How to make Agile Testing in an offshore context work

1. Building a professional test unit offshore – Sri Lanka &Going Agile with your offshore team Improveyour testing capacity by expanding offshore

2. Jan Petter HagbergSuperOffice ASQA Manager Processes/methods responsible and SCRUM master Offshore responsible in SuperOfficePrevious:Agresso– developer WM Data- developer SuperOffice – developer/Project Mgr/QA Mgr

3. Building a professional test unit offshore – Sri Lanka Improveyour testing capacity by expanding offshore

4. New way of working restructuring of an organization’s workforce to find the perfect mix of jobs that can be moved to foreign countries or be performed locally Outsourcing Rightshoring Nearshoring Offshoring

5. SuperOfficeOffshoringStrategy Access to resources 4 million people is not that many to choose from We needed test resources Learnaboutoffshoring To be able to evaluate SuperOffice in an offshoring perspective we wanted to check it out and learn! The price $ The price of labour in an offshoring context Offshoring costs money, the price is important

6. SuccessMetrics Assignment Build a professional offshore test team in Sri Lanka Wevisited Colombo in December 2007 and startedinterviewingcandidates Team ready 1st ofJanuary 2008 Success We have a goodfunctional test team Motivated team members Highly skilled Stability Communicationthatworks Fullyintegratedintoourproduction line and dailywork. Not easy to just end thiscommitment

7. How did we achieve this ?

8. The world is flat A very good book ”In this world services can be delivered electronically over longdistanceswithlittle or nodegradation in quality” ”In thefuture, it will be more important to be goodwithpeople and communication thanwith computers” Alan Blinder

9. Challenges – how did we overcome Training Getting started Culture Distributed Teams Team Building Communication

10. Getting started 3 levels to Nirvana Level 1: Project orientedapproach More like outsourcing Level 2: Same project, butworkon separate tasks Needs more coordination Level 3 Work together on same tasks as a team on a daily basis Offshore location really is an integrated part of the rest of RnD

11. Getstarted What did we do Internally you should first talk about offshoring as an alternative. Get accept for trying this out What happens if you scale down? Findoutwhere to establishyour offshore location costs (price and travel expences) Using a professional partner makes it easier  Probably better to work with another small country to get the attention you need Point of contact: Don’t put your best technical person on this task, use one with good communication skills and one who is interested in succeeding Have one contact person/team lead in each location This person will use a lot of his/her time to communicate with the offshore location

12. Getstarted Interviews Do yourowninterviews Used powerpoint for parts of the interview Emphasize that this interview will be done in a norwegian style and there will be no ”trick” questions Interview many and pick the ones who also understand the cultural differences and is interested in a long term commitment His/her english has to be understandable

13. Culture Differences in culture Used to a more hierarchicalstructure ”Nordic management” is an asset Seem not to be used to say what they really think The girls don’t talk too much Used to being measured by KPI’s and work to achieve those. This may not be whatyouwant. May be used to failure leading to consequences. Results in doing things in the safe way You need to build trust that this is not the case Can be challenging to work in a country where: You change jobs frequently to improve your living conditions CV shopping – collect certificates “Climbing the ladder” is important (career) Conflicts going on (war and piece and that stuff…) Linecapacity is expensive / latency

14. Teambuilding @ work We meet twice a year When we meet we use workshops for: Working with communication, teambuilding and trust Work to build a common understanding Exchange experiences Create a common ownership of what we implements and our processes Retrospectives and future plans When in Sri Lanka, we try to work in their environment Bandwith slow – feel their pain(s) Allways prioritize feedback to offshore location Easy to forget to also include/inform offshore location about things happening on onshore location Using a lot of effort on teambuilding is an investment We knows each other (QA and developers) and it is easy to contact eachother Easier to know who knows what and who is best in an area This is an investment for long term relationships

15. Teambuilding Afterwork Important to get to know eachotheroutside a workingenvironment Personal relationshipscreates trust Do activities together that requires cooperation – we love to cook together at someones house  Show them your country  A walk in the woods A boattrip on the fjord Seasons Silence Norwegian food …

16. Communication No language barriers Rely on English or other conceivable language. Specifications / User Stories Test Procedures Test Plans Documentation Bug database This is important as agile is all about communication.

17. Communication Visualization We needed an effective way of communication Started off with reports etc Have developed more visual ways to communicate and work together over a distance Automation Automate communication that can be automated When specifications/documents are updated an e-mail is sent to everybody on the team When a build breaks, send an e-mail to notify Automatically upload builds every night after build is complete Presence Important with overlapping time zones Quick feedback is vital, I always prioritize feedback to SL Use “Nick” on MSN to indicate what you are working with The people in the two locations needs to get to know each other  easier to make a call (skype)

18. Communication

19. Collocated vs Distributed Teams Collocated Productivity of collocated teams is higher Collocated Easy to communicate (face to face) Fast More disturbance in the collocated workspace. This will impact productivity Almost all communication is not documented Distributed Distance is not a barrier to those who want to communicate. Instant messengers, wiki or forums provide a quick and easy way to communicate even in a distributed environment. In the end it all comes down to how the team members communicate with each other. Not the same kind of disturbance in remote location (not that many meetings, bosses etc) Almost all communication is documented. Easy to go back and look up what we agreed upon

20. Distributed Teams Time Zones Synchronize the offshore with the onsite business hours. A person that comes early at onsite location can help offshore location if needed Builds and test runs can be scheduled to be ready by offshore mornings so that the analysis on any failures is complete and ready to be picked up by onsite mornings.

21. Going Agile with your offshore test team..(?)

22. Agile Testing Definition of Agile Testing Testers are an integrated part of the team Participate in the sprint planning Start testing activities from day 1 Collaborates with the customer to define the acceptance test criteria Test stories once they are complete Focuses on test automation Focuses more on exploratory testing Practice pair testing Collaborates with development team Provides continuous feedback to the team

23. Agile Testing Agile Testing principles Provide continuous feedback Deliver value to the customer Enable face to face communication Have courage Keep it simple Practice continuous improvement Respond to change Self organize Focus on people Enjoy

24. Bottom line Agile Testing principles Agile testing is all about applying agile values and principles to testing Testers provide information, feedback and suggestions rather than being last phase of defense Testing is no more a phase; it integrates closely with Development Continuous testing is the only way to ensure continuous progress. The value of Agile testing lies in effective communication between developers, testers and the product owner If you manage to make teambuilding, work processes and communication work with your offshore location, then Agile Testing is within reach.

25. This means that QA in Sri Lanka... Reviews specifications / user stories Tests during the sprints Communicates directly with the developers. This works because they know each other Knows our products and provides feedback if they see things that can be improved or other improvements (process, infrastructure...) Are involved in as many planning activities as we can ...but they do not participate in Sprint plannings and daily stand-up’s  Going Agile with your offshore team

26. Challenges Workarounds We have QA persons in Norway that ”represents” the QA team in Sri Lanka Attends to Sprint planning, daily Stand-up’s Pair tests with developers The eyes and ears of the offsite location Meetings Today: Meetings with Webcams and Skype/WebEx/... are difficult Tomorrow: Just invested in Tandberg system  I still findit a bit odd and difficult to have a Stand-up with 7 norwegian speaking and two english speaking team members In a video meeting it should be possible to interrupt in a discussion

27. What is hard – everything How to get started A new experience in the beginning, new culture, new place Culture A lot of new things to learn, not least in the way you have to attack problems at work and what is important Teambuilding Hard enough “onshore”. Important that the teambuilding also continues after you have met. I.e by remembering to include everybody in the communication Communication Manytoolscanhelpyou in all plannedactivities, butthecommunicationthathappens in front ofthecoffemachine is harder to distribute – GoogleWave Collocated & Distributed Teams Can exploit the difference in time zones and red letter days If all oftheaboveworks, then agile testing withyour offshore team is possible

28. Q&A jan.petter.hagberg@superoffice.com no.linkedin.com/in/janpetterhagberg