Thanks to the other QAs in ThoughtWorks Germany for contributing thoughts to this topic over the past months: Sarah, @DizMario, @Nadineheidrich and @bratlingQA

---

What is testing?

Testing is a method to analyze the quality of a given software. It is a method that is applied after the software is developed. If the software has an insufficient level of quality, yet another cycle of development & testing is needed to increase and measure the quality again.

Testing is bug detection.

What is QA?

There are other methods that can improve / increase the quality of a software while it is developed. Those methods decrease the amount of cycles of development & testing that are required  to reach a certain level of quality.

QA is bug prevention.

How we are testing

In addition to the tools and processes that allow us to build high quality software from the first line of code (see below), we have the highest standards for testing software. As mentioned before,  we are well aware that testing can only analyze a software’s current state and show the presence of issues/defects. Another cycle of development is needed to actually improve the quality. That leads to the known problem: whenever the testing is “successful”, the cycle time of stories increases and the delivery of a new feature needs to be postponed.

To minimize this delay, we apply the most efficient testing approaches to provide fast feedback for developers. This reduces the overall time to market of new features. With these methods we are able to reduce the cycle times significantly while improving the overall quality of the software in different projects:

• Our tests are fast and effective. We run Unit-, Integration and End-to-End tests in a well shaped testing pyramid. This allows us to quickly check if our application behaves as expected. Writing the right tests on the right level reduces the time we need for regression tests from days to minutes. This includes – amongst other things – a 100% automation of regression tests.
• Of all the tests in the pyramid, we take special care of the integration tests (of different services) to assure the architecture’s resilience. One of our favorites are the consumer driven contract tests. They allow different teams to work independent with loosely coupled services while ensuring that the entire system behaves well altogether.
• For us, testing is an integrated activity within the software development team and not an independent, separate discipline. There are two ways to get a story tested:
  1. When a story needs QA attention, you move the ticket into a “QA” or “ready for QA” column. The person who is in the role of the Quality Analyst then picks up the story as soon as possible.
     (this is push & role-focused ⇒ that is the Scrum-way with experts in the team)
  2. When a story needs QA attention, you look out for the capability in the team. Any person with some capabilities in testing (often but not always the QA) rotates into the story.
     (this is pull & capability-focused ⇒ that is the Kanban-way with cross-functional people in the team)

     Guess what. I prefer the 2nd approach. The 2nd one is real team-play. And it decreases the cycle time of a single story and thus increases your velocity! Devs will learn (more) about testing and QAs can pair on the programming part, eg. to sort unit- and integration tests into the pyramid ⇒ baking the chocolade inside.
     

• For exploratory testing we do not always apply the same standard methods but acknowledge the individual context we are in. Only then can we make use of the various advantages of different test methods. We find all kinds of tools in our box: Behaviour Driven Testing, Acceptance Testing, End-To-End Testing, Scenario based Testing, User Journey Testing, Integration Testing, System Testing, Risk based Testing, Penetration (Security) Testing, UX testing, performance Testing, Guerrilla Testing…

How we do QA

As mentioned before, we really need to learn all about testing. And its a mastery to study. However, its only a (small) part of our job and every day live. Besides testing we look into other things, as we know that good software is only the first step towards a high quality product.

We create a culture in the team, where the aspect of quality is an important asset for each team member. In this context we can address the team’s current needs with a wide set of processes, frameworks and tools that we as ThoughtWorkers already use or create if they do not yet exist (e.g. Selenium).

We acknowledge that we cannot build defect free software.  Hence, we focus on defect prevention and establishing an overall quality mindset. We assure a high level of quality in software through tools and processes that allow us to prevent defects and find errors fast:

• Well designed services to ensure a resilient architecture. There are so many things to work on if you want to improve the resilience. You can have the best software without bugs. It wont help you if your servers are down for the bigger part of the day. From a QA point of view, we are interested in circuit breaker (self-healing systems), feature toggles, well designed APIs and a kick-ass monitoring:
• Monitoring! This is so important. And so many people think that “only” Ops should care. What a misunderstanding. Constant monitoring of all services and environments is a shared discipline to be able to react quickly on any arising issue. No matter how good you test (see above), some defects will slip through to production. The best way to reduce their impact is a combination of a good monitoring and quick deployment. If we are able to release a fix fast (= best case: 20 min after a bug is found), we can reduce the impact significantly. This is what monitoring is for. Learn more in this podcast.

• We have a strong focus on Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployments best practices, such as fully automated regression testing. You can read all about it in the other post as well as talk in Ljubljana.
• Test Driven Development for high test coverage and fast feedback during development is also an important thing to notice. While most developers know that a tests are written first in TDD, not all know about the testing pyramid, much less of its benefits. Hence, a pairing of QA and dev while practicing TDD can be of high value. This is how you bake quality in!
  

• I just mentioned the consistent pair programming. Pairing allows best designs and fewer defects from the beginning. Make sure to rotate frequently and across the roles. Pairing is a general activity for most tasks in a team. Pair-programming is just one of them.
• We love Feature Toggles™. They give us maximal control over the features in production and canary releases. A very easy method I usually use is to give chocolate while the standup to the pair that implemented a toggle the previous day. This is a fun way to talk about it, remember it and give a sweet incentive to build it in when it was forgotten. If you find the time to use them it will make your lives much easier. You will not need rollback strategies any more and it is a very, very good safety net. Quality “assurance” at its best!

The mix for the win.

Of course we combine the two aspects of QA and testing. And this is the biggest challenge for us. Where to focus at what point of time. Where do we need more attention and what part of the application / system / team is running smooth? Ultimately,  we try to pick the right tools and create the right mindset to build a high quality product.