ISTQB FOUNDATION 4.0 | Tutorial 8 | 1.5 Essentials Skills and Practices in Testing (Part-2) | CTFL
Summary
TLDRThis tutorial delves into the ISTQB Foundation level certification, focusing on the whole team approach and independence of testing. It highlights the importance of collaboration in agile methodologies, emphasizing that quality is a collective responsibility. The video discusses the benefits of cross-functional teams and the potential drawbacks of losing tester independence, such as reduced defect detection. It also explores varying degrees of testing independence, from self-testing by developers to fully outsourced testing, and the impact on defect identification and team dynamics.
Takeaways
- 😀 The whole team approach emphasizes collaboration and communication among team members to reduce gaps and improve understanding and coordination.
- 👥 Originating from extreme programming, the whole team approach involves everyone, including architects, developers, and testers, working closely together for better communication and collaboration.
- 🛠 In a whole team approach, any team member with the necessary knowledge and skills can perform any task, and everyone shares responsibility for product quality.
- 📍 Team members in this approach share the same workspace, whether physical or virtual, to facilitate better communication and interaction.
- 🔍 Testers work closely with other team members, including business representatives and developers, to ensure quality levels are met and to create suitable acceptance tests and test strategies.
- 🧐 The close collaboration in the whole team approach can sometimes lead to a loss of independence, where testers might start thinking from a development perspective and potentially miss defects.
- 🏛 The degree of independence in testing can vary from the author testing their own work to having highly independent testers from outside the organization.
- 🔎 Higher degrees of independence in testing can lead to more effective defect detection due to different cognitive biases and perspectives between authors and testers.
- 🔄 For most projects, a blend of multiple levels of independence in testing is beneficial, such as developers doing unit testing and a separate QA team handling system testing.
- 🚧 The drawbacks of high independence include potential isolation of testers from the development team and a possible loss of responsibility for quality by developers.
- 🛑 Independent testers may be seen as a bottleneck or blamed for delays in release, highlighting the importance of prompt testing and avoiding delays.
Q & A
What is the main topic of the tutorial?
-The main topic of the tutorial is the ISTQB Foundation Level certification, focusing on the fundamentals of testing, specifically the whole team approach and the degree of independence of testing.
What does the 'whole team approach' refer to in the context of agile methodologies?
-The 'whole team approach' refers to the practice where all team members, including architects, developers, and testers, work together closely to improve communication, collaboration, and reduce communication gaps among stakeholders.
What are some characteristics of the whole team approach mentioned in the script?
-Some characteristics include the ability to work effectively in a team context, contributing positively to team goals, shared workspaces, and the responsibility of quality being distributed among all team members, not just the testing team.
How does the whole team approach enhance team dynamics and project outcomes?
-The whole team approach enhances team dynamics by improving communication and collaboration, creating synergy by leveraging various skill sets within the team for the benefit of the project, and ensuring that desired quality levels are achieved through close collaboration with other team members.
What is the potential drawback of having a very close collaboration between developers and testers?
-The potential drawback is the loss of independence, which may result in testers starting to think from a development perspective and losing their ability to find defects effectively, as they might begin to adopt the developer's mindset.
What does 'independence of testing' mean and why is it important?
-'Independence of testing' refers to the degree to which testing is conducted separately from the development process. It is important because it allows testers to have a different perspective, which can lead to the discovery of defects that developers might overlook due to cognitive biases.
What are the four degrees of independence in testing as described in the script?
-The four degrees of independence are: 1) Work products tested by their author, 2) Tested by the author's peer from the same team, 3) Tested by testers from outside the author's team but within the same organization, and 4) Highly independent, where testers are from outside the organization, often in an outsourced scenario.
Why is it beneficial to have multiple levels of independence in testing for most projects?
-Having multiple levels of independence in testing allows for a blend of perspectives and skill sets, which can lead to a more comprehensive testing process. It ensures that different types of defects are caught at various stages by different individuals or teams with varying levels of separation from the development process.
What are some benefits of having independent testers?
-Benefits include the ability to recognize different kinds of failures and detect defects more efficiently due to different technical perspectives and biases, as well as the capacity to verify or challenge assumptions made during the specification and implementation of the system.
What are some drawbacks of having high levels of independence in testing?
-Drawbacks include the potential for independent testers to be isolated from the development team, leading to a lack of collaboration and understanding of the system. Additionally, developers may lose a sense of responsibility for quality, and independent testers may be seen as bottlenecks or blamed for delays in release.
How can the drawbacks of independent testing be mitigated?
-The drawbacks can be mitigated by ensuring prompt communication and collaboration from the beginning of the project, involving developers in testing through activities like unit testing, and by anticipating and addressing potential delays proactively.
Outlines
😄 Whole Team Approach in Agile Testing
This paragraph discusses the concept of the whole team approach in agile testing, emphasizing the importance of collaboration among team members, including developers, testers, and other stakeholders. It highlights the origin of this approach from extreme programming and its benefits, such as improved communication, reduced gaps, and better understanding among team members. The paragraph also outlines the characteristics of the whole team approach, including the ability to work effectively in a team, shared responsibility for quality, and the flexibility for any team member to perform tasks based on their skills. The importance of maintaining a balance between close collaboration and independence to avoid potential drawbacks, such as testers losing their critical mindset, is also mentioned.
🔍 Degrees of Testing Independence
The second paragraph delves into the topic of testing independence, explaining the varying degrees of separation between testers and developers within an organization. It outlines four levels of independence, ranging from the author testing their own work to highly independent testing by external organizations. The benefits of independence include a higher likelihood of defect detection due to different perspectives and the ability to challenge assumptions made during system development. However, the paragraph also acknowledges the potential drawbacks, such as the risk of testers becoming isolated or seen as bottlenecks, and the possible loss of developers' sense of responsibility for quality. The importance of finding the right balance of independence for a project is emphasized, suggesting that a mix of different independence levels can be beneficial.
📚 Benefits and Drawbacks of Testing Independence
The final paragraph summarizes the benefits and drawbacks of independent testing. Benefits include the ability of independent testers to recognize different kinds of failures and detect defects more efficiently due to their distinct technical perspectives. They can also verify and challenge assumptions made during the specification and implementation phases, ensuring a more accurate final product. On the downside, independent testers might be isolated from the development team, leading to a lack of collaboration and understanding of the system's details. Additionally, developers may lose their sense of responsibility for quality if testing is outsourced. The paragraph concludes by discussing the potential for independent testers to be blamed for delays in release and suggests proactive measures to prevent such issues, such as early anticipation of potential delays.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡ISTQB Foundation Level Certification
💡Whole Team Approach
💡Agile
💡Extreme Programming
💡Team Dynamics
💡Quality
💡Collaboration
💡Independence of Testing
💡Cognitive Biases
💡Test Automation
💡Defect Leakage
Highlights
Introduction to the tutorial on ISTQB Foundation level certification, focusing on the fundamentals of testing and essential skills and good practices.
Exploration of the Whole Team Approach in agile methodologies, emphasizing the importance of synchronization and close collaboration among team members and stakeholders.
Characteristics of the Whole Team Approach, highlighting the tester's role in collaborating and coordinating with stakeholders for effective communication and reduced communication gaps.
Origins of the Whole Team Approach from Extreme Programming, which introduced the concept of everyone working together for better communication and collaboration.
Responsibility for quality in the Whole Team Approach, where every team member is responsible for defining and ensuring product quality.
Team Dynamics in the Whole Team Approach, allowing for cross-functional team members to leverage their diverse skills for project benefits.
Close collaboration between testers and other team members to ensure desired quality levels, including working with business representatives and developers.
The potential drawback of the Whole Team Approach, where testers may lose their objectivity and ability to find defects due to close collaboration with developers.
Introduction to the concept of Independence of Testing, discussing different degrees of independence that can be experienced in various organizations.
The four identified degrees of Independence in testing, ranging from the author testing their own work to highly independent testing by external organizations.
Benefits of high Independence in testing, such as the increased effectiveness in finding defects due to different cognitive biases and mindsets.
Drawbacks of high Independence, including potential isolation of testers from the development team and a possible loss of responsibility for quality by developers.
The recommendation for most projects to carry out testing with multiple levels of Independence, blending different degrees for comprehensive testing coverage.
Strategies to overcome the drawbacks of high Independence, such as maintaining prompt communication and anticipating potential delays.
The importance of balancing close collaboration with maintaining the tester's objectivity and ability to find defects in the context of the Whole Team Approach.
Conclusion of the tutorial, emphasizing the importance of understanding the context and adapting testing practices to achieve quality in software development.
Transcripts
Hello friends and greetings for day
welcome back to another tutorial on
istqb Foundation level certification we
are in chapter one talking about the
fundamentals of testing and we are
continuing with our last segment that is
essential skills and good practices 1.5
of this chapter and this is the part two
of this particular segment uh we will be
covering the next two part that is whole
team approach and the degree of
independence of
testing
[Music]
so when it comes to whole team approach
of course it's the very common
understanding that today the era is all
about agile and today we are not working
separate from each other are very very
differently located or separated in the
sense like one team is sitting in one
particular location and one team is
sitting in another location that is no
distributed teams we are looking forward
to indeed no matter what kind of of
methodology you are following you are
looking forward to have as much as go
location as possible so that the team is
synchronized and working very closely
with other stakeholders in order to
reduce the communication gaps at the
same time have a better understanding
and collaboration among the stakeholders
and that's where the whole team approach
comes into consideration as we talk
about whole team approach there are
several characteristics which one that
is a tester should take into
consideration to collaborate and
coordinate with different stakeholders
in order to understand that how exactly
they should interact with them
communicate with them and what kind of
dependencies and support will they
really have among the other stakeholders
so in order to understand more about
this here is our some of the information
from the syllabus which talks about what
are we considering as whole team
approach so when we talk about the whole
team approach one of the important
skills for a tester is the ability to
work effectively in a team cont context
and to contribute positively to the team
goals the whole team approach a practice
coming from extreme programming builds
upon the skills which clearly talks
about something very important that what
is the you know origin of this
particular approach that is whole team
approach of course one of the approaches
of agile is also called as extreme
programming compared to that of scrum
and Canin we do have another approach
called as extreme programming and this
extreme programming initially introduced
the whole team approach that means
everyone be it architect developer and
tester they should all work together and
that helps us to have a better
communication and indeed good
collaboration among the team members a
lot of clarifications a lot of doubts
are sorted when the team are working
together also to add further we are
talking about in the whole team approach
any team member with the necessary
Knowledge and Skills can perform any
task and everyone is responsible for
Quality now that's another important
thing which comes together with the
whole team approach that quality is not
just testing team responsibility it is
everyone's responsibility to uh Define
quality in the product because it's not
just one person working separately like
a testing team and defining and taking
the ownership on that today every single
stakeholder in the entire team is
responsible for defining quality in the
product and at the same time these
members are so defined or so hired put
together in terms of Team Dynamics that
means the team member can do any task
which is relevant to them right as far
as they have the skills as they
mentioned there anyone can do that
particular task the very next Point what
we have here is of course the team
members share the same workspace
physical or virtual as collocation
facilitates communication and
interaction and that's what we were just
talking about a moment ago the whole
team approach improves Team Dynamics
enhances Communications and
collaboration within the team and
creates Synergy by allowing the various
skill sets within the team to be
leveraged for the benefits of the
project now as I mentioned it's not like
we just have all the members with
similar set of skills we do look forward
to have cross functional team members
put together and as they have different
skill set they can very well be
leveraged for their skills to perform a
certain activity within the project
right so that certainly helps and
minimizes our effort of depending
outside the team and rather making use
of internal skills itself also to add we
are talking about the next one that is
testers work very closely with other
team members to ensure that the desired
quality levels are achieved so here we
don't have differences or gap between
the two members thus it becomes very
simple and easy to collaborate and
understand or gain understanding about
the aspects which certainly brings back
a lot of value also to add that this
includes collaborating with business
Representatives also to help them create
suitable acceptance test and working
with developers to agree on the test
strategy and decide on the test test
automation approaches so it's just that
like when we are working very very close
to developers it's just not limited to
that but also we work very closely with
the business stakeholders to help them
understand what are test cases one way
we do become agile just like aile coach
we do become a testing coach or quality
coaches to our team members and educate
them about what exactly the test cases
will be and how exactly the testing will
be conducted and what is that we would
be expecting in terms of uh validating
the functionality of featur so in that
context we do educate other stakeholders
about testing and quality and how to
define quality in the product thus put
together as a whole team goal we can
certainly achieve a great quality right
here also at the same time testers can
thus transfer testing knowledge to all
the other team members and influence the
development of the product depending on
the context the whole team approach may
not always be appropriate for instance
in some situations such as safety
critical a huge level of test
Independence may be needed now here we
are just trying to give you a quick
example on it's not necessary that whole
theme approach is always helpful
sometime we do have a drawback of having
a very close collaboration between
developer and Tester the only drawback
what we see here is that the degree of
Independence between the two teams is
lost sometime a tester starts thinking
from a development perspective and may
lose their psychology or the mindset
what they need in order to find effects
so working closely with developers but
maintaining that asset of your
psychology is equally important and when
it comes to different critical products
it's very very important that you should
maintain that difference because here
working closely may result into defect
leakage okay so working closely is very
common to understand that however we
collaborate and blend to solve our
problems together but sometime we work
so so closely with the developers that
we we may lose our sense and capability
of finding defects as we start probably
treating ourself into the developer
shoes and start feeling their you know
the process and the way they work and
that could be a big drawback for us well
the next topic we are talking about is
called as independent independence of
testing and Independence of testing is
mainly to talk about what are the
different degree of Independence which
can be experienced in different
organization now degree of of
Independence is to just let you know
that it's not necessary that testing
always happens independently from the
development team that means sometime it
can be done by developers sometime it
can be done by different developers but
within the development team or sometime
it can be done by a separate testing
team what we practice today or sometime
it can just be outsourced also but
depending on organization factors the
organization size and maturity levels
you can determine the different degree
of Independence so let's have a look
what the content is trying to share with
us at this point of time so we have of
course independence of testing as the
next topic we're talking about a certain
degree of Independence makes the tester
more effective at finding defects due to
difference between the authors and the
testers cognitive biases because of
their different mindsets different
abilities and different portfolios you
certainly tend to find different defs
than that of the developer right here we
have identified four different of
Independence number one work products
can be tested by their author that means
no independent tester a developer is the
only person who has written the code and
the same person is actually trying to
test the code the second degree of
Independence is by the author's peer
from the same team which means there is
a slight difference Independence between
the person who created it and testing it
but they both may be from the same team
that is development for an example if
I'm writing a code AS developer one I I
would give it to developer two for unit
testing having a little Independence
there when we talk about the degree
number three the degree number three
talks about a test by testers from
outside the author's team but within the
same organization which simply means one
thing that what we are practicing today
development team is only responsible for
development and the testing like
integration and system testing is being
conducted by separate team called as QA
team and the fourth one is highly
independent which means that
the testers from outside the
organization and here we can take the
example of those startup or small based
small scale organizations where testing
is completely outsourced to another
third party organization because they
may not be able to afford testers within
their organization so put together we
have identified four different degree of
Independence and that certainly gives us
understanding that the more it is
independent the better it is to find
defects but is that like is there
anything very best here or what is that
an organization should actually follow
so of course they have differences here
that we do have benefits of high
Independence at the same time the
drawbacks of high dependence so let's
quickly check it out that what are these
benefits and drawbacks and understand
more about it also to add before we move
on there that is for most projects it is
usually best to carry out testing with
multiple levels of Independence that
means having a blend of multiple
Independence degree within an
organization within a project would be
helpful for an example developers
performing component and component
integration testing test team performing
system and system integration testing
and business representating or business
Representatives performing acceptance
testing so in that context it will have
a blend off everything put together that
is all four degrees at the same time so
let's talk about the benefits and
drawbacks of having independent testing
because not every good thing comes
without a problem or without a drawback
so let's exactly see how these things
can really be helpful and at what points
these can become a challenge for us and
how we can overcome those drawbacks so
the benefits are limited of course and
includes independent testers are likely
to recognize different kind of failures
and detect uh defects compared to
developer because of their different
background technical perspective and the
biases of course a tester is someone
different than the person who has
written the code would certainly be
capable of finding different defects
than that of developers and will be more
efficient in looking into the user
perceptions on the second we do have
another independent testers benefit that
is they can verify challenge or
disapprove assumptions made by
stakeholders during the specification
and implementation of the system
assumptions are those where the
requirements are unclear and sometime
the business analyst also takes as a mi
assumption if in case they are not
having complete information the
technical team like design and
development team will make certain
assumptions to go with how to implement
this requirement but again as far as you
make an assumption you think this is the
best for it but of course it may not be
as far as you share your perception with
someone else you may understand that
your assumption was not up to the mark
but not only that like not only to
challenge or disapprove but even to
verify or validate I need someone else
that whether this assumptions are what
expected here right the drawbacks on the
other hand includes that independent
testers may be isolated from the
development team again considering the
highest independent team so can be
treated as a service provider vendor
rather than a technical team as a part
of the process so when you Outsource
certain services or certain activities
to third party organization you may not
treat them as a part of the process and
because of that they may have lack of
collaboration lack of understanding of
the component and details because of
security policies between the
organizations and many other things also
to talk about developers may lose the
sense of responsibility for Quality now
it's very clear and understandable that
a developer is not at all responsible
for testing and being outsourced then
everything will be done by other
organization and here developers may not
have any kind of understanding that how
exactly quality can be defined into the
organization into the project so in that
context we do give one level to them
that is unit testing and that's why this
unit testing is given to Developers that
is to eliminate this drawback of
independent testing and the third what
we have here with us is independent
testers may be seen as bottleneck or
blamed for delays in release because
it's very common to understand the one
who is last in the queue will always
have less time with them and said that
certainly can become a crunch and would
be blamed for all the delays so however
this drawback cannot be eliminated all I
would say but being prompt right right
from the beginning because somewhere
someone is eating the time right
somewhere someone is occupying the time
that you don't get what time you need so
testing always claims one thing that we
did not get the stories on time we did
not get the development code at the time
when we are supposed to start testing
and uh that's where most of the time we
get delays so instead of reflecting that
when we have the delays with us rather
in advance if you can start anticipating
the delays you can always PR prevent
this drawback okay so put together
that's all what we had from this
particular tutorial team uh should you
have anything else feel free to comment
below I'm always there to address your
queries and answer them well till then
keep learning keep exploring keep
understanding the context thanks for
watching the video team and happy
[Music]
Lear
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