CDA Agile Testing & Quality Practices 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Disciplined Agile, what does the practice of 'test-driven development' (TDD) primarily aim to achieve?
- Maximize code coverage metrics
- Drive design through small, failing tests written before production code (Correct answer)
- Automate all regression testing
- Replace manual QA entirely
Correct answer: Drive design through small, failing tests written before production code
TDD drives design by writing a failing test first, then writing minimal code to pass it, resulting in cleaner, more testable design.
Question 2: Which Agile testing quadrant focuses on technology-facing tests that critique the product, such as performance and security testing?
- Quadrant 1
- Quadrant 2
- Quadrant 3
- Quadrant 4 (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Quadrant 4
Agile Testing Quadrant 4 covers technology-facing tests that critique the product, including performance, load, security, and 'ility' testing.
Question 3: A DA team discovers that their automated test suite takes 45 minutes to run. What is the BEST approach according to Agile quality practices?
- Run the full suite only weekly
- Parallelize tests and optimize to keep the suite under 10 minutes (Correct answer)
- Remove slow tests from the suite
- Accept the duration as a cost of quality
Correct answer: Parallelize tests and optimize to keep the suite under 10 minutes
Fast feedback is essential in Agile; teams should optimize and parallelize test suites so developers get results quickly, ideally within 10 minutes.
Question 4: What is 'exploratory testing' in the context of Disciplined Agile?
- Unscripted, simultaneous learning, test design, and execution guided by tester judgment (Correct answer)
- Testing all code paths exhaustively without a script
- A form of user acceptance testing done by product owners
- Randomly clicking through the application to find bugs
Correct answer: Unscripted, simultaneous learning, test design, and execution guided by tester judgment
Exploratory testing is a simultaneous process of learning, designing, and executing tests, driven by the tester's skill and curiosity rather than predefined scripts.
Question 5: In DA, which quality practice involves team members other than the author reviewing code changes before they are merged?
- Pair programming
- Code review / pull request review (Correct answer)
- Static code analysis
- Mob programming
Correct answer: Code review / pull request review
Code reviews (often via pull requests) involve peers examining code changes for defects, style issues, and design concerns before merging.
Question 6: A Disciplined Agile team wants to shift quality left. Which action BEST represents this approach?
- Moving QA team members to a separate department
- Performing all testing after each sprint
- Embedding testers in the team and writing tests during requirement analysis (Correct answer)
- Delaying testing until the final release candidate
Correct answer: Embedding testers in the team and writing tests during requirement analysis
Shifting left means involving testers early — during requirements and design — so defects are prevented and caught before code is even written.
Question 7: What is the primary purpose of a 'definition of done' (DoD) in Agile quality practices?
- To define the backlog items for the next sprint
- To establish a shared, explicit checklist that determines when a work item is truly complete (Correct answer)
- To document the acceptance criteria for the product owner
- To set the team's velocity target for the iteration
Correct answer: To establish a shared, explicit checklist that determines when a work item is truly complete
The DoD is a shared agreement listing all conditions — including testing, reviews, and documentation — that must be met before work is considered complete.
CDA Agile Testing & Quality Practices 2
In Disciplined Agile, what does the practice of 'test-driven development' (TDD) primarily aim to achieve?