Dear Testing Community,
This is the next blog in our practical “Guideline for the Standard Test Levels” used in agile SW-Projects from Sogeti Testlab Hub Stuttgart. In this blog, we want to talk about the user story acceptance test strategy.
Let’s begin with a short introduction to the agile concept and going on with a deep dive look at the user story acceptance testing.
Short Introduction to Agile Test Strategies
Short time-to-market cycles is one of the strategic targets of agile software development. To achieve this we need to start talking with the client sooner and have to maintain time boxed Design-, Build-, and Deployment-Processes. This includes an integrated seamless test process and the application of a Test-Left Principle as soon as possible in the development and sprint cycle.
In this sprints we combine two test levels, first the unit-test including the internal flow, we have talked about it in the latest blog, and second the user story acceptance test.
Diagram 1: Testing Phases of a sprint cycle
How is the user story embedded in the agile sprint cycle?
User story acceptance tests are included in the time-boxed sprint cycle and run basically on new features after Implementation. user story acceptance tests are part of the DoD criteria catalog. Beside this they are fulfilling the three basic test purposes:
- The features meet the acceptance criteria and show the Conformance with the user’s requirements.
- Possible defects will be found.
- The user gets the first feeling for the SW and gains initial confidence in it.
- Acceptance Criteria: Criteria, which are defined by the whole team and the client to ensure that the user story fulfills its purpose for the business. It is as well our primary guideline for the test case creation for the user story Acceptance Test.
- Definition of Ready (DoR): DoR is the template that defines what a user story has to fulfill to be accepted as a user story by the team and to be ready for implementation.
- Definition of Done (DoD): DoD is a list of conditions in the form of a template that a user story has to fulfill. If the client agrees that the implementation reaches the DoD a user story can be closed.
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