How the Three Amigos Made Us A

More Effective Team

Sylvia MacDonald

Sylvia MacDonald

NewVoiceMedia, UK

@SylviaMacd

How The Three Amigos made us an effective team

Sylvia MacDonald @SylviaMacD

Problems

There’s been a few...

CC image OOPS! Courtesy of leasqueaky on flickr

Financial report with missing transactions

CC image Chrysalis to Butterfly courtesy of Sid Mosdell on flickr

Two attempts to fix:

• Developer only

• No customer input

• No tester input

Financial report project - result

Failed – twice!

• 1st attempt – no effect• 2nd attempt – abandoned• Customer unhappy• Expensive• One of my favourite projects!

No conversations = two failures!

Lesson learned!

• Owner showed me the problem• DBA and I analysed data• Another feature team fixed the bug• Bug fixed within 2 hours

Mytop fiveproblems

CC image OOPS! Courtesy of leasqueaky on flickr

CC image Garbage Dump on the Interstate courtesy of Phil’s 1stPix on flickr

1. That’s not what I wanted!

With acknowledgements to Businessballs.com and S Hogh

2. Trying to solve a problem you don’t understand

Not understanding the business problem affects:

• The solution• The acceptance criteria• The exploratory testing• The work delivered

3. Can you explore something you don’t understand?

CC image I Can’t See You… courtesy of Peter on flickr

Yes! But understanding helps

Yes, but its better if you do!

4. Going it alone - work appears in ‘ready to test’

5. If only we thought about that before…

CC image ‘duh’ courtesy of Charlie Cowins on flickr

Common theme?

Ineffective collaboration!

•No conversations

•Conversations too late

•Not including the right people

The Three Amigos

• What, who, where

• Benefits

• Challenges

• Tips

What is a Three Amigos session?

Collaboration across 3 roles• Business • Developers• Testers

Also called Specification workshop

Why do a Three Amigos?

Helps the team answer:

• What problem are we trying to solve? (outcomes)• How will we solve it?• How will we test it?• How will we release it?• How do we know its done?

Brainstorm the scenarios - rules and examplesThe one where…

Collaboration isn’t just one meeting – its ongoing!

Our Three Amigos

1. Backlog grooming

2. Three Amigos meeting

3. Ongoing collaboration

Is the story ready to be 3 Amigo’d?

Backlog grooming session

• Once per sprint, 30 mins, 2-4 stories.

• Product owner, developer and tester

• Led by product owner

• Does the story describe the business impact?

• Surface unknowns earlier, spikes

Our Three Amigos process

• Every story has a 3 Amigos

• Product owner, dev and test

• Invite others, eg architects, security

• 30 minutes

Our Three Amigos process - continued

• Work though story template

• Explore everyone’s suggestions and questions

• Update Jira story as we go

• Split stories as needed

Our Three Amigos – locationRemote session – UK & Poland

• At desks

• Via Lync or hangouts

• White board huddle

• Post it notes!

Focus on scenarios – rules and examples

Rule

“Useful message generated when web service end point returns an error”

Focus on scenarios – rules and examples

Rule

“Useful message generated when web service end point returns an error”

Examples - different messages

• 404 config error• 500 error• Time outs• Network error

Capture anything that affects the story

Release strategy:

• Toggles• Backwards compatibility• Rollback considerations

Other:

• Unanswered questions• Decisions• Out of scope work• New stories – split them out

How are we going to test this?

• Testing scope• Acceptance criteria • Rules and examples• Automated tests• Exploratory testing charters• Testing mind map• Mock required?• Any technical difficulty?

After the Three Amigos session – keep collaborating!

• Demos to PO during dev

• Dev/Test pairing

• Dev & test share test mind map

• Follow up all questions

• Emerging acceptance criteria

If the story changes significantly …re 3 Amigo it!

Benefits gained

The whole team understands WHAT we are building and WHY

Identify unknowns earlier

Is a spike needed?

Do we need to speak to others?• Ops• DBAs• Architects• Professional Services• Feature teams

CC image Question 1 courtesy of Virtual EyeSee on flickr

Reduced surprises – delivery of stories is smootherBetter designed stories

Story splitting improved

Smaller focussed stories

Reduced scope creep

Collaboration improved automated test scenarios

Improved WIP and cycle timeStories pulled by TEAM rather than pushed by an individual

CC image Highland Regiments Tug-of-War courtesy of Jamie McCaffrey on flickr

Less escaped bugs in test staging environment

CC image ‘2 Pet Crickets having fun, dancing and doing handstands’ courtesy of I a walsh on flickr

Dev and test share knowledge and skills

Developers became better testers

Testers improved technical skills

Mutual respect for each other

CC image group hug courtesy of Mel Aclaro on flickr

Main challenges

CC image Obstacle Race – Dornoch Highhland Gathering 2007 courtesy of John Haslam on flickr

Reluctance – willing to try but not sure of the benefit

CC image ‘Is there any food left for me?’ courtesy of Beverley Goodwin on flickr

Calendar clashes - people not available at the same time

Given/When/Then syntax during 3 Amigos

Give / When / Then

Given the call accesses the web serviceWhen the web service returns a 404 error Then a service not found config error message is written to the logs

Given/When/Then syntax de-railed 3 Amigos

Rule & examples

“Useful message logged when end point returns an error”

404 = configuration msg 1Time outs = configuration msg 2500 = error msg 1Network error = error msg 2

Give / When / Then

Given the call accesses the web serviceWhen the web service returns a 404 error Then a service not found config error message is written to the logs

It’s too small for a 3 Amigos

CC image “Here’s looking at you’ courtesy of vagawi on flickr

Top 10 tips

1. Three Amigos is a collaboration mind set

2. People doing the work attend the sessions

3. Everyone participates – it’s not a presentation

4. Be prepared - come with ideas and questions

5. Ensure everyone is happy before moving on

6. Use example mapping and good story splits

7. Build a shared testing artefact

8. Acceptance criteria in plain language – automate after

9. Time box session to 30 – 60 minutes max

10. Book daily sessions in the calendar to build habits

What’s the complication, it’s only conversation…Credits: The Feeling – Love it when you call.

How can you start?

1. Run an experiment – have a 3 Amigos session!2. Start talking to your colleagues more3. Ask questions as early as possible4. If it looks like a solution, ask what the business impact is.5. Offer to pair with your dev or tester.6. Join relevant meetings.

Some resources

Books1. Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your User Stories - Chapter: Involve all roles in the discussion 2. BDD in Action by John Ferguson Smart3. Specification by Example by Gojko Adzic4. The BDD Books – Discovery Explore behaviour using examples by Gaspar Nagy & Seb Rose

Articles and toolshttps://cucumber.io/blog/2014/03/03/the-worlds-most-misunderstood-collaboration-toolhttps://cucumber.io/blog/2015/12/08/example-mapping-introduction http://www.velocitypartners.net/blog/2014/02/11/the-3-amigos-in-agile-teams/http://itsadeliverything.com/three-amigos-meeting-agree-the-tests-before-development-starts https://gojko.net/2008/11/12/specification-workshops-an-agile-way-to-get-better-requirements/http://www.teamuplabs.com/

Questions?

Sylvia MacDonald

Engineering Manager at NewVoiceMedia

@SylviaMacd

Meetup - Reading Tester Gathering