Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick
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Wed, 12 Nov 2003

Matrices into trees

New blogger Jonathan Kohl has a different way of explaining my four categories of agile testing. He uses a tree instead of a 2-way matrix.

I think I like his approach better than mine. It provides an appealing sequence for presenting the ideas. The root of the tree sets the stage. The first two branches emphasize the importance of engaging with two worlds:

  • the business world the product will live in
  • the technology world the project team lives in
When the target audience is from the business world (as it was for Jonathan), you're immediately showing them they're high on your list. (In drawing the tree, I might put "business facing" on the left - in cultures that write left to right, that's usually the dominant position, the one that comes first in sequence and perhaps importance.)

Then you introduce another distinction: between testing as support for other people during their work and testing as a critique of something those people have completed. You can dive into the details according to the interests of the audience: "which of these do you want to talk about?"

I may give this tree a try some time, although I'm still fond of "business-facing product critique". Rolls so elegantly off the tongue, don't you think?

Calgary, Canada - where Jonathan lives - is, by the way, a real hotbed of agile testing activity. It also happens to be where XP Agile Universe will be next year. Let's hope a lot of agile testers come.

## Posted at 12:48 in category /agile [permalink] [top]

About Brian Marick
I consult mainly on Agile software development, with a special focus on how testing fits in.

Contact me here: marick@exampler.com.

 

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Agile Testing Directions
Introduction
Tests and examples
Technology-facing programmer support
Business-facing team support
Business-facing product critiques
Technology-facing product critiques
Testers on agile projects
Postscript

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