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Why you are not agile if you are not unit testing

Agile development processes (e.g. Scrum) are increasingly used in SAP BW / BI and HANA projects. Agile development forces very frequent, extensive testing of periodic deliveries. To ensure this, the fastest and most efficient automatic form of functional testing is necessary: unit testing 1.

The following 3 reasons explain why unit tests are a basic requirement for agile SAP projects, DevOps or CD / CI:

  • they ensure fastest development, testing and delivery, through very efficient small test cases that are regressive executable by default
  • they let you detect errors already in the requirements and development phase, by the possibility of Shift-Left
  • they are the most robust test cases with minimal maintenance efforts, since unit tests are always isolated and can run independently of all system data (e.g. independent of any database table data or BW provider data)

In the "Agile Manifesto" 2 , the periodic delivery (in Scrum for example per sprint) of a viable usable and tested product is requested. It is therefore critical to succeed that this product, a report or a change in the transformation logic can always be automatically and quickly be tested by all its existing requirements. Therefore, agile development like in Scrum without unit testing makes no sense 3 , or in reverse conclusion: who does not use unit tests can't be agile !

“Especially in incremental and iterative development models (e.g., Agile) where code changes are ongoing, automated component regression tests play a key role in building confidence that changes have not broken existing components.” International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB) about the need for component / unit testing (ref. 2.2.1)

In the SAP BW and HANA environment, SAP libraries such as the ABAP Unit Test Environment or XSA & Jasmin-based HANA Tests are available to do unit testing. However, these technologies require some skill-sets and coding to create and maintain a test case. Unfortunately they cannot be used for all SAP BW objects. With our solution xGile, on the other hand, you can create unit tests faster then ever before without any required skill set or writing a single line of code for all important BW and HANA objects via a simple web interface. It is so simple that even Product Owner or Managers can run it. Don't risk your flexibility and ensure the agility in your SAP BW / BI projects by using xGile unit tests.

Referenzen:
1 https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TestPyramid.html
2 https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
3 https://www.stickyminds.com/better-software-magazine-article/you-cant-be-agile-without-automated-unit-testing