The Agile Manifesto forSoftware Quality Engineering

Through our work, we have discovered better ways of building usable, accessible, reliable, maintainable, secure, scalable and performant software by valuing:

PreventionoverGoalkeeping

Context-driven CoverageoverSystematic Coverage

Testing ExpertiseoverExhaustive Scripts

AutomationoverManual

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Principles

1

Exploratory testing over scripted-only testing

2

Shift-left testing over late-stage quality checks

3

Test design patterns over ad-hoc test cases

4

API-level validation over UI-only testing

5

Contract testing over end-to-end only

6

Continuous testing over scheduled testing windows

7

Cross-browser automation over single browser focus

1

Fail as a team over Success as an individual

2

Continuous Improvement over big bang changes

3

Collaborative ownership over isolated responsibility

4

Cross-functional skills over single-domain expertise

5

Technical debt awareness over feature velocity

1

Data-driven decisions over intuition

2

Quality metrics monitoring over pass/fail status

3

Test data as code over manual test data management

4

Documentation as code over static documentation

1

Performance testing in a continuous manner over end-stage load tests

2

Chaos engineering over stability assumptions

3

Performance budgets over reactive optimisation

4

Scalability over short-term solutions

5

Service virtualisation over complete system dependencies

1

Security by design over security by audit

2

Security scanning in pipeline over periodic audits

3

Accessibility testing integrated over compliance checkpoints

1

Quality gates automation over manual approvals

2

Root cause analysis over symptom fixing

3

Observability by design over reactive monitoring

4

Quality-driven development over quality as afterthought

5

Feedback loops over retrospective-only learnings

6

Test environment parity over production-only validation

Authors

Passionate about evolving software quality practices and building usable and reliable systems.