Abstract
Software developers and testers have to work together
to achieve the goals of software development projects. In
globally distributed software projects the development and testing
are often scattered across multiple locations forming virtual
teams. Further, the distributed projects are so complex that none
of team members can possibly possess all the knowledge about
the project individually. During testing in such teams, developers
and testers need to coordinate and communicate frequently.
However, coordination is affected by the availability of the project
information, which is distributed among different project
members and organizational structures. Many companies are
facing decisions about how to apply agile methods in their distributed
projects. These companies are often motivated by the
opportunities of solving the coordination and communication
difficulties associated with global software development. In this
paper we investigate the communication between testers and
developers in two teams from two software companies performing
continuous agile testing in a distributed setting. We describe
four communication practices used by the team: handover
through issue tracker system, formal meetings, written communication
and coordination by mutual adjustment. We also discuss
communication between testers and developers in collocated versus
distributed testers and developers. We have found that early
participation of the testers is very important to the success of the
handover between testers and developers. The communication
between developers and testers is not sufficiently effective
through written communication and that it changes depending
on the type of the tasks and experience of the testers.
to achieve the goals of software development projects. In
globally distributed software projects the development and testing
are often scattered across multiple locations forming virtual
teams. Further, the distributed projects are so complex that none
of team members can possibly possess all the knowledge about
the project individually. During testing in such teams, developers
and testers need to coordinate and communicate frequently.
However, coordination is affected by the availability of the project
information, which is distributed among different project
members and organizational structures. Many companies are
facing decisions about how to apply agile methods in their distributed
projects. These companies are often motivated by the
opportunities of solving the coordination and communication
difficulties associated with global software development. In this
paper we investigate the communication between testers and
developers in two teams from two software companies performing
continuous agile testing in a distributed setting. We describe
four communication practices used by the team: handover
through issue tracker system, formal meetings, written communication
and coordination by mutual adjustment. We also discuss
communication between testers and developers in collocated versus
distributed testers and developers. We have found that early
participation of the testers is very important to the success of the
handover between testers and developers. The communication
between developers and testers is not sufficiently effective
through written communication and that it changes depending
on the type of the tasks and experience of the testers.
