The faster, smarter and reliable lean startup QA

Sandeep MankarThoughtWorks

By:Jesal Mistry

ThoughtWorks

QAs on a lean startup team

to talk about

practices followed

challenges faced

and lessons learnt

in ensuring quality

while eliminating process

and focusing on the product!

agile techniques

on a lean startup team

we had to be disruptive

Agile techniques + Lean approach

http://www.clipartsfree.net/vector/large/16540-wedding-sign-vector.png

so,

practices that we followed

minimum viable product (MVP)

needs a mindset

change!

release when neededis your regression

complete?

every commit = production ready

Easier said

then done!!!

feature toggles

who, when

& what

automated integration tests

well…most of

the times!

prioritize + progress wall using Mingle

do I have time

for this?

acceptance tests using Cucumber

“to automate, or not to automate?”

automated build deployment using Go pipelines

maintain?!

automated infrastructure provisioning using Puppet

how do we test

these?

local Dev/QA sandbox for testing using Vagrant

*conditions

apply

invariably helped us achieve

Continuous Deployment (CD)

but hold on…

as always, there were challenges for QA!!!

and, as always,we learnt to…

test early in the cycle

faster feedback to developers and BAs

b’coz faster feedback is crucial

specially for a lean

startup

calling out complex scenarios in story / feature kick offs

so that YOU don’t have to test everything!

calling out risks upfronttaking

make mistakes

think how will it work in Production?

test closer to production

and, when in doubt…ask the business!

prioritize your tests

automate your user journeysvalidated

and use it as a safety net

minimize time taken to test

be flexible about what defects must be fixed

if it is not required tomorrow, let’s not test it right now

don’t forget to test yourinfrastructure!

identifying and maintaining environments

test your application configurations

and most importantly

test your deployment pipelines!

and there is more…

once your app gets some traction

test with production data

analytics

special environments~ performance ~

re-focus your tests

and reduce redundant testing

b’cos QAs should help make

faster

smarter

reliable

product releases!

so, where does that bring us?

xNeed of the

Hour

build reliable software

faster time to market

smarter QA

Thank You!~ & ~

Questions?

by

Jesal MistryThoughtWorks

jmistry@thoughtworks.com@jesalnmistry

Sandeep MankarThoughtWorks

smankar@thoughtworks.com@smankar8