Supporting Agile Teams with a Test Analytics Platform: A Case Study

Abstract

Continuous improvement, feedback mechanisms and automated testing are cornerstones of agile methods. We introduce the concept of test analytics, which brings these three practices together. We illustrate the concept with an industrial case study and describe the experiments run by a team who had set a goal for itself to get better at testing. Beyond technical aspects, we explain how these experiments have changed the mindset and the behaviour of the team members. We then present an open source test analytics platform, later developed to share the positive learnings with the community. We describe the platform features and architecture and explain how it can be easily put to use. Before the conclusions, we explain how test analytics fits in the broader context of software analytics and present our ideas for future work.