Agile Test Automation

Concurrent Sessions

AW6 Overcome the Challenges of Test-Driven Development

Adam Satterfield, Bettercloud

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 1:30pm

Test-driven development (TDD) is a powerful agile methodology that organizations both large and small can leverage to achieve consensus, collaboration, and quality. Based on his organization's experience with implementing TDD and the feedback he has received from other organizations, Adam Satterfield shares some of the top challenges of implementing TDD—insufficient information for foundation of tests, tests take too long to run, TDD is too difficult to get up and running, and it is the tester’s job to find defects. You can overcome these challenges by creating solid acceptance criteria and tests, organizing tests by separating them into unit and integration tests, creating a test first mentality, and increasing collaboration during sprint planning. Whether creating TDD tests in Java, Groovy, or Python, you can successfully implement TDD in your organization by following several core principles of agile development. All code examples are in Python and Django.

AT8 Large-Scale Agile Test Automation Strategies in Practice

Geoff Meyer, Dell, Inc.

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 11:30am

After providing an introduction to several key agile testing concepts—including the Automation Triangle and the Test Automation Quadrants—Geoff Meyer discusses approaches to effectively deliver automated testing. Geoff shares practical insights and demonstrates how they were employed in the test automation strategies developed for several large-scale agile projects at Dell. He shows how the overall test strategy and implementation of each underlying agile concept was influenced by the realities of the project’s organization structure, application architecture, incumbent tools, and tester skillsets. Geoff explores the similarities of the projects from their common goals of establishing automated regression suites, achieving in-sprint automation, and test staffing approaches. More importantly, he delves into the implications of organizational structures and how they led to divergent approaches to test strategy from the choice of automation frameworks to the decisions to automate at the REST/SOAP-based API level or UI level.

AT12 Automated Continuous Test Selection Methods for DevOps

Marc Hornbeek, Spirent Communications

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 1:30pm

Static, fixed test suites often do not work well with DevOps—especially in large-scale environments—because the test suites are either too large to execute in the fast continuous integration cycle times or they consume too many resources to be efficient. As the scale of continuous testing for DevOps systems increases in size and complexity, test selection should be automated. Marc Hornbeek shares a comparison of test selection methodologies that resolve the inherent conflicts in coverage, resources, and time for continuous testing. Marc provides instructions on how to implement a test selection tool which uses both software change information and system level risks to create a scalable solution that suits DevOps cycles and conserves resources. As a bonus, Marc provides instructions on how to automate test results analysis and gives each session attendee a free copy of a DevOps Best Practices Assessment Tool.