Lean TDD: TDD Without the Waste

By Brian Okken

TDD should speed up development, not slow it down. However, some interpretations add too much wasted effort. After all, we're trying to get a project done quickly, with good quality.

Lean TDD is a practice of TDD that extends TDD by bridging the developer workflow with the overall quality tests for a system, the acceptance tests, all while keeping waste low.

Lean TDD is built by taking valuable practices from many versions of TDD, and removing all of the wasteful practices.

Lean TDD encourages teams to think about quality during the entire development process, which results in lower stress and returning fun to software development.

The concepts in Lean TDD apply to all software development. Whether you are new to coding or an experienced developer, on a team or a solo developer, whether the development does all testing, or shares the role with test engineers.

Lean TDD is especially important if using AI for development, whether you using AI coding agents to help with production code, test code, or both.

What's inside:

A clear-eyed look at how TDD has been taught - and where it went off the railsLean thinking applied to developing software while driving with testsA practical, step-by-step approach to TDD built around acceptance criteria and behavior-focused testsThe testing trophy - a better model than the testing pyramid for deciding what to test and howHow to apply Lean TDD with AI coding agents, solo or on a teamLots of background and history around the various TDD offshots.

This book is for you if:

You've tried TDD and found it slow or frustratingYou write tests but aren't sure you're testing the right thingsYou're working with AI agents and want a testing strategy that holds upYou've never tried TDD and want to start with a pragmatic approachYou're a team lead trying to get your team to actually write tests

The author has been a working software engineer since 1996 and has been practicing TDD for over two decades. This isn't theory from a textbook. It's a distillation of what actually works in real codebases, shipped to real users.

This is a short book. It's meant to change how you work, not sit on a shelf.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HCHDVPBZ
• ISBN13: 9798997334017
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Test & Code
• Length: 100 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"