Managed Developer Testing

Managed Developer Testing:

I have had the opportunity to talk to dozens of engineering managers that have implemented, or tried to implement, developer testing programs. The reports are very consistent: without some practices and tools to set up objectives, prioritize the efforts, and measure the results, it's very difficult to maintain momentum, achieve consistency, and maximize efficiency and effectiveness. It's clear that developer testing, like any other activity that consumes a non-trivial amount of valuable development time and resources, has to be managed.

I'm currently in a similar situation -- our engineering team has nominally agreed that test-driven development is a good thing, but I'm having a lot of trouble keeping it going. Occasionally I push to have a particular feature get more tests, and then it happens (to some degree), but I can't continually push on all features all the time.

The article above suggests several things: first, give developers a sense of accomplishment by measuring, and reporting, how many "test points" they've achieved. Second, set targets for test points, and manage those targets just as you manage features. Third, create a dashboard that shows the current status, compared with the target.