redredred

This should be obvious, but I seem to find myself re-explaining this concept quite a bit. Without testing there can be no Agile development. Tests are not an optional extra, there can be no negotiation. If you are doing agile, you are doing tests. You can test first, my personal preference, or you can test immediately after, but you must write tests.

One of the core values of the Agile manifesto is responding to change over following a plan. Agile development is predicated on writing the simplest solution which meets business requirements and nothing more (YAGNI principle). This can only be done if the developer(s) are able to refactor later as requirements become more complex or change.

Developers will either not refactor at all or take an extremely long time to achieve refactorings if they don’t have tests in place that give them confidence that their changes have not broken existing functionality. No test, no agile. Other features of agile development may or may not be optional, but testing is definitely not.