Agile Testing: The Agile Way to Quality

This book is written by testers for testers. In ten chapters, the authors provide answers to key questions in agile projects. They deal with cultural change processes for agile testing, with questions regarding the approach and organization of software testing, with the use of methods, techniques and tools, especially test automation, and with the redefined role of the tester in agile projects.

The first chapter describes the cultural change brought about by agile development. In the second chapter, which addresses agile process models such as Scrum and Kanban, the authors focus on the role of quality assurance in agile development projects. The third chapter deals with the agile test organization and the positioning of testing in an agile team. Chapter 4 discusses the question of whether an agile tester should be a generalist or a specialist. In Chapter 5, the authors turn to the methods and techniques of agile testing, emphasizing the differences from traditional, phase-oriented testing. In Chapter 6, they describe which documents testers still need to create in an agile project. Next, Chapter 7 explains the efficient use of test automation, which is particularly important in agile development, as it is the main instrument for project acceleration and is necessary to support state-of-the-art DevOps approaches and Continuous Integration. Chapter 8 then adds examples from test tool practice extending test automation to include test management functionality. Chapter 9 is dedicated to training and its importance, emphasizing the role of employee training in getting started with agile development. Finally, Chapter 10 summarizes the results of the agile journey in general with a special focus on testing.

To make the aspects described even more tangible, the specific topics of this book are accompanied by the description of experiences from concrete software development projects of various organizations. The examples demonstrate that different approaches can lead to solutions that meet the specific challenges of agile projects.

Manfred Baumgartner has more than 30 years of experience in software development, especially in software quality assurance and software testing. Since 2001 he has built up and expanded the QA consulting and training offerings of Nagarro GmbH, one of the leading service providers in the field of software testing. He is member of the board of the Association for Software Quality and Further Education (ASQF) and the Association for Software Quality Management Austria (STEV) as well as a member of the Austrian Testing Board (ATB).

Martin Klonk is a Senior Test Expert at Sixsentix Austria GmbH. He has worked in a wide variety of industries and has been actively involved in almost all areas of software testing. As a member of the Austrian Testing Board of the ISTQB he regularly contributes to curricula and their German translation and also conducts training courses. This way, he has been a strong advocate of agile practices in testing and has led several agile projects as a testing specialist. He is a certified tester, project manager and Scrum Master.

Christian Mastnak works as principal software testing consultant at Nagarro and has over 15 years of QA experience. He leads Nagarro’s global "Agile Testing Practice" and implemented innovative solutions for international clients in a variety of industries.

Helmut Pichler is responsible for the trainings at Nagarro GmbH and works as a consultant for test and quality management in both traditional and agile projects. He has been President of the Austrian Testing Board, the regional representation of the ISTQB in Austria, for more than 15 years and is an active member of the international testing community, contributing to the updating and development of international testing standards.

Richard Seidl is Agile Quality Coach and Software Test Expert. He has tested a lot of software during his career, and published various specialist books and articles as an author and co-author.

Siegfried Tanczos has been working at Nagarro GmbH since 2004 and has been a team leader and manager in the software test organization for many years.