of a software system, or a part of a system, based on specific test objectives. Such objectives may include:
Functional testing of a system involves tests that evaluate functions that the system should perform. Functional requirements may be described in work products such as business requirements specifications, epics, user stories, use cases, or functional specifications, or they may be undocumented. The functions are “what” the system should do.
Functional tests should be performed at all test levels (e.g., tests for components may be based on a component specification), though the focus is different at each level.
Functional testing considers the behaviour of the software, so black-box techniques may be used to derive test conditions and test cases for the functionality of the component or system.
The thoroughness of functional testing can be measured through functional coverage. Functional coverage is the extent to which some functionality has been exercised by tests, and is expressed as a percentage of the type(s) of element being covered. For example, using traceability between tests and functional requirements, the percentage of these requirements which are addressed by testing can be calculated, potentially identifying coverage gaps.
Functional test design and execution may involve special skills or knowledge, such as knowledge of the particular business problem the software solves (e.g., geological modelling software for the oil and gas industries).
Non-functional testing of a system evaluates characteristics of systems and software such as usability, performance efficiency or security. Non-functional testing is the testing of “how well” the system behaves.
Contrary to common misperceptions, non-functional testing can and often should be performed at all test levels, and done as early as possible. The late discovery of non-functional defects can be extremely dangerous to the success of a project.
Black-box techniques may be used to derive test conditions and test cases for non-functional testing. For example, boundary value analysis can be used to define the stress conditions for performance tests.
The thoroughness of non-functional testing can be measured through non-functional coverage. Non-functional coverage is the extent to which some type of non-functional element has been exercised by tests, and is expressed as a percentage of the type(s) of element being covered. For example, using traceability between tests and supported devices for a mobile application, the percentage of devices which are addressed by compatibility testing can be calculated, potentially identifying coverage gaps.
Non-functional test design and execution may involve special skills or knowledge, such as knowledge of the inherent weaknesses of a design or technology (e.g., security vulnerabilities associated with particular programming languages) or the particular user base (e.g., the personas of users of healthcare facility management systems).
White-box testing derives tests based on the system’s internal structure or implementation. Internal structure may include code, architecture, work flows, and/or data flows within the system.
The thoroughness of white-box testing can be measured through structural coverage. Structural coverage is the extent to which some type of structural element has been exercised by tests, and is expressed as a percentage of the type of element being covered.
At the component testing level, code coverage is based on the percentage of component code that has been tested, and may be measured in terms of different aspects of code (coverage items) such as the percentage of executable statements tested in the component, or the percentage of decision outcomes tested. These types of coverage are collectively called code coverage. At the component integration testing level, white-box testing may be based on the architecture of the system, such as interfaces between components, and structural coverage may be measured in terms of the percentage of interfaces exercised by tests.
White-box test design and execution may involve special skills or knowledge, such as the way the code is built, how data is stored (e.g., to evaluate possible database queries), and how to use coverage tools and to correctly interpret their results.
When changes are made to a system, either to correct a defect or because of new or changing functionality, testing should be done to confirm that the changes have corrected the defect or implemented the functionality correctly, and have not caused any unforeseen adverse consequences.
Confirmation testing and regression testing are performed at all test levels.
Especially in iterative and incremental development lifecycles (e.g., Agile), new features, changes to existing features, and code refactoring result in frequent changes to the code, which also requires change-related testing. Due to the evolving nature of the system, confirmation and regression testing are very important. This is particularly relevant for Internet of Things systems where individual objects (e.g., devices) are frequently updated or replaced.
Regression test suites are run many times and generally evolve slowly, so regression testing is a strong candidate for automation. Automation of these tests should start early in the project.
It is possible to perform any of the test types mentioned above at any test level. To illustrate, examples of functional, non-functional, white-box, and change-related tests will be given across all test levels, for a banking application, starting with functional tests:
The following are examples of non-functional tests:
The following are examples of white-box tests:
Finally, the following are examples for change-related tests:
While this section provides examples of every test type across every level, it is not necessary, for all software, to have every test type represented across every level. However, it is important to run applicable test types at each level, especially the earliest level where the test type occurs.
Once deployed to production environments, software and systems need to be maintained. Changes of various sorts are almost inevitable in delivered software and systems, either to fix defects discovered in operational use, to add new functionality, or to delete or alter already-delivered functionality. Maintenance is also needed to preserve or improve non-functional quality characteristics of the component or system over its lifetime, especially performance efficiency, compatibility, reliability, security, and portability.
When any changes are made as part of maintenance, maintenance testing should be performed, both to evaluate the success with which the changes were made and to check for possible side-effects (e.g., regressions) in parts of the system that remain unchanged (which is usually most of the system). Maintenance can involve planned releases and unplanned releases (hot fixes).
A maintenance release may require maintenance testing at multiple test levels, using various test types, based on its scope. The scope of maintenance testing depends on:
Triggers for Maintenance
There are several reasons why software maintenance, and thus maintenance testing, takes place, both for planned and unplanned changes.
We can classify the triggers for maintenance as follows:
For Internet of Things systems, maintenance testing may be triggered by the introduction of completely new or modified things, such as hardware devices and software services, into the overall system. The maintenance testing for such systems places particular emphasis on integration testing at different levels (e.g., network level, application level) and on security aspects, in particular those relating to personal data.
Impact analysis evaluates the changes that were made for a maintenance release to identify the intended consequences as well as expected and possible side effects of a change, and to identify the areas in the system that will be affected by the change. Impact analysis can also help to identify the impact of a change on existing tests. The side effects and affected areas in the system need to be tested for regressions, possibly after updating any existing tests affected by the change.
Impact analysis may be done before a change is made, to help decide if the change should be made, based on the potential consequences in other areas of the system.
Impact analysis can be difficult if:
A tester on an Agile project will work differently than one working on a traditional project. Testers must understand the values and principles that underpin Agile projects, and how testers are an integral part of a whole-team approach together with developers and business representatives. The members in an Agile project communicate with each other early and frequently, which helps with removing defects early and developing a quality product.
In 2001, a group of individuals, representing the most widely used lightweight software development methodologies, agreed on a common set of values and principles which became known as the Manifesto for Agile Software Development or the Agile Manifesto [Agile-manifesto]. The Agile Manifesto contains four statements of values:
The Agile Manifesto argues that although the concepts on the right have value, those on the left have greater value.
Individuals and Interactions
Agile development is very people-centred. Teams of people build software, and it is through continuous communication and interaction, rather than a reliance on tools or processes, that teams can work most effectively.
Working Software
From a customer perspective, working software is much more useful and valuable than overly detailed documentation and it provides an opportunity to give the development team rapid feedback. In addition, because working software, albeit with reduced functionality, is available much earlier in the development lifecycle, Agile development can confer significant time-to-market advantage. Agile development is, therefore, especially useful in rapidly changing business environments where the problems and/or solutions are unclear or where the business wishes to innovate in new problem domains.
Customer Collaboration
Customers often find great difficulty in specifying the system that they require. Collaborating directly with the customer improves the likelihood of understanding exactly what the customer requires. While having contracts with customers may be important, working in regular and close collaboration with them is likely to bring more success to the project.
Responding to Change
Change is inevitable in software projects. The environment in which the business operates, legislation, competitor activity, technology advances, and other factors can have major influences on the project and its objectives. These factors must be accommodated by the development process. As such, having flexibility in work practices to embrace change is more important than simply adhering rigidly to a plan.
Principles
The core Agile Manifesto values are captured in twelve principles
The different Agile methodologies provide prescriptive practices to put these values and principles into action.
The whole-team approach means involving everyone with the knowledge and skills necessary to ensure project success. The team includes representatives from the customer and other business stakeholders who determine product features. The team should be relatively small; successful teams have been observed with as few as three people and as many as nine. Ideally, the whole team shares the same workspace, as co-location strongly facilitates communication and interaction. The whole-team approach is supported through the daily stand-up meetings involving all members of the team, where work progress is communicated and any impediments to progress are highlighted. The whole-team approach promotes more effective and efficient team dynamics.
The use of a whole-team approach to product development is one of the main benefits of Agile development. Its benefits include:
The whole team is responsible for quality in Agile projects. The essence of the whole-team approach lies in the testers, developers, and the business representatives working together in every step of the development process. Testers will work closely with both developers and business representatives to ensure that the desired quality levels are achieved. This includes supporting and collaborating with business representatives to help them create suitable acceptance tests, working with developers to agree on the testing strategy, and deciding on test automation approaches. Testers can thus transfer and extend testing knowledge to other team members and influence the development of the product.
The whole team is involved in any consultations or meetings in which product features are presented, analysed, or estimated. The concept of involving testers, developers, and business representatives in all feature discussions is known as the power of three.
Agile projects have short iterations enabling the project team to receive early and continuous feedback on product quality throughout the development lifecycle. One way to provide rapid feedback is by continuous integration.
When sequential development approaches are used, the customer often does not see the product until the project is nearly completed. At that point, it is often too late for the development team to effectively address any issues the customer may have. By getting frequent customer feedback as the project progresses, Agile teams can incorporate most new changes into the product development process. Early and frequent feedback helps the team focus on the features with the highest business value, or associated risk, and these are delivered to the customer first. It also helps manage the team better since the capability of the team is transparent to everyone. For example, how much work can we do in a sprint or iteration? What could help us go faster? What is preventing us from doing so?
The benefits of early and frequent feedback include:
There are a number of Agile approaches in use by organisations. Common practices across most Agile organisations include collaborative user story creation, retrospectives, continuous integration, and planning for each iteration as well as for overall release. This subsection describes some of the Agile approaches.
There are several Agile approaches, each of which implements the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto in different ways. In this article , three representatives of Agile approaches are considered: Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, and Kanban.
Extreme Programming
Extreme Programming (XP), is an Agile approach to software development described by certain values, principles, and development practices.
XP embraces five values to guide development: communication, simplicity, feedback, courage, and respect.
XP describes a set of principles as additional guidelines: humanity, economics, mutual benefit, self-similarity, improvement, diversity, reflection, flow, opportunity, redundancy, failure, quality, baby steps, and accepted responsibility.
XP describes thirteen primary practices: sit together, whole team, informative workspace, energised work, pair programming, stories, weekly cycle, quarterly cycle, slack, ten-minute build, continuous integration, test first programming, and incremental design.
Many of the Agile software development approaches in use today are influenced by XP and its values and principles. For example, Agile teams following Scrum often incorporate XP practices.
Scrum
Scrum is an Agile management framework which contains the following constituent instruments and practices:
Scrum defines three roles:
Scrum (as opposed to XP) does not dictate specific software development techniques (e.g., test first programming). In addition, Scrum does not provide guidance on how testing has to be done in a Scrum project.
Kanban
Kanban is a management approach that is sometimes used in Agile projects. The general objective is to visualise and optimise the flow of work within a value-added chain. Kanban utilises three instruments:
Kanban features some similarities to Scrum. In both frameworks, visualising the active tasks (e.g., on a public whiteboard) provides transparency of content and progress of tasks. Tasks not yet scheduled are waiting in a backlog and moved onto the Kanban board as soon as there is new space (production capacity) available.
Iterations or sprints are optional in Kanban. The Kanban process allows releasing its deliverables item by item, rather than as part of a release. Time-boxing as a synchronising mechanism, therefore, is optional, unlike in Scrum, which synchronies all tasks within a sprint.
Poor specifications are often a major reason for project failure. Specification problems can result from the users’ lack of insight into their true needs, absence of a global vision for the system, redundant or contradictory features, and other miscommunications. In Agile development, user stories are written to capture requirements from the perspectives of developers, testers, and business representatives. In sequential development, this shared vision of a feature is accomplished through formal reviews after requirements are written; in Agile development, this shared vision is accomplished through frequent informal reviews while the requirements are being written
The user stories must address both functional and non-functional characteristics. Each story includes acceptance criteria for these characteristics. These criteria should be defined in collaboration between business representatives, developers, and testers. They provide developers and testers with an extended vision of the feature that business representatives will validate. An Agile team considers a task finished when a set of acceptance criteria have been satisfied.
Typically, the tester’s unique perspective will improve the user story by identifying missing details or non-functional requirements. A tester can contribute by asking business representatives open-ended questions about the user story, proposing ways to test the user story, and confirming the acceptance criteria.
The collaborative authorship of the user story can use techniques such as brainstorming and mind mapping. The tester may use the INVEST technique [INVEST]:
According to the 3C concept, a user story is the conjunction of three elements:
Agile teams vary in terms of how they document user stories. Regardless of the approach taken to document user stories, documentation should be concise, sufficient, and necessary.
In Agile development, a retrospective is a meeting held at the end of each iteration to discuss what was successful, what could be improved, and how to incorporate the improvements and retain the successes in future iterations. Retrospectives cover topics such as the process, people, organisations, relationships, and tools. Regularly conducted retrospective meetings, when appropriate follow up activities occur, are critical to self-organisation and continual improvement of development and testing.
Retrospectives can result in test-related improvement decisions focused on test effectiveness, test productivity, test case quality, and team satisfaction. They may also address the testability of the applications, user stories, features, or system interfaces. Root cause analysis of defects can drive testing and development improvements. In general, teams should implement only a few improvements per iteration. This allows for continuous improvement at a sustained pace.
The timing and organisation of the retrospective depends on the particular Agile method followed. Business representatives and the team attend each retrospective as participants while the facilitator organises and runs the meeting. In some cases, the teams may invite other participants to the meeting.
Testers should play an important role in the retrospectives. Testers are part of the team and bring their unique perspective. Testing occurs in each sprint and vitally contributes to success. All team members, testers and non-testers, can provide input on both testing and non-testing activities.
Retrospectives must occur within a professional environment characterised by mutual trust. The attributes of a successful retrospective are the same as those for any other review as is discussed in previous articles.
Delivery of a product increment requires reliable, working, integrated software at the end of every sprint. Continuous integration addresses this challenge by merging all changes made to the software and integrating all changed components regularly, at least once a day. Configuration management, compilation, software build, deployment, and testing are wrapped into a single, automated, repeatable process. Since developers integrate their work constantly, build constantly, and test constantly, defects in code are detected more quickly.
Following the developers’ coding, debugging, and check-in of code into a shared source code repository, a continuous integration process consists of the following automated activities:
An automated build and test process takes place on a daily basis and detects integration errors early and quickly. Continuous integration allows Agile testers to run automated tests regularly, in some cases as part of the continuous integration process itself, and send quick feedback to the team on the quality of the code. These test results are visible to all team members, especially when automated reports are integrated into the process. Automated regression testing can be continuous throughout the iteration. Good automated regression tests cover as much functionality as possible, including user stories delivered in the previous iterations. Good coverage in the automated regression tests helps support building (and testing) large integrated systems. When the regression testing is automated, the Agile testers are freed to concentrate their manual testing on new features, implemented changes, and confirmation testing of defect fixes.
In addition to automated tests, organisations using continuous integration typically use build tools to implement continuous quality control. In addition to running unit and integration tests, such tools can run additional static and dynamic tests, measure and profile performance, extract and format documentation from the source code, and facilitate manual quality assurance processes. This continuous application of quality control aims to improve the quality of the product as well as reduce the time taken to deliver it by replacing the traditional practice of applying quality control after completing all development.
Build tools can be linked to automatic deployment tools, which can fetch the appropriate build from the continuous integration or build server and deploy it into one or more development, test, staging, or even production environments. This reduces the errors and delays associated with relying on specialised staff or programmers to install releases in these environments.
Continuous integration can provide the following benefits:
However, continuous integration is not without its risks and challenges:
Continuous integration requires the use of tools, including tools for testing, tools for automating the build process, and tools for version control.
As mentioned in this article, planning is an on-going activity, and this is the case in Agile lifecycles as well. For Agile lifecycles, two kinds of planning occur, release planning and iteration planning.
Release planning looks ahead to the release of a product, often a few months ahead of the start of a project. Release planning defines and re-defines the product backlog, and may involve refining larger user stories into a collection of smaller stories. Release planning provides the basis for a test approach and test plan spanning all iterations. Release plans are high-level.
In release planning, business representatives establish and prioritise the user stories for the release, in collaboration with the team. Based on these user stories, project and quality risks are identified and a high-level effort estimation is performed.
Testers are involved in release planning and especially add value in the following activities:
After release planning is done, iteration planning for the first iteration starts. Iteration planning looks ahead to the end of a single iteration and is concerned with the iteration backlog.
In iteration planning, the team selects user stories from the prioritised release backlog, elaborates the user stories, performs a risk analysis for the user stories, and estimates the work needed for each user story. If a user story is too vague and attempts to clarify it have failed, the team can refuse to accept it and use the next user story based on priority. The business representatives must answer the team’s questions about each story so the team can understand what they should implement and how to test each story.
The number of stories selected is based on established team velocity and the estimated size of the selected user stories. After the contents of the iteration are finalised, the user stories are broken into tasks, which will be carried out by the appropriate team members.
Testers are involved in iteration planning and especially add value in the following activities:
Release plans may change as the project proceeds, including changes to individual user stories in the product backlog. These changes may be triggered by internal or external factors. Internal factors include delivery capabilities, velocity, and technical issues. External factors include the discovery of new markets and opportunities, new competitors, or business threats that may change release objectives and/or target dates. In addition, iteration plans may change during an iteration. For example, a particular user story that was considered relatively simple during estimation might prove more complex than expected.
These changes can be challenging for testers. Testers must understand the big picture of the release for test planning purposes, and they must have an adequate test basis and test oracle in each iteration for test development purposes as discussed in earlier articles. The required information must be available to the tester early, and yet change must be embraced according to Agile principles. This dilemma requires careful decisions about test strategies and test documentation.
Release and iteration planning should address test planning as well as planning for development activities. Particular test-related issues to address include:
In addition, the larger team estimation effort should include consideration of the time and effort needed to complete the required testing activities.
Software systems are an integral part of life, from business applications (e.g., banking) to consumer products (e.g., cars). Most people have had an experience with software that did not work as expected. Software that does not work correctly can lead to many problems, including loss of money, time, or business reputation, and even injury or death. Software testing is a way to assess the quality of the software and to reduce the risk of software failure in operation.
A common misperception of testing is that it only consists of running tests, i.e., executing the software and checking the results. As described, software testing is a process which includes many different activities; test execution (including checking of results) is only one of these activities. The test process also includes activities such as test planning, analysing, designing, and implementing tests, reporting test progress and results, and evaluating the quality of a test object.
Some testing does involve the execution of the component or system being tested; such testing is called dynamic testing. Other testing does not involve the execution of the component or system being tested; such testing is called static testing. So, testing also includes reviewing work products such as requirements, user stories, and source code.
Another common misperception of testing is that it focuses entirely on verification of requirements, user stories, or other specifications. While testing does involve checking whether the system meets specified requirements, it also involves validation, which is checking whether the system will meet user and other stakeholder needs in its operational environment(s).
Test activities are organised and carried out differently in different lifecycles.
For any given project, the objectives of testing may include:
The objectives of testing can vary, depending upon the context of the component or system being tested, the test level, and the software development lifecycle model. These differences may include, for example:
Testing and debugging are different. Executing tests can show failures that are caused by defects in the software. Debugging is the development activity that finds, analyses, and fixes such defects. Subsequent confirmation testing checks whether the fixes resolved the defects. In some cases, testers are responsible for the initial test and the final confirmation test, while developers do the debugging, associated component and component integration testing (continues integration). However, in Agile development and in some other software development lifecycles, testers may be involved in debugging and component testing.
Rigorous testing of components and systems, and their associated documentation, can help reduce the risk of failures occurring during operation. When defects are detected, and subsequently fixed, this contributes to the quality of the components or systems. In addition, software testing may also be required to meet contractual or legal requirements or industry-specific standards.
Throughout the history of computing, it is quite common for software and systems to be delivered into operation and, due to the presence of defects, to subsequently cause failures or otherwise not meet the stakeholders’ needs. However, using appropriate test techniques can reduce the frequency of such problematic deliveries, when those techniques are applied with the appropriate level of test expertise, in the appropriate test levels, and at the appropriate points in the software development lifecycle. Examples include:
In addition to these examples, the achievement of defined test objectives contributes to overall software development and maintenance success.
While people often use the phrase quality assurance (or just QA) to refer to testing, quality assurance and testing are not the same, but they are related. A larger concept, quality management, ties them together. Quality management includes all activities that direct and control an organisation with regard to quality. Among other activities, quality management includes both quality assurance and quality control. Quality assurance is typically focused on adherence to proper processes, in order to provide confidence that the appropriate levels of quality will be achieved. When processes are carried out properly, the work products created by those processes are generally of higher quality, which contributes to defect prevention. In addition, the use of root cause analysis to detect and remove the causes of defects, along with the proper application of the findings of retrospective meetings to improve processes, are important for effective quality assurance.
Quality control involves various activities, including test activities, that support the achievement of appropriate levels of quality. Test activities are part of the overall software development or maintenance process. Since quality assurance is concerned with the proper execution of the entire process, quality assurance supports proper testing. As described early on, testing contributes to the achievement of quality in a variety of ways.
A person can make an error (mistake), which can lead to the introduction of a defect (fault or bug) in the software code or in some other related work product. An error that leads to the introduction of a defect in one work product can trigger an error that leads to the introduction of a defect in a related work product. For example, a requirements elicitation error can lead to a requirements defect, which then results in a programming error that leads to a defect in the code.
If a defect in the code is executed, this may cause a failure, but not necessarily in all circumstances. For example, some defects require very specific inputs or preconditions to trigger a failure, which may occur rarely or never.
In addition to failures caused due to defects in the code, failures can also be caused by environmental conditions. For example, radiation, electromagnetic fields, and pollution can cause defects in firmware or influence the execution of software by changing hardware conditions.
Not all unexpected test results are failures. False positives may occur due to errors in the way tests were executed, or due to defects in the test data, the test environment, or other test-ware, or for other reasons. The inverse situation can also occur, where similar errors or defects lead to false negatives. False negatives are tests that do not detect defects that they should have detected; false positives are reported as defects, but aren’t actually defects.
The root causes of defects are the earliest actions or conditions that contributed to creating the defects. Defects can be analysed to identify their root causes, so as to reduce the occurrence of similar defects in the future. By focusing on the most significant root causes, root cause analysis can lead to process improvements that prevent a significant number of future defects from being introduced.
For example, let suppose, incorrect interest payments, due to a single line of incorrect code, result in customer complaints. The defective code was written for a user story which was ambiguous, due to the product owner’s misunderstanding of how to calculate interest. If a large percentage of defects exist in interest calculations, and these defects have their root cause in similar misunderstandings, the product owners could be trained in the topic of interest calculations to reduce such defects in the future.
In this example, the customer complaints are effects. The incorrect interest payments are failures. The improper calculation in the code is a defect, and it resulted from the original defect, the ambiguity in the user story. The root cause of the original defect was a lack of knowledge on the part of the product owner, which resulted in the product owner making an error while writing the user story.
A number of testing principles have been suggested over the past 50 years and offer general guidelines common for all testing.
1. Testing shows the presence of defects, not their absence
Testing can show that defects are present, but cannot prove that there are no defects. Testing reduces the probability of undiscovered defects remaining in the software but, even if no defects are found, testing is not a proof of correctness.
2. Exhaustive testing is impossible
Testing everything (all combinations of inputs and preconditions) is not feasible except for trivial cases. Rather than attempting to test exhaustively, risk analysis, test techniques, and priorities should be used to focus test efforts.
3. Early testing saves time and money
To find defects early, both static and dynamic test activities should be started as early as possible in the software development lifecycle. Early testing is sometimes referred to as shift left. Testing early in the software development lifecycle helps reduce or eliminate costly changes.
4. Defects cluster together
A small number of modules usually contains most of the defects discovered during pre-release testing, or is responsible for most of the operational failures. Predicted defect clusters, and the actual observed defect clusters in test or operation, are an important input into a risk analysis used to focus the test effort (as mentioned in principle 2).
5. Beware of the pesticide paradox
If the same tests are repeated over and over again, eventually these tests no longer find any new defects. To detect new defects, existing tests and test data may need changing, and new tests may need to be written. (Tests are no longer effective at finding defects, just as pesticides are no longer effective at killing insects after a while.) In some cases, such as automated regression testing, the pesticide paradox has a beneficial outcome, which is the relatively low number of regression defects.
6. Testing is context dependent
Testing is done differently in different contexts. For example, safety-critical industrial control software is tested differently from an e-commerce mobile app. As another example, testing in an Agile project is done differently than testing in a sequential software development lifecycle project.
7. Absence-of-errors is a fallacy
Some organisations expect that testers can run all possible tests and find all possible defects, but principles 2 and 1, respectively, tell us that this is impossible. Further, it is a fallacy (i.e., a mistaken belief) to expect that just finding and fixing a large number of defects will ensure the success of a system. For example, thoroughly testing all specified requirements and fixing all defects found could still produce a system that is difficult to use, that does not fulfil the users’ needs and expectations, or that is inferior compared to other competing systems.
There is no one universal software test process, but there are common sets of test activities without which testing will be less likely to achieve its established objectives. These sets of test activities are a test process. The proper, specific software test process in any given situation depends on many factors. Which test activities are involved in this test process, how these activities are implemented, and when these activities occur may be discussed in an organisation’s test strategy.
Contextual factors that influence the test process for an organization, include, but are not limited to:
The following sections describe general aspects of organisational test processes in terms of the following:
It is very useful if the test basis (for any level or type of testing that is being considered) has measurable coverage criteria defined. The coverage criteria can act effectively as key performance indicators (KPIs) to drive the activities that demonstrate achievement of software test objectives.
For example, for a mobile application, the test basis may include a list of requirements and a list of supported mobile devices. Each requirement is an element of the test basis. Each supported device is also an element of the test basis. The coverage criteria may require at least one test case for each element of the test basis. Once executed, the results of these tests tell stakeholders whether specified requirements are fulfilled and whether failures were observed on supported devices.
A test process consists of the following main groups of activities:
Each main group of activities is composed of constituent activities, which will be described in the subsections below. Each constituent activity consists of multiple individual tasks, which would vary from one project or release to another.
Further, although many of these main activity groups may appear logically sequential, they are often implemented iteratively. For example, Agile development involves small iterations of software design, build, and test that happen on a continuous basis, supported by on-going planning. So test activities are also happening on an iterative, continuous basis within this software development approach. Even in sequential software development, the stepped logical sequence of main groups of activities will involve overlap, combination, concurrency, or omission, so tailoring these main groups of activities within the context of the system and the project is usually required.
Test planning
Test planning involves activities that define the objectives of testing and the approach for meeting test objectives within constraints imposed by the context (e.g., specifying suitable test techniques and tasks, and formulating a test schedule for meeting a deadline). Test plans may be revisited based on feedback from monitoring and control activities.
Test monitoring and control
Test monitoring involves the on-going comparison of actual progress against planned progress using any test monitoring metrics defined in the test plan. Test control involves taking actions necessary to meet the objectives of the test plan (which may be updated over time). Test monitoring and control are supported by the evaluation of exit criteria, which are referred to as the definition of done in some software development lifecycle models. For example, the evaluation of exit criteria for test execution as part of a given test level may include:
Test progress against the plan is communicated to stakeholders in test progress reports, including deviations from the plan and information to support any decision to stop testing.
Test analysis
During test analysis, the test basis is analysed to identify testable features and define associated test conditions. In other words, test analysis determines “what to test” in terms of measurable coverage criteria.
Test analysis includes the following major activities:
The application of black-box, white-box, and experience-based test techniques can be useful in the process of test analysis to reduce the likelihood of omitting important test conditions and to define more precise and accurate test conditions.
In some cases, test analysis produces test conditions which are to be used as test objectives in test charters. Test charters are typical work products in some types of experience-based testing. When these test objectives are traceable to the test basis, coverage achieved during such experience-based testing can be measured.
The identification of defects during test analysis is an important potential benefit, especially where no other review process is being used and/or the test process is closely connected with the review process. Such test analysis activities not only verify whether the requirements are consistent, properly expressed, and complete, but also validate whether the requirements properly capture customer, user, and other stakeholder needs. For example, techniques such as behaviour driven development (BDD) and acceptance test driven development (ATDD), which involve generating test conditions and test cases from user stories and acceptance criteria prior to coding. These techniques also verify, validate, and detect defects in the user stories and acceptance criteria.
Test design
During test design, the test conditions are elaborated into high-level test cases, sets of high-level test cases, and other test-ware. So, test analysis answers the question “what to test?” while test design answers the question “how to test?”
Test design includes the following major activities:
The elaboration of test conditions into test cases and sets of test cases during test design often involves using test techniques.
As with test analysis, test design may also result in the identification of similar types of defects in the test basis. Also, as with test analysis, the identification of defects during test design is an important potential benefit.
Test implementation
During test implementation, the test-ware necessary for test execution is created and/or completed, including sequencing the test cases into test procedures. So, test design answers the question “how to test?” while test implementation answers the question “do we now have everything in place to run the tests?”
Test implementation includes the following major activities:
Test design and test implementation tasks are often combined.
In exploratory testing and other types of experience-based testing, test design and implementation may occur, and may be documented, as part of test execution. Exploratory testing may be based on test charters (produced as part of test analysis), and exploratory tests are executed immediately as they are designed and implemented.
Test execution
During test execution, test suites are run in accordance with the test execution schedule.
Test execution includes the following major activities:
Test completion
Test completion activities collect data from completed test activities to consolidate experience, testware, and any other relevant information. Test completion activities occur at project milestones such as when a software system is released, a test project is completed (or cancelled), an Agile project iteration is finished, a test level is completed, or a maintenance release has been completed.
Test completion includes the following major activities:
Test work products are created as part of the test process. Just as there is significant variation in the way that organisations implement the test process, there is also significant variation in the types of work products created during that process, in the ways those work products are organised and managed, and in the names used for those work products.
Many of the test work products described in this section can be captured and managed using test management tools and defect management tools.
Test planning work products
Test planning work products typically include one or more test plans. The test plan includes information about the test basis, to which the other test work products will be related via traceability information, as well as exit criteria (or definition of done) which will be used during test monitoring and control.
Test monitoring and control work products
Test monitoring and control work products typically include various types of test reports, including test progress reports produced on an ongoing and/or a regular basis, and test summary reports produced at various completion milestones. All test reports should provide audience-relevant details about the test progress as of the date of the report, including summarising the test execution results once those become available.
Test monitoring and control work products should also address project management concerns, such as task completion, resource allocation and usage, and effort.
Test monitoring and control, and the work products created during these activities, are further explained on this site.
Test analysis work products
Test analysis work products include defined and prioritised test conditions, each of which is ideally bi-directionally traceable to the specific element(s) of the test basis it covers. For exploratory testing, test analysis may involve the creation of test charters. Test analysis may also result in the discovery and reporting of defects in the test basis.
Test design work products
Test design results in test cases and sets of test cases to exercise the test conditions defined in test analysis. It is often a good practice to design high-level test cases, without concrete values for input data and expected results. Such high-level test cases are reusable across multiple test cycles with different concrete data, while still adequately documenting the scope of the test case. Ideally, each test case is bi-directionally traceable to the test condition(s) it covers.
Test design also results in:
Though the extent to which these results are documented varies significantly.
Test implementation work products
Test implementation work products include:
Ideally, once test implementation is complete, achievement of coverage criteria established in the test plan can be demonstrated via bi-directional traceability between test procedures and specific elements of the test basis, through the test cases and test conditions.
In some cases, test implementation involves creating work products using or used by tools, such as service virtualisation and automated test scripts.
Test implementation also may result in the creation and verification of test data and the test environment. The completeness of the documentation of the data and/or environment verification results may vary significantly.
The test data serve to assign concrete values to the inputs and expected results of test cases. Such concrete values, together with explicit directions about the use of the concrete values, turn high-level test cases into executable low-level test cases. The same high-level test case may use different test data when executed on different releases of the test object. The concrete expected results which are associated with concrete test data are identified by using a test oracle.
In exploratory testing, some test design and implementation work products may be created during test execution, though the extent to which exploratory tests (and their traceability to specific elements of the test basis) are documented may vary significantly.
Test conditions defined in test analysis may be further refined in test implementation.
Test execution work products
Test execution work products include:
Ideally, once test execution is complete, the status of each element of the test basis can be determined and reported via bi-directional traceability with the associated the test procedure(s). For example, we can say which requirements have passed all planned tests, which requirements have failed tests and/or have defects associated with them, and which requirements have planned tests still waiting to be run. This enables verification that the coverage criteria have been met, and enables the reporting of test results in terms that are understandable to stakeholders.
Test completion work products
Test completion work products include test summary reports, action items for improvement of subsequent projects or iterations, change requests or product backlog items, and finalised test-ware.
As mentioned, earlier, test work products and the names of those work products vary significantly. Regardless of these variations, in order to implement effective test monitoring and control, it is important to establish and maintain traceability throughout the test process between each element of the test basis and the various test work products associated with that element, as described above. In addition to the evaluation of test coverage, good traceability supports:
Some test management tools provide test work product models that match part or all of the test work products outlined in this section. Some organisations build their own management systems to organise the work products and provide the information traceability they require.
Software development, including software testing, involves human beings. Therefore, human psychology has important effects on software testing.
Identifying defects during a static test such as a requirement review or user story refinement session, or identifying failures during dynamic test execution, may be perceived as criticism of the product and of its author. An element of human psychology called confirmation bias can make it difficult to accept information that disagrees with currently held beliefs. For example, since developers expect their code to be correct, they have a confirmation bias that makes it difficult to accept that the code is incorrect. In addition to confirmation bias, other cognitive biases may make it difficult for people to understand or accept information produced by testing. Further, it is a common human trait to blame the bearer of bad news, and information produced by testing often contains bad news.
As a result of these psychological factors, some people may perceive testing as a destructive activity, even though it contributes greatly to project progress and product quality. To try to reduce these perceptions, information about defects and failures should be communicated in a constructive way. This way, tensions between the testers and the analysts, product owners, designers, and developers can be reduced. This applies during both static and dynamic testing.
Testers and test managers need to have good interpersonal skills to be able to communicate effectively about defects, failures, test results, test progress, and risks, and to build positive relationships with colleagues. Ways to communicate well include the following examples:
Typical test objectives were discussed earlier. Clearly defining the right set of test objectives has important psychological implications. Most people tend to align their plans and behaviours with the objectives set by the team, management, and other stakeholders. It is also important that testers adhere to these objectives with minimal personal bias.
Developers and testers often think differently. The primary objective of development is to design and build a product. As discussed earlier, the objectives of testing include verifying and validating the product, finding defects prior to release, and so forth. These are different sets of objectives which require different mindsets. Bringing these mindsets together helps to achieve a higher level of product quality.
A mindset reflects an individual’s assumptions and preferred methods for decision making and problem-solving. A tester’s mindset should include curiosity, professional pessimism, a critical eye, attention to detail, and a motivation for good and positive communications and relationships. A tester’s mindset tends to grow and mature as the tester gains experience.
A developer’s mindset may include some of the elements of a tester’s mindset, but successful developers are often more interested in designing and building solutions than in contemplating what might be wrong with those solutions. In addition, confirmation bias makes it difficult to become aware of errors committed by themselves.
With the right mindset, developers are able to test their own code. Different software development lifecycle models often have different ways of organising the testers and test activities. Having some of the test activities done by independent testers increases defect detection effectiveness, which is particularly important for large, complex, or safety-critical systems. Independent testers bring a perspective which is different from that of the work product authors (i.e., business analysts, product owners, designers, and developers), since they have different cognitive biases from the authors.
Testing tasks may be done by people in a specific testing role, or by people in another role (e.g., customers). A certain degree of independence often makes the tester more effective at finding defects due to differences between the author’s and the tester’s cognitive biases. Independence is not, however, a replacement for familiarity, and developers can efficiently find many defects in their own code.
Degrees of independence in testing include the following (from low level of independence to high level):
For most types of projects, it is usually best to have multiple test levels, with some of these levels handled by independent testers. Developers should participate in testing, especially at the lower levels, so as to exercise control over the quality of their own work.
The way in which independence of testing is implemented varies depending on the software development lifecycle model. For example, in Agile development, testers may be part of a development team. In some organisations using Agile methods, these testers may be considered part of a larger independent test team as well. In addition, in such organisations, product owners may perform acceptance testing to validate user stories at the end of each iteration.
Potential benefits of test independence include:
Many organisations are able to successfully achieve the benefits of test independence while avoiding the drawbacks.
In this article, two test roles are covered, test managers and testers. The activities and tasks performed by these two roles depend on the project and product context, the skills of the people in the roles, and the organisation.
The test manager is tasked with overall responsibility for the test process and successful leadership of the test activities. The test management role might be performed by a professional test manager, or by a project manager, a development manager, or a quality assurance manager. In larger projects or organisations, several test teams may report to a test manager, test coach, or test coordinator, each team being headed by a test leader or lead tester.
Typical test manager tasks may include:
The way in which the test manager role is carried out varies depending on the software development lifecycle. For example, in Agile development, some of the tasks mentioned above are handled by the Agile team, especially those tasks concerned with the day-to-day testing done within the team, often by a tester working within the team. Some of the tasks that span multiple teams or the entire organisation, or that have to do with personnel management, may be done by test managers outside of the development team, who are sometimes called test coaches.
Typical tester tasks may include:
People who work on test analysis, test design, specific test types, or test automation may be specialists in these roles. Depending on the risks related to the product and the project, and the software development lifecycle model selected, different people may take over the role of tester at different test levels. For example, at the component testing level and the component integration testing level, the role of a tester is often done by developers. At the acceptance test level, the role of a tester is often done by business analysts, subject matter experts, and users. At the system test level and the system integration test level, the role of a tester is often done by an independent test team. At the operational acceptance test level, the role of a tester is often done by operations and/or systems administration staff.
A test plan outlines test activities for development and maintenance projects. Planning is influenced by the test policy and test strategy of the organisation, the development lifecycles and methods being used, the scope of testing, objectives, risks, constraints, criticality, testability, and the availability of resources.
As the project and test planning progress, more information becomes available and more detail can be included in the test plan. Test planning is a continuous activity and is performed throughout the product’s lifecycle. (Note that the product’s lifecycle may extend beyond a project’s scope to include the maintenance phase.) Feedback from test activities should be used to recognise changing risks so that planning can be adjusted. Planning may be documented in a master test plan and in separate test plans for test levels, such as system testing and acceptance testing, or for separate test types, such as usability testing and performance testing. Test planning activities may include the following and some of these may be documented in a test plan:
The content of test plans vary, and can extend beyond the topics identified above.
A test strategy provides a generalised description of the test process, usually at the product or organisational level. Common types of test strategies include:
An appropriate test strategy is often created by combining several of these types of test strategies. For example, risk-based testing (an analytical strategy) can be combined with exploratory testing (a reactive strategy); they complement each other and may achieve more effective testing when used together.
While the test strategy provides a generalised description of the test process, the test approach tailors the test strategy for a particular project or release. The test approach is the starting point for selecting the test techniques, test levels, and test types, and for defining the entry criteria and exit criteria (or definition of ready and definition of done, respectively). The tailoring of the strategy is based on decisions made in relation to the complexity and goals of the project, the type of product being developed, and product risk analysis. The selected approach depends on the context and may consider factors such as risks, safety, available resources and skills, technology, the nature of the system (e.g., custom-built versus COTS), test objectives, and regulations.
In order to exercise effective control over the quality of the software, and of the testing, it is advisable to have criteria which define when a given test activity should start and when the activity is complete. Entry criteria (more typically called definition of ready in Agile development) define the preconditions for undertaking a given test activity. If entry criteria are not met, it is likely that the activity will prove more difficult, more time-consuming, more costly, and more risky. Exit criteria (more typically called definition of done in Agile development) define what conditions must be achieved in order to declare a test level or a set of tests completed. Entry and exit criteria should be defined for each test level and test type, and will differ based on the test objectives.
Typical entry criteria include:
Typical exit criteria include:
Even without exit criteria being satisfied, it is also common for test activities to be curtailed due to the budget being expended, the scheduled time being completed, and/or pressure to bring the product to market. It can be acceptable to end testing under such circumstances, if the project stakeholders and business owners have reviewed and accepted the risk to go live without further testing.
Once the various test cases and test procedures are produced (with some test procedures potentially automated) and assembled into test suites, the test suites can be arranged in a test execution schedule that defines the order in which they are to be run. The test execution schedule should take into account such factors as prioritizations, dependencies, confirmation tests, regression tests, and the most efficient sequence for executing the tests.
Ideally, test cases would be ordered to run based on their priority levels, usually by executing the test cases with the highest priority first. However, this practice may not work if the test cases have dependencies or the features being tested have dependencies. If a test case with a higher priority is dependent on a test case with a lower priority, the lower priority test case must be executed first. Similarly, if there are dependencies across test cases, they must be ordered appropriately regardless of their relative priorities. Confirmation and regression tests must be prioritised as well, based on the importance of rapid feedback on changes, but here again dependencies may apply.
In some cases, various sequences of tests are possible, with differing levels of efficiency associated with those sequences. In such cases, trade-offs between efficiency of test execution versus adherence to prioritisation must be made.
Test effort estimation involves predicting the amount of test-related work that will be needed in order to meet the objectives of the testing for a particular project, release, or iteration. Factors influencing the test effort may include characteristics of the product, characteristics of the development process, characteristics of the people, and the test results, as shown below.
Product characteristics
Development characteristics process
People characteristics
Test results
There are a number of estimation techniques used to determine the effort required for adequate testing. Two of the most commonly used techniques are:
For example, in Agile development, burn-down charts are examples of the metrics-based approach as effort remaining is being captured and reported, and is then used to feed into the team’s velocity to determine the amount of work the team can do in the next iteration; whereas planning poker, also called scrum poker, is an example of the expert-based approach, as team members are estimating the effort to deliver a feature based on their experience.
Within sequential projects, defect removal models are examples of the metrics-based approach, where volumes of defects and time to remove them are captured and reported, which then provides a basis for estimating future projects of a similar nature; whereas the Wideband Delphi estimation technique is an example of the expert-based approach in which a group of experts provides estimates based on their experience.
The purpose of test monitoring is to gather information and provide feedback and visibility about test activities. Information to be monitored may be collected manually or automatically and should be used to assess test progress and to measure whether the test exit criteria, or the testing tasks associated with an Agile project’s definition of done, are satisfied, such as meeting the targets for coverage of product risks, requirements, or acceptance criteria.
Test control describes any guiding or corrective actions taken as a result of information and metrics gathered and (possibly) reported. Actions may cover any test activity and may affect any other software lifecycle activity.
Examples of test control actions include:
Metrics can be collected during and at the end of test activities in order to assess:
Common test metrics include:
The purpose of test reporting is to summarise and communicate test activity information, both during and at the end of a test activity (e.g., a test level). The test report prepared during a test activity may be referred to as a test progress report, while a test report prepared at the end of a test activity may be referred to as a test summary report.
During test monitoring and control, the test manager regularly issues test progress reports for stakeholders. In addition to content common to test progress reports and test summary reports, typical test progress reports may also include:
When exit criteria are reached, the test manager issues the test summary report. This report provides a summary of the testing performed, based on the latest test progress report and any other relevant information.
Typical test summary reports may include:
The contents of a test report will vary depending on the project, the organisational requirements, and the software development lifecycle. For example, a complex project with many stakeholders or a regulated project may require more detailed and rigorous reporting than a quick software update. As another example, in Agile development, test progress reporting may be incorporated into task boards, defect summaries, and burn-down charts, which may be discussed during a daily stand-up meeting.
In addition to tailoring test reports based on the context of the project, test reports should be tailored based on the report’s audience. The type and amount of information that should be included for a technical audience or a test team may be different from what would be included in an executive summary report. In the first case, detailed information on defect types and trends may be important. In the latter case, a high-level report (e.g., a status summary of defects by priority, budget, schedule, and test conditions passed/failed/not tested) may be more appropriate.
The purpose of configuration management is to establish and maintain the integrity of the component or system, the test-ware, and their relationships to one another through the project and product lifecycle.
To properly support testing, configuration management may involve ensuring the following:
During test planning, configuration management procedures and infrastructure (tools) should be identified and implemented.
Risk involves the possibility of an event in the future which has negative consequences. The level of risk is determined by the likelihood of the event and the impact (the harm) from that event.
Product risk involves the possibility that a work product (e.g., a specification, component, system, or test) may fail to satisfy the legitimate needs of its users and/or stakeholders. When the product risks are associated with specific quality characteristics of a product (e.g., functional suitability, reliability, performance efficiency, usability, security, compatibility, maintainability, and portability), product risks are also called quality risks. Examples of product risks include:
Project risk involves situations that, should they occur, may have a negative effect on a project’s ability to achieve its objectives. Examples of project risks include:
Project risks may affect both development activities and test activities. In some cases, project managers are responsible for handling all project risks, but it is not unusual for test managers to have responsibility for test-related project risks.
Risk is used to focus the effort required during testing. It is used to decide where and when to start testing and to identify areas that need more attention. Testing is used to reduce the probability of an adverse event occurring, or to reduce the impact of an adverse event. Testing is used as a risk mitigation activity, to provide information about identified risks, as well as providing information on residual (unresolved) risks.
A risk-based approach to testing provides proactive opportunities to reduce the levels of product risk. It involves product risk analysis, which includes the identification of product risks and the assessment of each risk’s likelihood and impact. The resulting product risk information is used to guide test planning, the specification, preparation and execution of test cases, and test monitoring and control. Analysing product risks early contributes to the success of a project.
In a risk-based approach, the results of product risk analysis are used to:
Risk-based testing draws on the collective knowledge and insight of the project stakeholders to carry out product risk analysis. To ensure that the likelihood of a product failure is minimised, risk management activities provide a disciplined approach to:
In addition, testing may identify new risks, help to determine what risks should be mitigated, and lower uncertainty about risks.
Since one of the objectives of testing is to find defects, defects found during testing should be logged. The way in which defects are logged may vary, depending on the context of the component or system being tested, the test level, and the software development lifecycle model. Any defects identified should be investigated and should be tracked from discovery and classification to their resolution (e.g., correction of the defects and successful confirmation testing of the solution, deferral to a subsequent release, acceptance as a permanent product limitation, etc.). In order to manage all defects to resolution, an organisation should establish a defect management process which includes a workflow and rules for classification. This process must be agreed with all those participating in defect management, including architects, designers, developers, testers, and product owners. In some organisations, defect logging and tracking may be very informal.
During the defect management process, some of the reports may turn out to describe false positives, not actual failures due to defects. For example, a test may fail when a network connection is broken or times out. This behaviour does not result from a defect in the test object, but is an anomaly that needs to be investigated. Testers should attempt to minimise the number of false positives reported as defects.
Defects may be reported during coding, static analysis, reviews, or during dynamic testing, or use of a software product. Defects may be reported for issues in code or working systems, or in any type of documentation including requirements, user stories and acceptance criteria, development documents, test documents, user manuals, or installation guides. In order to have an effective and efficient defect management process, organisations may define standards for the attributes, classification, and workflow of defects.
Typical defect reports have the following objectives:
A defect report filed during dynamic testing typically includes:
Some of these details may be automatically included and/or managed when using defect management tools, e.g., automatic assignment of an identifier, assignment and update of the defect report state during the workflow, etc. Defects found during static testing, particularly reviews, will normally be documented in a different way, e.g., in review meeting notes.
The purpose of a test technique, including those discussed in this section, is to help in identifying test conditions, test cases, and test data.
The choice of which test techniques to use depends on a number of factors, including:
Some techniques are more applicable to certain situations and test levels; others are applicable to all test levels. When creating test cases, testers generally use a combination of test techniques to achieve the best results from the test effort.
The use of test techniques in the test analysis, test design, and test implementation activities can range from very informal (little to no documentation) to very formal. The appropriate level of formality depends on the context of testing, including the maturity of test and development processes, time constraints, safety or regulatory requirements, the knowledge and skills of the people involved, and the software development lifecycle model being followed.
In this article , test techniques are classified as black-box, white-box, or experience-based.
Black-box test techniques (also called behavioural or behaviour-based techniques) are based on an analysis of the appropriate test basis (e.g., formal requirements documents, specifications, use cases, user stories, or business processes). These techniques are applicable to both functional and non-functional testing. Black-box test techniques concentrate on the inputs and outputs of the test object without reference to its internal structure.
White-box test techniques (also called structural or structure-based techniques) are based on an analysis of the architecture, detailed design, internal structure, or the code of the test object. Unlike black-box test techniques, white-box test techniques concentrate on the structure and processing within the test object.
Experience-based test techniques leverage the experience of developers, testers and users to design, implement, and execute tests. These techniques are often combined with black-box and white-box test techniques.
Common characteristics of black-box test techniques include the following:
Common characteristics of white-box test techniques include:
Common characteristics of experience-based test techniques include:
This knowledge and experience includes expected use of the software, its environment, likely defects, and the distribution of those defects.
Equivalence partitioning divides data into partitions (also known as equivalence classes) in such a way that all the members of a given partition are expected to be processed in the same way. There are equivalence partitions for both valid and invalid values.
To achieve 100% coverage with this technique, test cases must cover all identified partitions (including invalid partitions) by using a minimum of one value from each partition. Coverage is measured as the number of equivalence partitions tested by at least one value, divided by the total number of identified equivalence partitions, normally expressed as a percentage. Equivalence partitioning is applicable at all test levels.
Boundary value analysis (BVA) is an extension of equivalence partitioning, but can only be used when the partition is ordered, consisting of numeric or sequential data. The minimum and maximum values (or first and last values) of a partition are its boundary values.
For example, let suppose an input field accepts a single integer value as an input, using a keypad to limit inputs so that non-integer inputs are impossible. The valid range is from 1 to 5, inclusive. So, there are three equivalence partitions: invalid (too low); valid; invalid (too high). For the valid equivalence partition, the boundary values are 1 and 5. For the invalid (too high) partition, the boundary value is 6. For the invalid (too low) partition, there is only one boundary value, 0, because this is a partition with only one member.
In the example above, we identify two boundary values per boundary. The boundary between invalid (too low) and valid gives the test values 0 and 1. The boundary between valid and invalid (too high) gives the test values 5 and 6. Some variations of this technique identify three boundary values per boundary: the values before, at, and just over the boundary. In the previous example, using three-point boundary values, the lower boundary test values are 0, 1, and 2, and the upper boundary test values are 4, 5, and 6.
Behaviour at the boundaries of equivalence partitions is more likely to be incorrect than behaviour within the partitions. It is important to remember that both specified and implemented boundaries may be displaced to positions above or below their intended positions, may be omitted altogether, or may be supplemented with unwanted additional boundaries. Boundary value analysis and testing will reveal almost all such defects by forcing the software to show behaviours from a partition other than the one to which the boundary value should belong.
Boundary value analysis can be applied at all test levels. This technique is generally used to test requirements that call for a range of numbers (including dates and times). Boundary coverage for a partition is measured as the number of boundary values tested, divided by the total number of identified boundary test values, normally expressed as a percentage.
Decision tables are a good way to record complex business rules that a system must implement. When creating decision tables, the tester identifies conditions (often inputs) and the resulting actions (often outputs) of the system. These form the rows of the table, usually with the conditions at the top and the actions at the bottom. Each column corresponds to a decision rule that defines a unique combination of conditions which results in the execution of the actions associated with that rule. The values of the conditions and actions are usually shown as Boolean values (true or false) or discrete values (e.g., red, green, blue), but can also be numbers or ranges of numbers. These different types of conditions and actions might be found together in the same table.
The common notation in decision tables is as follows:
For conditions:
For actions:
A full decision table has enough columns (test cases) to cover every combination of conditions. By deleting columns that do not affect the outcome, the number of test cases can decrease considerably. For example by removing impossible combinations of conditions.
The common minimum coverage standard for decision table testing is to have at least one test case per decision rule in the table. This typically involves covering all combinations of conditions. Coverage is measured as the number of decision rules tested by at least one test case, divided by the total number of decision rules, normally expressed as a percentage.
The strength of decision table testing is that it helps to identify all the important combinations of conditions, some of which might otherwise be overlooked. It also helps in finding any gaps in the requirements. It may be applied to all situations in which the behaviour of the software depends on a combination of conditions, at any test level.
Components or systems may respond differently to an event depending on current conditions or previous history (e.g., the events that have occurred since the system was initialised). The previous history can be summarised using the concept of states. A state transition diagram shows the possible software states, as well as how the software enters, exits, and transitions between states. A transition is initiated by an event (e.g., user input of a value into a field). The event results in a transition. The same event can result in two or more different transitions from the same state. The state change may result in the software taking an action (e.g., outputting a calculation or error message).
A state transition table shows all valid transitions and potentially invalid transitions between states, as well as the events, and resulting actions for valid transitions. State transition diagrams normally show only the valid transitions and exclude the invalid transitions.
Tests can be designed to cover a typical sequence of states, to exercise all states, to exercise every transition, to exercise specific sequences of transitions, or to test invalid transitions.
State transition testing is used for menu-based applications and is widely used within the embedded software industry. The technique is also suitable for modelling a business scenario having specific states or for testing screen navigation. The concept of a state is abstract — it may represent a few lines of code or an entire business process.
Coverage is commonly measured as the number of identified states or transitions tested, divided by the total number of identified states or transitions in the test object, normally expressed as a percentage. For more information on coverage criteria for state transition testing.
Tests can be derived from use cases, which are a specific way of designing interactions with software items. They incorporate requirements for the software functions. Use cases are associated with actors (human users, external hardware, or other components or systems) and subjects (the component or system to which the use case is applied).
Each use case specifies some behaviour that a subject can perform in collaboration with one or more actors. A use case can be described by interactions and activities, as well as preconditions, postconditions and natural language where appropriate. Interactions between the actors and the subject may result in changes to the state of the subject. Interactions may be represented graphically by work flows, activity diagrams, or business process models.
A use case can include possible variations of its basic behaviour, including exceptional behaviour and error handling (system response and recovery from programming, application and communication errors, e.g., resulting in an error message). Tests are designed to exercise the defined behaviours (basic, exceptional or alternative, and error handling). Coverage can be measured by the number of use case behaviours tested divided by the total number of use case behaviours, normally expressed as a percentage.
White-box testing is based on the internal structure of the test object. White-box test techniques can be used at all test levels, but the two code-related techniques discussed in this section are most commonly used at the component test level. There are more advanced techniques that are used in some safety-critical, mission-critical, or high integrity environments to achieve more thorough coverage, but those are not discussed here.
Statement testing exercises the potential executable statements in the code. Coverage is measured as the number of statements executed by the tests divided by the total number of executable statements in the test object, normally expressed as a percentage.
Decision testing exercises the decisions in the code and tests the code that is executed based on the decision outcomes. To do this, the test cases follow the control flows that occur from a decision point (e.g., for an IF statement, one for the true outcome and one for the false outcome; for a CASE statement, test cases would be required for all the possible outcomes, including the default outcome).
Coverage is measured as the number of decision outcomes executed by the tests divided by the total number of decision outcomes in the test object, normally expressed as a percentage.
When 100% statement coverage is achieved, it ensures that all executable statements in the code have been tested at least once, but it does not ensure that all decision logic has been tested. Of the two white-box techniques discussed in this syllabus, statement testing may provide less coverage than decision testing.
When 100% decision coverage is achieved, it executes all decision outcomes, which includes testing the true outcome and also the false outcome, even when there is no explicit false statement (e.g., in the case of an IF statement without an else in the code). Statement coverage helps to find defects in code that was not exercised by other tests. Decision coverage helps to find defects in code where other tests have not taken both true and false outcomes.
Achieving 100% decision coverage guarantees 100% statement coverage (but not vice versa).
When applying experience-based test techniques, the test cases are derived from the tester’s skill and intuition, and their experience with similar applications and technologies. These techniques can be helpful in identifying tests that were not easily identified by other more systematic techniques. Depending on the tester’s approach and experience, these techniques may achieve widely varying degrees of coverage and effectiveness. Coverage can be difficult to assess and may not be measurable with these techniques.
Commonly used experience-based techniques are discussed in the following sections.
Error guessing is a technique used to anticipate the occurrence of errors, defects, and failures, based on the tester’s knowledge, including:
A methodical approach to the error guessing technique is to create a list of possible errors, defects, and failures, and design tests that will expose those failures and the defects that caused them. These error, defect, failure lists can be built based on experience, defect and failure data, or from common knowledge about why software fails.
In exploratory testing, informal (not pre-defined) tests are designed, executed, logged, and evaluated dynamically during test execution. The test results are used to learn more about the component or system, and to create tests for the areas that may need more testing.
Exploratory testing is sometimes conducted using session-based testing to structure the activity. In session-based testing, exploratory testing is conducted within a defined time-box, and the tester uses a test charter containing test objectives to guide the testing. The tester may use test session sheets to document the steps followed and the discoveries made.
Exploratory testing is most useful when there are few or inadequate specifications or significant time pressure on testing. Exploratory testing is also useful to complement other more formal testing techniques.
Exploratory testing is strongly associated with reactive test strategies. Exploratory testing can incorporate the use of other black-box, white-box, and experience-based techniques.
In checklist-based testing, testers design, implement, and execute tests to cover test conditions found in a checklist. As part of analysis, testers create a new checklist or expand an existing checklist, but testers may also use an existing checklist without modification. Such checklists can be built based onexperience, knowledge about what is important for the user, or an understanding of why and how software fails.
Checklists can be created to support various test types, including functional and non-functional testing. In the absence of detailed test cases, checklist-based testing can provide guidelines and a degree of consistency. As these are high-level lists, some variability in the actual testing is likely to occur, resulting in potentially greater coverage but less repeatability.
In contrast to dynamic testing, which requires the execution of the software being tested, static testing relies on the manual examination of work products (i.e., reviews) or tool-driven evaluation of the code or other work products (i.e., static analysis). Both types of static testing assess the code or other work product being tested without actually executing the code or work product being tested.
Static analysis is important for safety-critical computer systems (e.g., aviation, medical, or nuclear software), but static analysis has also become important and common in other settings. For example, static analysis is an important part of security testing. Static analysis is also often incorporated into automated software build and distribution tools, for example in Agile development, continuous delivery, and continuous deployment.
Almost any work product can be examined using static testing (reviews and/or static analysis), for example:
Reviews can be applied to any work product that the participants know how to read and understand. Static analysis can be applied efficiently to any work product with a formal structure (typically code or models) for which an appropriate static analysis tool exists. Static analysis can even be applied with tools that evaluate work products written in natural language such as requirements (e.g., checking for spelling, grammar, and readability).
Static testing techniques provide a variety of benefits. When applied early in the software development lifecycle, static testing enables the early detection of defects before dynamic testing is performed (e.g., in requirements or design specifications reviews, backlog refinement, etc.). Defects found early are often much cheaper to remove than defects found later in the lifecycle, especially compared to defects found after the software is deployed and in active use. Using static testing techniques to find defects and then fixing those defects promptly is almost always much cheaper for the organization than using dynamic testing to find defects in the test object and then fixing them, especially when considering the additional costs associated with updating other work products and performing confirmation and regression testing.
Additional benefits of static testing may include:
Static testing and dynamic testing can have the same objectives, such as providing an assessment of the quality of the work products and identifying defects as early as possible. Static and dynamic testing complement each other by finding different types of defects.
One main distinction is that static testing finds defects in work products directly rather than identifying failures caused by defects when the software is run. A defect can reside in a work product for a very long time without causing a failure. The path where the defect lies may be rarely exercised or hard to reach, so it will not be easy to construct and execute a dynamic test that encounters it. Static testing may be able to find the defect with much less effort.
Another distinction is that static testing can be used to improve the consistency and internal quality of work products, while dynamic testing typically focuses on externally visible behaviours.
Compared with dynamic testing, typical defects that are easier and cheaper to find and fix through static testing include:
Moreover, most types of maintainability defects can only be found by static testing (e.g., improper modularisation, poor reusability of components, code that is difficult to analyse and modify without introducing new defects).
Reviews vary from informal to formal. Informal reviews are characterised by not following a defined process and not having formal documented output. Formal reviews are characterised by team participation, documented results of the review, and documented procedures for conducting the review. The formality of a review process is related to factors such as the software development lifecycle model, the maturity of the development process, the complexity of the work product to be reviewed, any legal or regulatory requirements, and/or the need for an audit trail.
The focus of a review depends on the agreed objectives of the review (e.g., finding defects, gaining understanding, educating participants such as testers and new team members, or discussing and deciding by consensus).
The review process comprises the following main activities:
Planning
Fixing and reporting
The results of a work product review vary, depending on the review type and formality.
A typical formal review will include the roles below:
Author
Reviewers
Scribe (or recorder)
In some review types, one person may play more than one role, and the actions associated with each role may also vary based on review type. In addition, with the advent of tools to support the review process, especially the logging of defects, open points, and decisions, there is often no need for a scribe.
Although reviews can be used for various purposes, one of the main objectives is to uncover defects. All review types can aid in defect detection, and the selected review type should be based on the needs of the project, available resources, product type and risks, business domain, and company culture, among other selection criteria.
A single work product may be the subject of more than one type of review. If more than one type of review is used, the order may vary. For example, an informal review may be carried out before a technical review, to ensure the work product is ready for a technical review.
The types of reviews described below can be done as peer reviews, i.e., done by colleagues qualified to do the same work.
The types of defects found in a review vary, depending especially on the work product being reviewed. Reviews can be classified according to various attributes. The following lists the four most common types of reviews and their associated attributes.
Informal review (e.g., buddy check, pairing, pair review)
Walkthrough
Technical review
Inspection
There are a number of review techniques that can be applied during the individual review (i.e., individual preparation) activity to uncover defects. These techniques can be used across the review types described above. The effectiveness of the techniques may differ depending on the type of review used. Examples of different individual review techniques for various review types are listed below.
Ad hoc
In an ad hoc review, reviewers are provided with little or no guidance on how this task should be performed. Reviewers often read the work product sequentially, identifying and documenting issues as they encounter them. Ad hoc reviewing is a commonly used technique needing little preparation. This technique is highly dependent on reviewer skills and may lead to many duplicate issues being reported by different reviewers.
Checklist-based
A checklist-based review is a systematic technique, whereby the reviewers detect issues based on checklists that are distributed at review initiation (e.g., by the facilitator). A review checklist consists of a set of questions based on potential defects, which may be derived from experience. Checklists should be specific to the type of work product under review and should be maintained regularly to cover issue types missed in previous reviews. The main advantage of the checklist-based technique is a systematic coverage of typical defect types. Care should be taken not to simply follow the checklist in individual reviewing, but also to look for defects outside the checklist.
Scenarios and dry runs
In a scenario-based review, reviewers are provided with structured guidelines on how to read through the work product. A scenario-based review supports reviewers in performing “dry runs” on the work product based on expected usage of the work product (if the work product is documented in a suitable format such as use cases). These scenarios provide reviewers with better guidelines on how to identify specific defect types than simple checklist entries. As with checklist-based reviews, in order not to miss other defect types (e.g., missing features), reviewers should not be constrained to the documented scenarios.
Perspective-based
In perspective-based reading, similar to a role-based review, reviewers take on different stakeholder viewpoints in individual reviewing. Typical stakeholder viewpoints include end user, marketing, designer, tester, or operations. Using different stakeholder viewpoints leads to more depth in individual reviewing with less duplication of issues across reviewers.
In addition, perspective-based reading also requires the reviewers to attempt to use the work product under review to generate the product they would derive from it. For example, a tester would attempt to generate draft acceptance tests if performing a perspective-based reading on a requirements specification to see if all the necessary information was included. Further, in perspective-based reading, checklists are expected to be used.
Empirical studies have shown perspective-based reading to be the most effective general technique for reviewing requirements and technical work products. A key success factor is including and weighing different stakeholder viewpoints appropriately, based on risks.
Role-based
A role-based review is a technique in which the reviewers evaluate the work product from the perspective of individual stakeholder roles. Typical roles include specific end user types (experienced, inexperienced, senior, child, etc.), and specific roles in the organization (user administrator, system administrator, performance tester, etc.). The same principles apply as in perspective-based reading because the roles are similar.
In order to have a successful review, the appropriate type of review and the techniques used must be considered. In addition, there are a number of other factors that will affect the outcome of the review.
Organizational success factors for reviews include:
People-related success factors for reviews include:
A software development lifecycle model describes the types of activity performed at each stage in a software development project, and how the activities relate to one another logically and chronologically. There are a number of different software development lifecycle models, each of which requires different approaches to testing.
It is an important part of a tester’s role to be familiar with the common software development lifecycle models so that appropriate test activities can take place.
In any software development lifecycle model, there are several characteristics of good testing:
No matter which software development lifecycle model is chosen, test activities should start in the early stages of the lifecycle, adhering to the testing principle of early testing.
This categorizes common software development lifecycle models as follows:
A sequential development model describes the software development process as a linear, sequential flow of activities. This means that any phase in the development process should begin when the previous phase is complete. In theory, there is no overlap of phases, but in practice, it is beneficial to have early feedback from the following phase.
In the Waterfall model, the development activities (e.g., requirements analysis, design, coding, testing) are completed one after another. In this model, test activities only occur after all other development activities have been completed.
Unlike the Waterfall model, the V-model integrates the test process throughout the development process, implementing the principle of early testing. Further, the V-model includes test levels associated with each corresponding development phase, which further supports early testing. In this model, the execution of tests associated with each test level proceeds sequentially, but in some cases overlapping occurs.
Sequential development models deliver software that contains the complete set of features, but typically require months or years for delivery to stakeholders and users.
Incremental development involves establishing requirements, designing, building, and testing a system in pieces, which means that the software’s features grow incrementally. The size of these feature increments varies, with some methods having larger pieces and some smaller pieces. The feature increments can be as small as a single change to a user interface screen or new query option.
Iterative development occurs when groups of features are specified, designed, built, and tested together in a series of cycles, often of a fixed duration. Iterations may involve changes to features developed in earlier iterations, along with changes in project scope. Each iteration delivers working software which is a growing subset of the overall set of features until the final software is delivered or development is stopped.
Examples include:
Components or systems developed using these methods often involve overlapping and iterating test levels throughout development. Ideally, each feature is tested at several test levels as it moves towards delivery. In some cases, teams use continuous delivery or continuous deployment, both of which involve significant automation of multiple test levels as part of their delivery pipelines. Many development efforts using these methods also include the concept of self-organizing teams, which can change the way testing work is organized as well as the relationship between testers and developers.
These methods form a growing system, which may be released to end-users on a feature-by-feature basis, on an iteration-by-iteration basis, or in a more traditional major-release fashion. Regardless of whether the software increments are released to end-users, regression testing is increasingly important as the system grows.
In contrast to sequential models, iterative and incremental models may deliver usable software in weeks or even days, but may only deliver the complete set of requirements product over a period of months or even years.
Software development lifecycle models must be selected and adapted to the context of project and product characteristics. An appropriate software development lifecycle model should be selected and adapted based on the project goal, the type of product being developed, business priorities (e.g., time-to- market), and identified product and project risks. For example, the development and testing of a minor internal administrative system should differ from the development and testing of a safety-critical system such as an automobile’s brake control system. As another example, in some cases organizational and cultural issues may inhibit communication between team members, which can impede iterative development.
Depending on the context of the project, it may be necessary to combine or reorganize test levels and/or test activities. For example, for the integration of a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software product into a larger system, the purchaser may perform interoperability testing at the system integration test level (e.g., integration to the infrastructure and other systems) and at the acceptance test level (functional and non-functional, along with user acceptance testing and operational acceptance testing).
In addition, software development lifecycle models themselves may be combined. For example, a V- model may be used for the development and testing of the backend systems and their integrations, while an Agile development model may be used to develop and test the front-end user interface (UI) and functionality. Prototyping may be used early in a project, with an incremental development model adopted once the experimental phase is complete.
Internet of Things (IoT) systems, which consist of many different objects, such as devices, products, and services, typically apply separate software development lifecycle models for each object. This presents a particular challenge for the development of Internet of Things system versions. Additionally the software development lifecycle of such objects places stronger emphasis on the later phases of the software development lifecycle after they have been introduced to operational use (e.g., operate, update, and decommission phases).
Reasons why software development models must be adapted to the context of project and product characteristics can be:
A tester on an Agile project will work differently than one working on a traditional project. Testers must understand the values and principles that underpin Agile projects, and how testers are an integral part of a whole-team approach together with developers and business representatives. The members in an Agile project communicate with each other early and frequently, which helps with removing defects early and developing a quality product.
In 2001, a group of individuals, representing the most widely used lightweight software development methodologies, agreed on a common set of values and principles which became known as the Manifesto for Agile Software Development or the Agile Manifesto [Agilemanifesto]. The Agile Manifesto contains four statements of values:
The Agile Manifesto argues that although the concepts on the right have value, those on the left have greater value.
Agile development is very people-centered. Teams of people build software, and it is through continuous communication and interaction, rather than a reliance on tools or processes, that teams can work most effectively.
From a customer perspective, working software is much more useful and valuable than overly detailed documentation and it provides an opportunity to give the development team rapid feedback. In addition, because working software, albeit with reduced functionality, is available much earlier in the development lifecycle, Agile development can confer significant time-to-market advantage. Agile development is, therefore, especially useful in rapidly changing business environments where the problems and/or solutions are unclear or where the business wishes to innovate in new problem domains.
Customers often find great difficulty in specifying the system that they require. Collaborating directly with the customer improves the likelihood of understanding exactly what the customer requires. While having contracts with customers may be important, working in regular and close collaboration with them is likely to bring more success to the project.
Change is inevitable in software projects. The environment in which the business operates, legislation, competitor activity, technology advances, and other factors can have major influences on the project and its objectives. These factors must be accommodated by the development process. As such, having flexibility in work practices to embrace change is more important than simply adhering rigidly to a plan.
The core Agile Manifesto values are captured in twelve principles:
The different Agile methodologies provide prescriptive practices to put these values and principles into action.
Rigorous testing of components and systems, and their associated documentation, can help reduce the risk of failures occurring during operation. When defects are detected, and subsequently fixed, this contributes to the quality of the components or systems. In addition, software testing may also be required to meet contractual or legal requirements or industry-specific standards.
Throughout the history of computing, it is quite common for software and systems to be delivered into operation and, due to the presence of defects, to subsequently cause failures or otherwise not meet the stakeholders’ needs. However, using appropriate test techniques can reduce the frequency of such problematic deliveries, when those techniques are applied with the appropriate level of test expertise, in the appropriate test levels, and at the appropriate points in the software development lifecycle. Examples include:
While people often use the phrase quality assurance (or just QA) to refer to testing, quality assurance and testing are not the same, but they are related. A larger concept, quality management, ties them together. Quality management includes all activities that direct and control an organization with regard to quality. Among other activities, quality management includes both quality assurance and quality control. Quality assurance is typically focused on adherence to proper processes, in order to provide confidence that the appropriate levels of quality will be achieved. When processes are carried out properly, the work products created by those processes are generally of higher quality, which contributes to defect prevention. In addition, the use of root cause analysis to detect and remove the causes of defects, along with the proper application of the findings of retrospective meetings to improve processes, are important for effective quality assurance.
Quality control involves various activities, including test activities, that support the achievement of appropriate levels of quality. Test activities are part of the overall software development or maintenance process. Since quality assurance is concerned with the proper execution of the entire process, quality assurance supports proper testing.
A person can make an error (mistake), which can lead to the introduction of a defect (fault or bug) in the software code or in some other related work product. An error that leads to the introduction of a defect in one work product can trigger an error that leads to the introduction of a defect in a related work product. For example, a requirements elicitation error can lead to a requirements defect, which then results in a programming error that leads to a defect in the code.
If a defect in the code is executed, this may cause a failure, but not necessarily in all circumstances. For example, some defects require very specific inputs or preconditions to trigger a failure, which may occur rarely or never.
Errors may occur for many reasons, such as:
In addition to failures caused due to defects in the code, failures can also be caused by environmental conditions. For example, radiation, electromagnetic fields, and pollution can cause defects in firmware or influence the execution of software by changing hardware conditions.
Not all unexpected test results are failures. False positives may occur due to errors in the way tests were executed, or due to defects in the test data, the test environment, or other testware, or for other reasons. The inverse situation can also occur, where similar errors or defects lead to false negatives. False negatives are tests that do not detect defects that they should have detected; false positives are reported as defects, but aren’t actually defects.
The root causes of defects are the earliest actions or conditions that contributed to creating the defects. Defects can be analyzed to identify their root causes, so as to reduce the occurrence of similar defects in the future. By focusing on the most significant root causes, root cause analysis can lead to process improvements that prevent a significant number of future defects from being introduced.
For example, suppose incorrect interest payments, due to a single line of incorrect code, result in customer complaints. The defective code was written for a user story which was ambiguous, due to the product owner’s misunderstanding of how to calculate interest. If a large percentage of defects exist in interest calculations, and these defects have their root cause in similar misunderstandings, the product owners could be trained in the topic of interest calculations to reduce such defects in the future.
In this example, the customer complaints are effects. The incorrect interest payments are failures. The improper calculation in the code is a defect, and it resulted from the original defect, the ambiguity in the user story. The root cause of the original defect was a lack of knowledge on the part of the product owner, which resulted in the product owner making an error while writing the user story.
The activities and tasks performed by these two roles depend on the project and product context, the skills of the people in the roles, and the organization.
The test manager is tasked with overall responsibility for the test process and successful leadership of the test activities. The test management role might be performed by a professional test manager, or by a project manager, a development manager, or a quality assurance manager. In larger projects or organizations, several test teams may report to a test manager, test coach, or test coordinator, each team being headed by a test leader or lead tester.
Typical test manager tasks may include:
The way in which the test manager role is carried out varies depending on the software development lifecycle. For example, in Agile development, some of the tasks mentioned above are handled by the Agile team, especially those tasks concerned with the day-to-day testing done within the team, often by a tester working within the team. Some of the tasks that span multiple teams or the entire organization, or that have to do with personnel management, may be done by test managers outside of the development team, who are sometimes called test coaches.
Typical tester tasks may include:
People who work on test analysis, test design, specific test types, or test automation may be specialists in these roles. Depending on the risks related to the product and the project, and the software development lifecycle model selected, different people may take over the role of tester at different test levels. For example, at the component testing level and the component integration testing level, the role of a tester is often done by developers. At the acceptance test level, the role of a tester is often done by business analysts, subject matter experts, and users. At the system test level and the system integration test level, the role of a tester is often done by an independent test team. At the operational acceptance test level, the role of a tester is often done by operations and/or systems administration staff.
What should we test in a project may very and testing objective could include:
The objectives under test may very from system to system, depending the context of the component under test, the level of test, and the model of the software development lifecycle being used.
Application or software systems, in this modern age, are all part of life, users all over the world are using and even testing systems with out even knowing that they are part of the testing. In our daily life we are using systems on our phones or our desktops, from banks, cellular providers, medical, ordering food and much more.
Software which does not function properly can lead to many problems, that include loss of money, time, reputation and more. Software testing, which is part of QA, can reduce errors, defects and failure in the software under testing.
Software testing is a process which includes many different activities such as test execution, planing, analysing, designing, implementing tests, reporting progress and results, and evaluate the quality of the object under test.
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