One size kills all

Yesterday I had a conversation with a senior testmanager about test processes. He was very glad that his (large) company had a defined and structured V-model based test approach. My reaction apparantly wasn't that enthusiastiac, and he asked me why. And I said: "One size kills all". Let me explain that.

When I look at projects, I see a dynamic environment with a lot of uncertainties, change and growing knowledge on what we are developing. One way to deal with that is to introduce a defined test approach. Through this the fuzz becomes more structured and the goal becomes more clear. But sometimes a different approach is more succesful; for instance by allowing the dynamic to exist, to operate closely as a team and to frequently interact with the customer. That way the goal also becomes more clear and the business becomes more aware of what they actually need. For some projects a strcutured test process might be a solution. For other projects that same solution will only makes things worse.

Let us as testers be aware of the fact that one model can never be the solution for all problems. If someone tells you that, then you know (s)he's a liar. Our world, our projects and software development are far too complex for that. And they involve human behaviour too!
I think we should develop mutliple testing models and approaches based on multiple paradigm views, so that we pick a model that fits our situation. Because else we're just fitting the problem to our solution.

Our new book on agile testing has been released

Before my last post celebrates it's first anniversary, let me tell you why my blog has been quiet so long. The main reason was that I was busy writing a book, and that all my writing skills were occupied within that process. After all, men aren't that good in multitasking ;-)

At Eurostar, my new book 'Testen2.0. De praktijk van agile testen' has been released. As you can judge on the basis of the title, the book is written in Dutch. If you're interested in an English version, please let me know. Together with my collegue Eric Jimmink I've worked on this since January 2008.

What is the book all about? First, we explain what agile is. So far, there are no books in Dutch what agile really is, so that was a Must Have. Then we explain new values that arise within this new context. James Lyndsay has written an article on that, whioch is incorparated within the book (thanks, James!). We extend these values towards agile testing principles.
The majority of the book is centered around the section 'Agile testing in practice', with topics such as the role of the customer, the Definition of Done, product risk analysis, master test planning, the test process, unit testing, agile test techniques and regression testing. Since Dutch testers are very interested in testing methods, we described how agile testing is related to other methods, such as Scrum, DSDM/Atern, RUP, Risk and Requirements Based Testing and -ofcourse- TMap.
The organisational implementation of agile testing is described as well, including two client side stories. The last section is about the role of the agile tester; how is the role of the traditional testers influenced by this new process.

So far, all the shameless book promotion :-). Please give us feedback!

The book is available at several websites, for instance at Sdu, the publisher: http://www.sdu.nl/catalogus/9789012580618