Frequently Asked Questions About Agile Testing and Their Answers

Agile has become widespread in China, yet testing remains a neglected area; many practitioners claim there are no testers in agile, and few books address agile testing beyond Lisa Crispin’s works.

Training initiatives by experts such as Zhu Shaomin and Chen Ji reveal strong demand from testers, though the path forward is still challenging.

Many testers misunderstand agile testing and its principles, which can lead to the false belief that "agile is useless" or "agile testing is useless".

1. Recommended books for exploratory testing: "Exploratory Software Testing" by James Whittaker and his other classic "The Art of Software Testing at Google"; also "Exploratory Testing in Practice" by Gao Xiang.

2. Difference between incremental and iterative development: Incremental development delivers clearly defined batches, while iterative development refines unclear requirements over successive cycles; agile combines both approaches.

3. Typical test‑to‑dev ratio in Scrum teams: Experts suggest a Scrum team usually has 1‑2 testers, often also serving as automation or test‑development engineers.

4. Projects suitable for agile testing: Agile testing fits agile projects; applying it to waterfall processes is painful.

5. Difference between agile and DevOps: DevOps extends agile by addressing deployment, value delivery, and feedback loops that agile alone does not cover.

6. Who performs unit testing? Developers themselves, following TDD principles, write unit tests before code.

7. Measuring test workload and assessment: Workload is estimated together with development during Sprint Planning; testing is not a separate activity.

8. Conducting test retrospectives and improvements: At the end of each Sprint, a retrospective includes test summary, analysis, and concrete improvement actions.

9‑10. Bug handling in agile: Instead of logging every pre‑release defect, reproduce it directly to the developer; post‑release bugs may be recorded in a defect management system.

11. Release criteria: The team owns quality; a Definition of Done (DoD) defines when a version is ready for release.

12‑13. Need for a test department: While testers can be embedded in projects, a centralized Test Center of Excellence (TCOE) supports skill development, career paths, and asset reuse.

14‑15. Handling cross‑module impact after a sprint: Use In‑Sprint testing for current work and Cross‑Sprint testing for integration; responsibility is shared, not assigned.

16. Agile testing metrics: Agile does not use defect‑trend metrics; it relies on DoD compliance and story acceptance criteria.

17‑18. Implementing agile testing without organizational support: Start with low‑impact practices like CI, automated tests, and Kanban boards; leadership should champion agile knowledge.

19. Measuring testing in agile: Testing is measured through story completion against acceptance criteria, not separate KPIs.

20. Required skills for agile testers: A “full‑stack tester” should understand architecture, write code, and perform testing; detailed skill maps are available in the referenced training.

21. Evaluating team member contributions: Peer recognition and team reputation matter more than rigid quantitative scores.

22‑24. Agile automation practices: Based on the testing pyramid and layered automation; scripts are typically ready by the third day of the next Sprint and used for regression; smoke testing and API script development may span successive Sprints.

25. Ensuring quality without formal test cases: Exploratory testing uses lightweight test notes rather than exhaustive scripts; see the related course for details.

26. Where to attend the training camp: Details and registration are provided via the author’s WeChat contact.

Content source: Chen Xiaopeng (RickChen), "Morning Small Dish".