Call for Position Papers Workshop: Agile Acceptance Testing (http://www.pettichord.com/agile_workshop.html) Conference: XP/Agile Universe (http://www.xpuniverse.com) Sunday August 4, 2002, Chicago IL, 8:30 am - 5:00 pm. Organizers: Bret Pettichord (bret@pettichord.com) and Brian Marick (marick@testing.com). We seek people interested in joining our workshop focussing on practices for acceptance testing on agile projects. In other contexts, acceptance testing is often called system testing, functional testing, or even GUI testing. We seek participation from testers, developers and anyone with an interest in acceptance testing and experience with testing (of any sort) on agile projects. Interested people should submit a position paper to the organizers describing their background and interest in the workshop. We will begin accepting position papers June 10 and will continue until the workshop is full. We promise to turn around position papers within a week. Participants will be accepted based on submitted position papers. Position papers include the following information. 1. Personal Background. Describe your experience with agile software development. What methodologies have you used? What kind of software have you helped to develop? What role(s) did you fill? 2. Suggestions for Acceptance Testing. Describe one or more suggestions for techniques or practices that you believe are helpful for acceptance testing on agile projects. Why do you believe these are beneficial? Have you used them? Have you observed others use them? What contextual factors do you believe may make them more or less likely to lead to success? Participation is encouraged from testers, developers and anyone with an interest in testing and experience with testing on agile projects. Workshop attendance will be limited to 18 to ensure that everyone gets a chance to contribute to the discussion. Workshop Overview Unit tests are tests of code modules by the programmers who created them. Acceptance tests are tests of software functionality from a customer, or user, perspective. Both types of testing are important. Tools and practices to support and encourage unit testing on agile projects are well-developed and well-documented. The goal of this workshop is to discuss and develop practices for supporting acceptance testing on agile projects. (Some refer to acceptance testing as system or functional testing. GUI testing is a common approach.) How can acceptance testing be planned and executed on agile projects? What skills are required? Who should do this testing and how should they interact with other members of the team? How can agile projects be managed to support the definition and automation of these tests? The purpose of this workshop is to understand the needs for system testing on agile projects and survey various approaches that participants have used or observed on their projects. The goal of the workshop is to share experiences with acceptance testing on agile projects. Participants will gain a better understanding of what has and hasn't worked, including the contextual factors that are relevant. Several themes will guide the discussion. 1. Testing benefits from multiple perspectives. There is no best role or skill-set for testing. Rather, testing improves when multiple roles are involved in testing. 2. There is often a need for dedicated testers on agile projects, especially on larger ones. 3. Some testing must be done with the goal of finding problems, rather than verifying that the system meets requirements. 4. Traditional testing methodologies do not suit agile projects well. They require too much planning, have trouble adapting to change, and are uncomfortable with light-weight specifications. We are looking for participation from people who are sympathetic with these themes. We realize that they are controversial and that some people may want to debate them. This workshop, however, will not be the place for such debates. For additional background information on agile acceptance testing, please see . The workshop will be organized as a moderated discussion. We'll select participants to describe the experiences with agile acceptance testing in detail, with questioning from the other participants. The discussion format will follow the format of the Los Altos Workshop on Software Testing . The goal of the discussion is to allow the experiences of the participants to be explored allowing for an understanding of the assumptions and limits of the practices discussed. Organizing Committee Bret Pettichord, Pettichord Consulting, bret@pettichord.com Brian Marick, Testing Foundations, marick@testing.com Bret Pettichord is the chair and contact person. The organizing committee will jointly discuss and decide who to invite. During the workshop our role is the same as any one elses, except that one of us will moderate. After the workshop, the organizers will prepare a summary of the workshop discussions. Organizer Backgrounds Bret Pettichord specializes in software testing and test automation. Most recently he has been researching techniques for improving software testability. He believes that improved testability is the most important factor for successful system test automation and that the agile community's serious commitment to testing provides a opportunity for developing advances in system testing. Bret is the founder and host of the Austin Workshops on Test Automation and has co-hosted the Patterns of Software Testing workshops. He is co-author of "Lessons Learned in Software Testing: A Context-Driven Approach." Brian Marick specializes in software testing, especially code-based software testing. Long an proponent of test-first programming, he believes that there is an untapped potential to use acceptance tests to drive the specification and development of software. Brian has been an independent consultant since 1992. As such, he often works with groups in lecture, tutorial, and workshop formats. Most recently, he's lead the Patterns of Software Testing workshops . Brian is an author to the Agile Manifesto and co-hosts the Agile Testing mailing list .