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- [Instructor] Let's talk about tests

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that guide development.

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Janet, what are some of the
things that we might not think

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of as tests, but actually
do help guide development?

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- Well there's actually
quite of few of them.

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One of my favorites is getting
up and doing a whiteboard.

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Maybe a mind map.

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Because you can start
testing the mind map.

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You're starting to get
our ideas out there.

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A flow diagram is something
that I use quite often as well.

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Just to kind of start showing about

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what does the process look?

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That challenges people's ideas

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because quite often I've had people go,

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well that's not the way
it works, what about this?

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So there's lots of different
ways that we can do that.

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- Yeah we mentioned
earlier that tools they use

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in non-agile products
can still work in agile.

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Flow diagrams are a great example.

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On my team our designers often are

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in on the beginning of every feature.

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And they'll just start

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with simple hand-drawn mockups on paper.

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Sometimes they'll just
talk to us individually

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or post them up on the wall so people come

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and take a look at them and
really think about them.

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So just those simple approaches.

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We may not think of them as a test,

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but they do help us think

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about how we're going
to test that feature.

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- I was in an iteration
planning meeting one time,

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and the programmers, there
was a couple of programmers

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on the whiteboard doing their drawing

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and talking about how they
thought it should work.

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And the product owners, he's nodding.

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And I'm looking at it and I
just kinda say stop, just stop.

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And they looked at me,
and I, I can't test that.

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You have so many
permutations, combinations,

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it's impossible to test.

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And the room went silent, just
silent, it was so much fun.

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And then one of the programmers
who had been sitting quietly

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jumped up to the whiteboard,
I love whiteboards,

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and started drawing, asked
the product owner and said,

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"would this solve your problem?"

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The product owner said,

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"it's much simpler, not
nearly as, you know, sexy,

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but it's, yeah it'll work."

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And he looks at me and he said, "Janet,

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can you test this?"

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And I said yes, because I can

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actually get my hands around this.

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So sometimes just asking those
questions is a form of test.

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- Great.

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And like you say, being able
to draw on the whiteboard,

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or it might be some kind of virtual tool

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if you have a distributing team,

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that's where the magic happens.

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And when your team has domain knowledge,

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when you hear the business people

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or the product owner talking
about what they want,

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you realize you could
deliver them like 80%

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of what they want for 20% of the cost,

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and that's an opportunity to share that.

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- Right, and I just noticed,

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and you may not have noticed but I did,

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I have a virtual whiteboard here.

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(laughter)

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- You can use it anywhere.
- I use it all the time.

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- Well, next we're gonna talk about tests

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that help us critique the product.