Successful Agile with HP Quality Center

Market leading software for Quality Assurance

Table of contents
Becoming Agile and its challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 How HP Quality Center software supports Agile software development . . . . . . . . . . . .5 How HP QuickTest Professional supports Agile software development . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 For more information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8

In 2009, HP interviewed 781 IT professionals to find out who is using Agile and how they implement Agile processes . Sixty-nine percent were already using Agile methodologies . Out of the remaining 31 percent, half plan to start using Agile within the next two years . Two of the most common and successful methodologies are Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) .

Key drivers for implementing Agile software development processes: Accelerating time-to-market Enhancing software quality Increasing productivity Improving alignment between IT and business objectives Improving project visibility Reducing cost Enhancing the ability to manage changing priorities Reducing project risk Reducing process complexity

IT departments are tasked with increasingly diverse responsibilities in todays economy . They must support global, 24x7 operations and integrated supply chains while delivering applications to market in quicker iterations to respond to the demands of a hyper-competitive marketplace . Critical business decisions rely on collaboration and providing all teams with visibility into the development processes . In addition, there is zero tolerance for downtime . This coupled with the emergence of new technologies, which in themselves advocate flexibility, has led organizations to look for more iterative ways of working . One of the most popular means by which to achieve these objectives has been through the adoption of Agile development . Agile methods promote teamwork, frequent reviews, multiple iterations, self-organization, and accountability . When done right, Agile best practices allow for rapid delivery of high-quality software, and a business approach that aligns software development with customer needs and company goals . However, achieving the goals of Agile development can be tricky . Development teams must manage

increasing application complexity, Business Analysts (BA) need to learn how to capture requirements in higher level user stories which are both more flexible and can be easily interpreted by test and development teams, and finally the Quality Assurance (QA) organization needs to ensure they are prepared to test the multi-layered applications delivered by development and that their test plans are flexible enough to accommodate the changes occurring per iteration . To make sure these challenges are overcome, organizations need to not only look at Agile tools but if they want Agile to successfully scale they must put in place best practices and process support . Without this, Agile projects will be inefficient, expensive and most likely fail . HP Quality Centers suite of solutions help teams adapt to Agile by supporting various Agile stakeholders and by facilitating traceability between user stories, different test types and through defect management and integrations with third party solutions that meet the needs of development . HP Quality Center gives you the right tools to deploy high-quality applications quickly and effectively .

Becoming Agile and its challenges

Agile requires a shift in the way an organization thinks . It impacts all stages of the software

development lifecycle (SDLC) and all stakeholders within it from the BA to QA to development, therefore making collaboration a key success criteria .

How Agile requirements differ from traditional design requirements Traditional Detailed requirements Multiple functional requirements Written mainly by BA Multiple word documents Long design phases Single sign-off by BA or Product Management Agile Focus on user stories Prioritization is key Multiple stakeholders collaborate to define user stories Less time for design creation Requirements are more iterative

These challenges are often compounded by the fact that the move to Agile can be quite sudden and is often driven by specific teams within the organization forcing others to adopt . Some of the main challenges of Agile include: Change in working approach by multiple groups Pressures of new technology and the complex testing needed to support this Many different stakeholders working together Less time to plan Less time to execute Visibility into the status of the project Agile development requires work groups to change the way they approach the project and often requires teams who have been used to working in silos and

in different tools to move towards a unified method of working . In short, successful Agile projects require change at all levels and though there are big risksif executed well, Agile can provide even bigger payoffs . Visibility into the status of an Agile project is critical . It is vitally important to gain visibility across projects to allocate resources, manage constraints and be sure that compliance requirements are addressed . Working in short iterations and delivering the working software at the completion of each iteration provides proof to customers and additional stakeholders that an Agile project is progressing . Even more than this, visibility into the true status of a project improves the teams ability to be successful .

Agile lingo: QC releases and cycles Product is the term used to refer to the top level folder . Release is typically a product version. A release is developed incrementally . Increments may be called cycles, sprints, iterations, and so on according to the development paradigm . The assignment of items to a specific release and cycle is used to track the progress of the iteration and to identify items for reporting across the cycles .
The already high pressures of implementing new technologies and the complex testing they need are compounded by Agile methodologies . Project QA needs to be validated from every aspectfunctional, performance, and securityit needs to be repeatable, and that repeatability needs to be tested both manually and automatically. Repeatable QA testing significantly lowers the risks of Agile software design, and without automated tests, no team can finish the regression testing and exploratory testing needed to deliver high-quality software in such short intervals . However, many teams struggle to get traction on test automation often because of the perceived high costs and time associated with automation as a whole . Another key problem with Agile is that project managers are not only taking direction from customers but they also need to manage various development teams in unison . This can often lead to many stakeholders having conflicting views and the project manager becoming overwhelmed . In order to combat this the project manager must create a sense of cohesion between the stakeholders and make sure that when decisions are made that all stakeholders are appropriately informed . Even in traditional methodologies, managing multiple conflicting stakeholders can be tricky and political . In Agile projects, it is imperative . One of the final and probably most significant challenges of Agile we will touch on in this paper is the challenge of time . Traditionally in Agile projects there is less time to plan than with traditional software development projects, mainly because Agile projects must adapt quickly when a project needs to change and that makes it extremely hard to plan for the future . In addition to this, the further away a date is, the more vague the Agile schedule becomes . This compacted schedule further drives the need for better team collaboration . Less time to plan equates to less time to execute . Agile projects are done on a compressed timeline . That means every little snag becomes a big risk . Continuous QA testing can help mitigate that risk . And those small increments are also beneficial in projects where the requirements are volatile or poorly understood . The multiple iterations of discovery can actually help drive the refinement process and make each execution successful .

Figure 1. HP Quality Center in action HP Quality Center shows you the entire teams efforts in one clear view .

Benefits of HP Quality Center Customizable Fields and Attributes for additional information Modular Data Storage Structures Release and Cycle Management for SPRINT and backlog support

HP Quality Center helps your organization:

Gain real-time visibility into requirements coverage and associated defects to paint a clear picture of Custom Requirements Types for user stories and tasks business risk Manage the release process and make more informed release decisions with quality tracking and reporting Measure progress and effectiveness of quality activities Collaborate in the software quality lifecycle with a single global platform Manage manual, automated, and SOA testing assets centrally Facilitate standardized testing and quality processes that boost productivity through workflows and alerts Lower costs by using QA testing tools to capture critical defects before they reach production

User Role Configuration to support Agile roles such as the Scrum master Custom Workflow and Field Transition Rules Custom Reports for work tracking and velocity

How HP Quality Center software supports Agile software development

Both HP Quality Center software and the HP Quality Center suite of products help Agile teams to manage their needs throughout the application lifecycle providing customers with the right tools to deploy high-quality applications quickly and effectively .

Each of the modules within HP Quality Center can be tailored and leveraged by Agile teams: Management Module (formerly Releases and Cycles): can be used to manage the sprint and product backlogs, track progress of the iterationshow many tests are left to run over what timeframe, and track the quality of the iterations how many outstanding defects are there which need to be addressed in upcoming sprints . This allows you to keep track of both the actual effort spent and the remaining effort within current and future iterations . Requirements Module: Agile requirements are generally referred to as user stories . The requirements module in HP Quality Center is used to define and prioritize user stories, define the tasks which represent the work items associated with a user story lead, and align business and IT on what tests need to be developed . Because Agile timelines are so tight, effectively prioritizing which user stories and tests need to be assigned to which iterations and sprints is vital to addressing the most important user stories early in the release . To enable this HP Quality Center provides an inbuilt Risk-Based Quality Management Methodology which allows users to objectively assess testing priorities . Test Lab: Used to execute the manual tests Test Plan: Used to plan test iterations Dashboard and Microsoft Excel Reporting: The ability to track progress in Agile is vital . By leveraging the inbuilt and customizable reports in HP Quality Center customers can generate and view Agile reports such as Burn Up, Burn Down, Velocity (Microsoft Excel) and defect rate, user story status (dashboard), and the rest . Also with

HP Quality Centers centralized reporting, users can make real-time decisions based on application status across projects and QA initiatives . HP Quality Center can also export a report source into Microsoft Excel, letting your end users perform endless data manipulation . Specific features of HP Quality Center include: Asset Sharing: The ability to share assets between Quality Center projects including user stories, tests (manual and automated) and business components facilitates collaboration and accelerates Agile development . Traceability: Being able to effectively link and trace user stories, tests and defects provides QA managers, the business and developers visibility into the impact and inter-relationships of what they are working on . Having this visibility is essential when multiple stakeholders are working on the same asset in fast-paced Agile iterations . Versioning and baselining: Versioning allows distributed teams to collaborate and manage multiple versions of test assets in parallel, while providing an audit history of changes throughout the project lifecycle . Baselining allows you to capture a group of requirements, tests, or test assets at strategic points in the project lifecycle to mark specific milestones . You can compare baselines to assess the impact of changes and enable rollback of assets, if required . Different baselines can be pinned to different test sets to allow parallel developmentan essential component of Agile in large organizations that manage multiple releases at one time as part of an organization-wide initiative .

Figure 2. HP Quality Center in action HP Quality Center helps estimate effort needed and expended on user stories and tasks .

How HP QuickTest Professional supports Agile software development

HP QuickTest Professional software automates functional regression test automation on a Web or client-based desktop computer application . It captures, verifies and replays user interactions automatically and helps testers quickly identify and report on application effects, while providing advanced functionality for tester collaboration . HP QuickTest Professional offers a fresh approach to automated testing: it deploys the concept of keyword-driven testing to radically simplify test creation and maintenance . Using keyword capabilities, testers can build test cases by capturing flows directly from the application screens and applying robust capturing technology (record/replay) . Power users get full access to the underlying test and object properties through an integrated scripting and debugging environment that is synchronized with the Keyword View capability for your complete testing cycle . Using the varied range of automated test tools from HP QuickTest Professional to HP Business Process Testing to HP Service Test for SOA, QA teams and Agile stakeholders can: Be empowered to create sophisticated test suites with less training

Establish correct functionality across all environments, data sets, and business processes Fully document and replicate defects for developers, helping them fix defects faster and meet production deadlines Easily regression test ever-changing applications and environments Deliver quality products and services and improve revenues and profitability Enable tester workgroups to share automated testing assets across teams Together, HP Quality Center and HP Functional Testing software provide Web-based, integrated systems for requirements management, automated software quality testing, and defect management across a wide range of application environments . The software modules provide the visibility needed to validate both functionality and automated business processesand identify bottlenecks in production that hamper business outcomes . The HP Quality Center suite enables Agile teams to engage in application testing even before the development process is complete, which helps accelerate release schedules while maintaining quality .

With HP Quality Center, you can:

HP Quality Center supports Agile development and testing Supports Agile practicesScrum methodology: Sprint, Backlog, and User story Can be tailored to user and project needsTasks, estimation, planning, and spent hours Can be used by all project stakeholdersTesters, developers, business analysts, and the like Can be used along the entire project lifecycleFrom planning to delivery, testing included Reports project progress and delivered valueProject and cycle progress, burn-up/down charts, requirements coverage

Make go-live decisions with confidence Standardize and manage the entire quality process Reduce application deployment risk Improve application quality and reliability Manage application change impact through manual and automated functional testing Provide quality in strategic sourcing initiatives Develop a warehouse of critical application quality project data

The HP Quality Center suite provides real-time visibility of requirements coverage and associated defects to evaluate quality and business risk . Multi-dimensional traceability is supported between user stories, tests and defects, across releases and iterations . When a user story changes, a change impact report provides visibility into the other assets affected, enabling you to avoid a full regression test after each change . Dispersed teams also receive prompt notification of any changes that might impact their own tasks . HP Quality Center allows you to enhance your application development processes to take advantage of the benefits of Agile . Use HP Quality Center to get flexible .

Summary

HP Quality Center streamlines the end-to-end quality process from requirements management through test execution and defect managementinto one, globally accessible, Web-based software platform .

Agile software development is quickly becoming the preferred way to build mission-critical software For more information systems . However, if it is not implemented properly customers can run the risk of increasing costs and loss To learn more, visit www.hp.com/go/quality of quality instead of making teams more effective . There are frequently challenges among stakeholders, problems with communication, compressed schedules, and various types of testing each with its own set of requirements, schedules, and procedures . The complexity of testing is increasing as applications themselves become more complex and initial testing is increasingly difficulttrying to run all these tests in an Agile environment compounds the problem even further . By defining dependencies among tests you can realistically emulate real-life business processes and make it easier to maintain and reuse the tests .

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Copyright 20092010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L .P . The information contained herein is subject to change without notice . The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty . HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein . 4AA2-7240ENW Rev. 1, January 2010

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