- In the Agile way of working is there a need to write detailed test scriptsâŚ
No.
You might decide to use test scripts, but generally speaking I donât find much use for them. It will depend on your context. If you do this you should be able to justify its cost with how these scripts serve your test strategy.
âŚor can testing be done off the back of the test conditions/acceptance criteria?
No.
Acceptance criteria and test conditions are insufficient to describe what you might test. Besides, what you do is exploratory and what you learn from the tests you do might lead to new risks, new ideas, and new tests. I donât really know what âtest conditionsâ are, but acceptance criteria are criteria by which whoever authored them thinks that the story cannot be considered done unless they are complete. If all acceptance criteria are met then the story could still not be fit for purpose, or still have problems. This arises from âall criteria not consideredâ plus all tacit criteria (e.g. âcomputer should not crash when code is runâ). If that doesnât convince you consider the fact there are infinite criteria. Any criterion you can think of I can say âokay, but what happens if you do that a second laterâ and itâs a different criteron - maybe that doesnât matter, but then weâre in the position of guessing what matters given any change in any number of factors. Then combinations of those factors. You get the idea.
There are a few ways to approach testing something when given a story. One way would be to think of risks and then go and see if you can make them happen (e.g. âI think that the software may not handle weird data very wellâ or âI think that the software may not behave as Iâd like when itâs run for a long timeâ). Another way would be to explore the product considering elements of the product (screens, code, media files, inputs, functions, etc) and thinking of risks that might apply to them. Saying that, use the acceptance criteria to your advantage. They are clearly important to the team, so should be considered when testing. Maybe itâs a suitable candidate to be augmented with a check in an automation suite.
- In terms of test execution, is taking test evidence necessary in terms of screenshots?
No.
If youâre going to take evidence consider what youâre doing it for. If youâre not under pressure to prove you did something then donât waste any time or energy doing it. That being said screenshots can be awesome for communicating a problem (via a bug report or just messaging someone), comparing two states of a screen to look for problems, remembering settings while you work on something else, recording what you did in your test notes if youâre writing test notes, and so on. So use screenshots, donât let screenshots use you.
- How does exploratory testing tie in with the above and does this replace any of the above?
Exploratory testing is a way of describing an approach to testing that leverages its exploratory nature by treating testing as parallel test design and execution, giving short feedback loops between what is learned and what activities happen. That doesnât explicitly exclude or include any way of recording or reporting that testing. Thatâll depend on you, your preferences, what serves your test strategy, what environment youâre working in and so on.
Hope thatâs helpful!