Agile Testing Methodology- A Detailed Guide
Quick Summary
With a constant change in customer needs and technology trends, developers look for a project management framework that can speed up the development lifecycle and enable rapid deliveries.
Agile testing methodology offers a dynamic approach to software testing that aligns seamlessly with Agile development frameworks’ iterative and collaborative nature.
Unlike traditional testing methods, which often happen at the end of the development cycle, Agile Testing is an integral part of the development process. It involves testing early and, often, ensuring that quality is built into the software from the ground up.
The Agile Testing Methodology stresses close collaboration between developers, testers, and other stakeholders. Testers work hand-in-hand with the development team, providing feedback and identifying defects as soon as possible. This approach helps to identify and fix issues early in the development cycle, reducing the cost and effort required to fix them later.
What is Agile Testing?
Agile Testing follows the rules and principles of agile software development. With agile software testing, developers can test their code continuously and rapidly. Developers get immediate feedback from customers making it quick to make changes. Agile Testing begins at the start of the project with continuous integration between development and testing.
With continuous integration and delivery, agile testing ensures quality throughout the development life cycle. Developers integrate their code changes several times in a continuous integration while every change that passes all tests is automatically released into production with continuous delivery.
What Are the Principles of Agile Testing?
Look at the principles of agile testing:
- Early and continuous testing: Testers should start testing the software early and should test the software continuously throughout the development cycle.
- Whole team approach: Each team member (developers, testers, business analysts, and product owners) ensures product quality.
- Frequent deliveries: Deliver the working software frequently, typically every two weeks.
- Close collaboration: Maintain a close collaboration between all team members, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
- Customer involvement: Continuous involvement of customers throughout the agile development process. Their constant feedback at each iteration helps the team make constant improvements.
Flexible approach: Teams can change the requirements during the development process as the approach is flexible.
Agile Testing Life Cycle
With a traditional testing method, users must provide detailed requirements concerning the intended software beforehand. However, agile testing gives them the flexibility to share the changes in the software as it follows an iterative approach.
Look at the Agile Testing Life cycle:
Planning Sprints
Agile testing involves breaking down a large complex project into small manageable fragments. A sprint is a pre-agreed period in which the team works on the requirements and completes them within the duration.
The product owner, developers, and testers discuss goals that need to be attained in each sprint. In addition, the team follows a daily scrum where it talks about their assignments and the issues or obstacles blocking the work.
Designing Test Cases
The testing team needs to maintain a correlation with the development team. The development provides functional requirements documents (FRS) and project design documents, and the test team designs the test cases based on those requirements.
A test case details the entire testing technique and verifies quality tests to ensure the test sticks to the process. Next, they hand over the documented test cases to the QA manager and developers for review for defect prevention.
Quality Verification and Validation
Once the development process is complete, the QA team starts the testing process. The team works together following the agile method. This stage is crucial to check and verify the quality of the developed software.
Review Product Stability
Agile follows iterative development, and thus, it accommodates new requirements. Customers often want to change the features, design, or sometimes the entire idea. With the agile method, new changes can be made at any stage of the development process with no complexities.
Regression and Deployment
Once the new changes are added to the product, the QA team conducts manual and automated tests to verify the quality of the existing functionality. After complete verification, the product is deployed.
What Are Agile Best Practices?
Agile testing is flexible, sustainable, and focuses on quality. Look at the best practices to follow for agile testing:
Customer Collaboration
In the agile approach, customer satisfaction is the foremost. The customer plays a crucial role during the entire development life cycle. Customers share their feedback on each sprint and collaborate for changes in the product. Constant communication with the customer offers better customer satisfaction.
On the other hand, in a traditional development method, the customer shares the details before the development process starts and gets to see the project after completion.
Teamwork
In agile testing, teams work together with effective coordination, communication, and mutual support. With a collaborative mindset and teamwork, agile teams release advanced products.
Motivated Individuals
Motivated individuals can make any difficult project happen. They carry a goal in their day-to-day operations and stay focused on the goal. They can also do any task rapidly and thus are a boon for agile testing.
Organized work
The agile teams split their work into small sprints and divided the tasks among team members for an organized approach. They can accomplish the tasks quickly and efficiently when the work is organized.
What Are The Benefits of Agile Testing Methodology?
Look at the benefits that agile testing offers:
- Flexible to adjust new changes between the sprints.
- The tasks are divided into small sprints, and each sprint is an individual task, so it helps better organization. In addition, there are fewer chances of errors, and the end products are more efficient.
- Agile testing enables developers to use reusable indexes for easy development.
- Since the tasks are divided into smaller fragments, finding and rectifying the errors is easier.
- The software delivered is of high quality and delivered within the stipulated time.
- Simple practices like Scrum meetings help maintain greater correlation amongst teams for an efficient end product.
- Regularly discussing test reports, including errors and solutions, is easier.
Conclusion
The Agile Testing Methodology has revolutionized the way software is tested and delivered. By embracing collaboration, flexibility, and continuous improvement, Agile Testing enables teams to deliver high-quality software that meets customers’ ever-changing needs.
Implementing Agile Testing can be challenging, but the benefits outweigh the effort. If you want to adopt Agile methodologies and improve your software testing practices, our team at UpsquareCS can help. We have extensive experience in implementing agile testing methodologies for businesses across various industries.
Our Agile experts can guide you through the entire process, from training and coaching to implementing best practices and tools. We’ll work closely with your team to understand your needs and tailor our approach to ensure a seamless transition to Agile Testing.
