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Agile Test Automation

Tutorials

MD Specification by Example: Mastering Agile Testing
Nate Oster, CodeSquads, LLC
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 8:30am

On agile teams, testers can struggle to keep up with the pace of development if they continue employing a waterfall verification process―finding bugs after development. Nate Oster challenges you to question waterfall assumptions and replace a “test last” mentality with “specification by example.” Practice “test first” by writing executable specifications for a new feature before development begins. Learn to switch from tests as verification to tests as specification and guide development with concrete examples written in the language of your business. Start by joining a team for a humorous simulation of real-world issues and experience. Learn how specification by example helps build quality in instead of trying to test defects out. Progress to increasingly more realistic scenarios and practice the art of specifying intent with table-based and given-when-then formats. These paper-based simulations give you meaningful practice specifying concrete examples and will change the way you think about writing tests and collaborating as a team. This is not a tools session—no laptops required.

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MJ Continuous Testing to Drive Continuous Integration and Deployment NEW
Cory Foy, Cory Foy, LLC
Mon, 06/08/2015 - 1:00pm

Continuous integration and continuous testing are two vital agile feedback loops that lead to a continuous deployment environment. Continuous integration processes monitor source code―recompiling after every change, running smaller tests, and notifying the developer if anything goes wrong. Continuous testing (and potentially continuous deployment) monitors integration builds, installs the product in a staging environment, and runs integration tests, again looking for problems. Jared Richardson explains the ideas and then the tools needed to implement both continuous integration and continuous deployment. Jared demonstrates the open source continuous integration tool Jenkins as the center of the process. These powerful concepts ensure issues are detected within minutes of most code changes, and the developer is notified so he can fix the problem and learn from the experience. Even a partial adoption changes the cadence of a development organization and eliminates a great deal of ongoing code maintenance. Learn how to sell the idea and set up the process in your own organization.

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Concurrent Sessions

AT12 Test Automation in Agile: A Successful Implementation
Melissa Tondi, Denver Automation and Quality Engineering
Thu, 06/11/2015 - 3:00pm

Many agile teams have experienced big problems when implementing test automation. For example, they may discover that a purchased tool is often seen as a “silver bullet” and feel forced to use it even though better options may exist. Melissa Tondi discusses who is affected by automation, where it belongs in the development lifecycle, and when it should start. In addition, Melissa thoughtfully presents common pitfalls—unattainable metrics, tooling missteps, and transitioning a manual test team—that get in the way of a successful implementation and shares recommendations on how to address each of these pitfalls. Find out ways to quickly move up the learning curve from manual testing to automation and take back guidelines on what to automate and when. Don’t throw in the towel on test automation—it’s a critical and required part of all successful agile implementations.

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