Making Friends With QA - Mobile Central Europe, Warsaw, Poland, June 2018

My talk trying to convince developers to make friends with Quality Assurance.

Abstract:
Quality Assurance can be a controversial subject for mobile developers: Some developers (and companies) feel that it’s unnecessary with the advent of automated testing, some feel like QA people can be endlessly nitpicky and unnecessarily delay releases, and some people use it as an excuse to not test the things they’ve added. However, QA can (and I argue, should) be your best friend in getting a usable app with minimal bugs out the door. Learn about the different types of QA, bringing in your first QA person, setting up a QA pipeline, and how to combine automated tests with humans poking at your app to have extra confidence in your releases.

Transcript

1. Making Friends
   with QA
   Mobile Central Europe | Warsaw, Poland | June 2018
   bakkenbaeck.com | justhum.com | @DesignatedNerd
   

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2. What is quality?
   

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7. Does it work for
   your users?
   

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8. What is QA?
   

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9. What is QA?
   (*in the context of mobile software development)
   

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10. Project managers
    

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11. "The people who make sure
    we never ship bugs"
    

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12. "The people who prevent us
    from hitting deadlines"
    

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13. Developers
    

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14. "The people who
    break my app"
    

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15. Nitpickers
    

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16. The last barrier between you
    and something being messed up
    for your users
    

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18. "The people who
    save my ass"
    

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21. QA Engineers
    

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22. What does a QA Engineer do?
    

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23. Tries to use your app
    

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24. Tells you how they broke it
    so you can fix it
    

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25. Project Manager Bug Ticket
    → I can't log in
    

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26. New QA Engineer Bug Ticket
    → I went to the login screen
    → I entered valid credentials
    → I tapped on the sign in button
    → It looked like it was logging in, but nothing
    happened
    

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27. Experienced QA Engineer Bug Ticket
    → On a build pointed at the staging server
    → I went to the login screen
    → I entered valid credentials [me@hi.com/p4$$w0rd]
    → I tapped on the sign in button
    → The loading indicator appeared, then disappeared
    → I was not logged in and no error was displayed
    → Devices tested: iPhone X (11.4.1), iPhone 6 (10.3.3)
    

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28. What is this app
    supposed to do?
    

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29. Test Plans
    

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30. Look at the whole app
    

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31. Keep looking at
    the whole app
    

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32. How important is
    shipping new functionality
    vs
    not breaking existing functionality
    

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33. Types of QA Testing
    

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34. Manual Testing
    

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36. Software Testing
    

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37. "We don't need QA.
    Our developers write
    automated tests!"
    

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39. Tests are a good start
    

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40. What kind of automated
    tests do you have?
    

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41. Unit Tests
    

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42. Unit Tests
    Limit: Only tests that pieces work in isolation
    

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43. Integration Tests
    

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44. Integration Tests
    Limit: Only tests that specific pieces work together
    

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45. UI Tests
    

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46. UI Tests
    Limit: Only tests that the UI responds
    the way the developer wants it to
    

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48. Humans and robots
    find different issues
    

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49. Humans are weird
    

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50. Humans tap on
    all sorts of things
    you don't expect them to
    

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51. Humans enter and exit apps
    Constantly
    

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52. Humans try to do things
    without an internet connection
    

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53. Humans try to do things
    without an internet connection
    !
    

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54. Manual Tests
    

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55. Dedicated QA testers
    

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57. !
    

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59. Reduce fear of code
    

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60. Increase empathy
    

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61. Teach basic git
    and running with an IDE
    

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62. Encouraging basic fixes
    

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63. Moving to building
    with you
    

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64. Moving to testing
    with software
    

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65. End To End Tests
    

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66. Where to focus
    manual testing
    

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67. Smoke Tests
    

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69. Setting up a testing
    !
    Pipeline
    

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70. When should QA
    get a new build to test?
    

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71. !
    Scripts
    

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72. !
    Fastlane
    

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73. Some arguments I've heard against
    dedicated QA
    

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74. Some arguments I've heard against
    dedicated QA
    (and my responses)
    

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75. Argument:
    “Quality should be
    everyone’s responsibility!”
    

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76. Response:
    “Quality has become
    nobody’s responsibility.”
    

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77. Argument:
    “Adding QA makes
    us go slower!”
    

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78. Response:
    “Adding QA makes
    us go faster in the long term.”
    

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79. Argument:
    “Adding QA makes
    change harder!”
    

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80. Response:
    “Adding QA makes
    change manageable.”
    

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81. Argument:
    “This project is
    too small to need QA!”
    

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82. Response:
    "Some projects are.
    For a while."
    

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83. How many kinds of tests and QA
    do I need to do?
    

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92. Obligatory Summary Slide
    

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93. Obligatory Summary Slide
    → QA helps catch problems before they reach users
    

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94. Obligatory Summary Slide
    → QA helps catch problems before they reach users
    → QA forces clarification of existing process
    

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95. Obligatory Summary Slide
    → QA helps catch problems before they reach users
    → QA forces clarification of existing process
    → Unit/UI tests are not a replacement for QA
    

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96. Obligatory Summary Slide
    → QA helps catch problems before they reach users
    → QA forces clarification of existing process
    → Unit/UI tests are not a replacement for QA
    → Start with manual QA and work your way up to
    end-to-end and smoke tests
    

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97. Obligatory Summary Slide
    → QA helps catch problems before they reach users
    → QA forces clarification of existing process
    → Unit/UI tests are not a replacement for QA
    → Start with manual QA and work your way up to
    end-to-end and smoke tests
    → Empathy between QA and dev is critical to success
    

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98. Links!
    → TestRail for creating test suites
    http://www.gurock.com/testrail/
    → The Director (aka QA Hates You)
    https://twitter.com/QAHatesYou
    

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99. Photo Credits
    → Angry mob by Robert Course-Baker:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/
    29233640@N07/3645211083
    → Robot by the Oregon National Guard:
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonmildep/
    8576624536/
    → Craig and the New Features by Vjeran Pavic
    https://live.theverge.com/apple-wwdc-live-blog-
    keynote-2018
    

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100. Photo Credits
     → iPhone 7+ Teardown by iFixIt
     https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/
     iPhone+7+Plus+Teardown/67384
     → Braden Holtby's Killer Save by John Locher
     https://www.instagram.com/p/BjbsdKBH26s/
     

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