Forcing Unit Testing on Developers

Question

First a little background. The company I work for writes web based software that is a hosted solution for our customers (ie ASP (Application Service Provider)). We are adopting agile practices such as Scrum and we execute sprints to build new features for our product.

I am a proponent of TDD (Test Driven Design), and as a part of what I deliver in a sprint I always write tests and I always get them integrated with the build (ie ccnet); however the other developers do not follow this practice and it is not enforced.

Is it a good practice to force a development group into providing unit tests as a part of what is delivered in a sprint?

Answer 1

Unless you are a position of authority, the best thing you can do is to convince them of the value of the test suite.

It's very difficult to get developers to see the light on this issue if they aren't seeing it done right.

Try to pair with another developer and show them the benefits and the clarity that comes from writing the tests FIRST. If you don't do this, they are likely to write all of their code, get it working, and then write tests. So, from their point of view, it will feel like simply an extra task that doesn't help them get things done.

Also keep in mind that people often do not understand how to write good tests. Even more, some do not know how to make use of tools like jmock, which can lead to them getting stuck and giving up on writing a test.