CAT flashcards
CAT · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Agile Manifesto
- A 2001 statement of four values and twelve principles for software development, emphasizing individuals, working software, customer collaboration, and responding to change over processes, documentation, contracts, and plans.
- Scrum Master
- A Scrum role responsible for establishing Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide, coaching the team and organization, and removing impediments to the team's progress.
- Product Owner
- A Scrum role accountable for maximizing product value by managing and ordering the Product Backlog and ensuring the team understands the backlog items.
- Sprint Retrospective
- A Scrum event at the end of a Sprint where the team inspects how the last Sprint went regarding individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and Definition of Done, and identifies improvements.
- Definition of Done
- A shared, explicit agreement describing the quality criteria that a Product Backlog item must meet to be considered complete; it is used to assess when work is finished.
- Kanban WIP limit
- A constraint on the maximum number of work items allowed in a workflow state at one time; it helps manage flow, expose bottlenecks, and improve cycle time.
- Test pyramid
- A model recommending many fast, isolated unit tests at the base, fewer service/API tests in the middle, and few slow, brittle UI/end-to-end tests at the top.
- Whole-team approach
- An agile principle that everyone on the team is responsible for quality and testing; testers contribute expertise but do not own all testing activities.
- Shift-left testing
- Performing testing activities such as static analysis, reviews, and test design as early as possible in the lifecycle to find defects when they are cheaper to fix.
- Agile Testing Quadrants
- A model by Brian Marick categorizing tests as technology-facing or business-facing and as supporting the team or critiquing the product, yielding four quadrants for test planning.
- Seven testing principles
- ISTQB principles: testing shows presence of defects, exhaustive testing is impossible, early testing saves time and money, defect clustering, pesticide paradox, testing is context dependent, absence-of-errors fallacy.
- Iterative and incremental testing
- An agile testing process where testing is continuous across iterations; each iteration produces a potentially shippable increment that is tested and integrated with previous work.
- Test-driven development (TDD)
- A development technique cycling through red (write a failing test), green (write minimum code to pass), and refactor; tests are written before production code to drive design.
- Acceptance test-driven development (ATDD)
- A collaborative practice where acceptance criteria are defined before implementation and acceptance tests are derived from them, often automated, to guide development.
- Behavior-driven development (BDD)
- An extension of ATDD using a ubiquitous language; scenarios are written in Given/When/Then format (Gherkin) to describe expected behavior and drive development and testing.
- Three amigos
- A collaboration of business representative, developer, and tester to discuss a user story and produce shared acceptance criteria, reducing misunderstandings and rework.
- INVEST criteria
- Guidelines for good user stories: Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable. Testable stories have clear acceptance criteria.
- Exploratory testing
- Simultaneous learning, test design, and execution; testers design and run tests in parallel, often using session-based test management with charters and time-boxed sessions.
- Acceptance criteria
- Conditions that a product backlog item must satisfy to be accepted; they define story boundaries and are the basis for acceptance tests, often written as rules or Given/When/Then scenarios.
- Continuous integration (CI)
- A practice where developers integrate code into a shared repository frequently, triggering automated builds and tests to detect integration problems early.
- Session-based test management
- A method for structuring exploratory testing into time-boxed sessions with a charter, session sheet, and debrief, making exploratory testing measurable and accountable.
- Gherkin
- A plain-text language using Given/When/Then steps to describe behavior scenarios; used by BDD tools such as Cucumber to link specifications to automated tests.
- Tester in agile team
- A role that collaborates on requirements and acceptance criteria, designs and executes tests, automates regression, performs exploratory testing, and reports quality metrics.
- Risk-based testing
- Prioritizing testing effort based on risk, typically likelihood and impact, to focus on the areas most likely to cause product failures or business harm.
- Daily stand-up
- A short daily team meeting (often 15 minutes) to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog; testers share testing progress and impediments.
- Backlog refinement
- An ongoing activity where the team reviews and improves Product Backlog items, adding detail, estimates, and acceptance criteria; testers contribute testability and risk insights.
- Escaped defect
- A defect that was not detected during development testing and was found later, such as in production or by the customer; a metric of test effectiveness.
- Test automation pyramid layers
- The layers are unit tests at the base, service or API tests in the middle, and UI or end-to-end tests at the top; the pyramid guides automation investment.
- Definition of Ready
- An optional team agreement describing criteria a Product Backlog item must meet before it can be taken into a Sprint, such as clear acceptance criteria and testability.
- Sprint review
- A Scrum event at the end of a Sprint where the team and stakeholders inspect the Increment and adapt the Product Backlog; testers may present test results and quality status.
- Quality metrics in agile
- Measures such as defect density, test coverage, escaped defects, and automation percentage used to guide improvement and communicate quality status, not to blame individuals.
- Cross-functional team
- An agile team containing all skills needed to deliver a working product increment, including testing expertise, reducing handoffs and dependencies on external groups.