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07-23-2009, 3:30 jjoravec Joined on 12-17-2007 Posts 22 Testing Best Practices for PBI There is a debate in our office about when a PBI should be tested and I am seeking clarification on the best way to do testing in the Scrum Model. Our current process is to test at the PBI level when all of the SBIs for the PBI are set to a "Ready for Test" status. Since the PBI does not have a "Ready for Test" state we added the state to the PBI so that when all of the SBIs are set to "Ready for Test" the PBI will be set to "Ready for Test" and then the test team will test at the PBI level and then set the state on the PBI and all SBIs to Done if they pass. Given this method seems more waterfall to mean in the sense developer's finish all the SBIs for a PBI and then turn it over to test and move on. If test finds a problem the developer will have to come back and address those issues and the process repeats. The other alternative and which I see more often is that a PBI is tested as each SBI is set to the "Ready for Test" state. The tester is validating each SBI within a PBI and can report problems as the SBIs are work off. When all the SBIs are "Done" then the PBI is validated against the acceptance criteria. I am looking for some guidance on what is the "best practice" and is common for the Scrum Process. Thanks Joe    Report

07-28-2009, 10:56 jcopella Joined on 07-25-2008 Posts 15 Re: Testing Best Practices for PBI Our team has the same issue.  The problem we face is that the PBIs are generally written as user stories, and are testable by people with business knowledge (based on the PBI acceptance criteria).  The SBIs, on the other hand, are generally written as developer tasks and aren't really testable in the same way.  Given the skill set of our test & QA team, it makes more sense for us to test at the PBI level, and only when all the SBIs are marked "Ready For Test".  This way they can test a complete feature/story and not get bogged down in implementation details. I'd be curious to see what other teams are doing and their thoughts on best practices.    Report

07-28-2009, 10:58 jcopella Joined on 07-25-2008 Posts 15 Re: Testing Best Practices for PBI Also Joe, I'm curious how you modified the template to get this behavior (where PBI goes into "Ready For Test" when all linked SBIs are "Ready For Test") -- we'd like to do the same thing, and it would clear up some process issues for us.  If you could list the steps here I'd appreciate it.    Report

07-29-2009, 3:28 jjoravec Joined on 12-17-2007 Posts 22 Re: Testing Best Practices for PBI I changed the PBI work item to have an additional state of "Ready for Test". Currently it is a manual process by the teams Scrum Master to updated the PBI to the "Ready for Test" state when all the SBI are at a "Ready for Test" state. I do have code I am currently testing that will make this process automatic. It is based off use the TFS Event Handler Notifications. Any time a work item is changed it raises an event that you can subscribe too and then do whatever you want. In my case when an SBI is saved I get the associated PBI then check all the SBIs linked to the PBI. If all the SBIs have a status of "Ready for Test" then I updated the PBI to "Ready for Test". All this through a web service I created and installed on our TFS Server. Check out this codeplex project for more information http://tfseventhandler.codeplex.com/. Thats were I got my information and Microsoft also has a lot of information on TFS Event Handling. I am sure there is probably an easier way to do it, but I bundled this in to a web service that does alot of other things for us. This also let me do things without breaking any of the internal workings of Scrum for Team Systems. Hope this helps. Joe    Report

07-29-2009, 10:52 jjoravec Joined on 12-17-2007 Posts 22 Re: Testing Best Practices for PBI Another item you may want to look at is the following template for visual studio that will set up the web service project for receiving the Event Notification. http://blogs.conchango.com/howardvanrooijen/archive/2006/06/25/TFSNotificationWebServicesProjectTemplateUpdated.aspx http://howardvanrooijen.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=25327    Report

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