Lean from the Trenches

Step 4: Automate a Few Tests Each Iteration

Regardless of the test automation backlog, each new feature should include an automated test at the feature level. That’s the XP practice known as customer acceptance tests. Not doing that is what got your system into this mess in the first place.

But in addition to implementing new stories, we want to spend some time automating old test cases for previously existing stories. How much time should we spend on that? The team needs to negotiate that with the product owner.

For example, we may agree that 80 percent of the team’s capacity will be spent on developing new features from the product backlog and 20 percent of the capacity will be spent on the test automation backlog. So, during each iteration ...