“Critiquing the Product Using Technology-Facing Tests”
- Technology-facing tests that critique the product are more concerned with the non-functional aspects – deficiencies of the product from a technical point of view.
- We describe requirements using a programming domain vocabulary. This is the main of Quadrant-4 of our Agile Testing Quadrants.
- Customers simply assume that software will be designed to properly accommodate the potential load, at a reasonable rate of performance. It doesn’t always occur to them to verbalize those concerns.
- Tools, whether home-grown or acquired, are essential to succeed with Quadrant 4 testing efforts.
“Many teams find that a good technical tester or toolsmith can take on many of these tasks.”
Take a second look at the skills that your team already posseses, and brainstorm about the types of “ility” testing that can be done with the resources you already have. If you need outside teams, plan for that in your release and iteration planning.
The information these (Quadrant-4) tests provide may result in new stories and tasks in areas such as changing the architecture for better scalability or implementing a system-wide security solution. Be sure to complete the feedback loop from tests that critique the product to tests that drive changes that will improve the non-functional aspects of the product.
When Do you Do it?
- Technical stories can be written to address specific requirements.
- Consider a separate row on your story board for tasks needed by the product as a whole.
- Find a way to test them early in the project
- Prioritize stories such that a steel thread or a thin slice is complete early, so that you can create a performance test that can be run and continued as you add more functionality.
- The time to think about your non-functional tests is during release or theme planning.
The team should consider various types of “ility” testing including – Security, maintainability, Interoperability, Compatibility, Reliability and Installability – and should execute them at appropriate times.
Performance, Scalability, Stress and Load tests should be done from the beginning of the project.
testwithnishi 
It is always good to be reminded that non-functional and technical testing is required. Without the “ilities” functionality would not be quite so functional.
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