Death By Specification(cukeup)

With powerful tools like cucumber comes great responsibility. Is the power going to your head? Have you ever had thoughts like:

* I'm going to lock my customers in a room and make them type gherkin until their heads bleed
* I've given the developers EXACTLY what the app should do. Why are they still talking to me?
* FIFTEEN Scenarios! For a log in form??!?
* We need 6 people to spend 6 hours detailing a feature we MIGHT implement?

Let's talk about a few ways to build shared understanding and why our techniques tend to break down as the product evolves.

Transcript

1. Death By Specification Steve Jackson @stevejxsn steve.jackson@leandog.com
2. Thoughts… I’m going to lock them in a room and make them type gherkin until their hands bleed.
3. I’ve given the developers EXACTLY what the feature should do. Why are they still talking to me? Thoughts…
4. FIFTEEN scenarios?!?! For a login form? Thoughts…
5. We need SIX people to spend SIX hours detailing a feature we MIGHT implement? Thoughts…
6. Introducing Patty Product Owner Bill Business Analyst Donna Developer Tom Tester
7. Why Cucumber? • Visible Progress • Readable Patty Product Owner
8. Why Cucumber? Bill Business Analyst • Executable Requirements • Precise, Rich, Specification
9. Why Cucumber? Donna Developer • Acceptance Criteria • Integration Testing
10. Why Cucumber? Tom Tester • Automated Verification • Regression Testing
11. Let’s write some tests!
12. Scenario: Winning! Given I bid on a book When I have the highest bid Then I should win What if…. What about… TOO BIG!
13. Scenario: Winning! Given Joe is selling: | Title | Condition | Floor | | Oliver Twist | Like New | $40.00 | | Henry V | Fair | $31.97 | … And I have $47.00 remaining in my account When I bid $42.50 on the “Like New“ copy of “Oliver Twist” And I decide on a bid limit of $43.00 And Jane bids $42.99 Then I end up bidding $43.00 before the auction closes And I win What about pesos? Do we need… We can’t do that…
14. Scenario: Winning! Given I win the auction Then the system saves the Paypal ID And modifies the SHIPPING table And the page has a div.won element And the system auto declines the other bids Don’t forget… ZZZZZZZ Where’s the biz reqt?
15. Scenario: Winning! Given I search for “1984” And I pick the first result And I click the “Bid” button And I enter “321” in the text field And I select “peso” from the drop down And I click the “Place Bid” button When the seller goes to their inventory And removes “1984” Then the auction ends And I have the highest bid But I don’t get the book We don’t need that test Who would do that? She can’t do that because…
16. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2199724/Grandfathers-shock-growing-21-inch-cucumber.html OMG SO MANY TESTS
17. “…if we failed to make our program align with what we then understood to be the proper way to think about our financial objects, then we were gonna continually stumble over that disagreement and that would slow us down which was like paying interest on a loan.” “I'm never in favor of writing code poorly, but I am in favor of writing code to reflect your current understanding of a problem even if that understanding is partial.” http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WardExplainsDebtMetaphor Technical Debt
18. Every test is potentially interest Every test is potentially emergent
19. Destroy All The Tools!
20. Why Does This Work? • No experts? • No roles? • No process?
21. Shared Understanding • Trust • Care • Collapsed Roles • NO HANDOFFS
22. How?
23. Whole Team • Focused on Value • Clear Communication • T-Shaped People • Poly-pairing • Swarming • Flexible vs Time Wasting
24. Empathy • Get involved in user research • Something humans can use
25. http://agilewarrior.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/the-agile-inception-deck/ Radiate
26. Question Assumptions • Let’s have a conversation • Oh this is complicated…
27. They Are JUST Tools
28. See the whole How does someone actually use it Surface complexity Interaction Diagram
29. Lightweight Prototypes
30. Drill into features Design Studio Method New Ideas Good ideas come from everybody Collaborative Sketching
31. Whiteboard
32. Personas Grounded on real people - Built on real interviews • Role • Goals • Pains Hints: • Combine with empathy map • Use in cukes
33. Three Amigos • Knows what to build • Knows how to build it • Knows how to verify it
34. What? • The goal is shared understanding • The hurdle is agreed upon acceptance criteria • The deliverable is gherkin Hints: • Cukes are meant to be READ! • Short, sweet, no technobabble • Don’t get hung up on implementation details
35. When? • Before WIP - Single story • Short • Last responsible moment • Open communication paths
36. How? • Start with ideal outcome • What can we see that proves this worked? • Determine the easiest way to get there
37. How? • What if Given is not true? • Challenge assumptions • If we don’t build the When, what would we do instead? • Drive into the WHY
38. Not Just Gherkin • What do we automate? How best to automate? • Who gives feedback? Who cares about this feature? • Infrastructure, Performance, etc • What are we NOT going to do • Story splitting, compromising, etc
39. Why Cucumber? • Visible Progress • Human-Readable • Executable Requirements • Acceptance Criteria • Integration Testing • Automated Verification • Regression Testing
40. Why Cucumber? • Constant Collaboration • Shared Understanding • Eliminate Waste • Deliberate Discovery • Build Trust
41. Thanks! Steve Jackson @stevejxsn steve.jackson@leandog.com