Mar 29, 2022
Agile testing methodology is a very successful framework. In the World of software testing, the Agile methodology provides better testing in
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Agile testing methodology is a very successful framework. In the World of software testing, the Agile methodology provides better testing in
The agile testing methodology has been a requirement in the software development lifecycle. It must be supported by more customer engagement and test code once it is viable in the system. The code must be clean and efficient enough to pass system review. Many companies have implemented agile testing. Names like Cisco, IBM, and JP Morgan Chase are just a few. Agile testing is a great way to increase your competitive advantage, even if it has not been implemented yet.
Agile Testing Methodology and its Principles
AGILE TESTING is a testing practice that follows the rules and principles of agile software development. Unlike the Waterfall method, Agile Testing can begin at the start of the project with continuous integration between development and testing.
Agile is an interactive development methodology where all the stakeholders of a project are involved in the testing process to update it as per business requirements.
AGILE TESTING is a testing practice that follows the rules and principles of agile software development. Unlike the Waterfall method, Agile Testing can begin at the start of the project with continuous integration between development and testing.
Nolij helps organizations in changing into Agile Transformation through cross-functional teams spanning requirements, configuration management, testing, operations, and deployment.
How to transform QA in Agile-based Organizations
Digitization has brought in speed, convenience, accessibility, quality, and cost rationalization as major benefits for the customers. The traditional management practices are often unable to achieve those benefits in real-time. With a rapidly changing digital landscape and the need to address the challenges posed by shifting customer preferences and growing competition, enterprises are embracing the agile development methodology. According to the agile testing approach, quality assurance is more about ‘test fast’ rather than ‘test everything.’ Consequently, QA, in order to keep up with the pace-driven agile model of software development, needs to adapt.
It needs to fully integrate into the build cycle from the traditional ‘find bugs at the end of the development’ approach. Agile testing entails the QA to be present in the end-to-end value chain, which means right from the ideation stage to the development and integration of code, product delivery, and beyond. The reason why many enterprises, even after adopting the agile way of development, continue with the traditional model of QA, is the absence of an agile culture.
To ensure the success of an agile testing approach, the QA team needs to unlearn some of the shibboleths. These may include the following:
· Testing is a distinct process exclusive of development and delivery
· Test automation is only for regression purpose
· The ultimate goal of the QA team is to detect bugs
How to transform traditional QA into an agile testing framework?
QA forms a critical component in the Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) value chain of enterprises following the agile testing methodology. And to ensure the reliability of CI/CD outcomes, QA should be embedded at every step of the build-test-delivery process. In agile-based organizations, the release management process can shift to the combined development and QA team from the operations team. This enables the QA team to view the end-to-end product delivery process thereby identifying and fixing bottlenecks (if any). Enterprises should go about transforming their QA processes by taking the following approach:
· Increasing the level of test automation
· Improving the testing skills of the QA team
· Developing a strategy to incorporate AI in the agile testing methodology through analytics, RPA, and self-learning
Focus on problems to achieve better solutions: The Agile testing services should focus on the bottlenecks that prevent the integration of QA into the build cycle instead of the solution. It is only by analyzing the bottlenecks and finding a way to fix them that the QA team can deliver the final product, quickly and consistently. In doing so, the QA team can choose various agile test automation tools.
Upgrading the skillset of testers: The lack of knowledgeable agile testers is one of the reasons why enterprises shy away from implementing agile. According to the World Quality Report, around 42% of respondents cited a lack of expertise in agile testing for not implementing agile in its true form. The testers should have the programming knowledge to create test automation scripts and access the underlying business logic. They should be able to analyze the code and make improvements from the perspective of performance. Hence, before implementing test automation, upskill the QA team into the nitty-gritty of agile application testing.
Embracing test automation: One of the prominent features of implementing agile testing is automation. It helps to speed up the testing process and identifies (and fixes) glitches that are often missed during manual testing. So, not only regression testing, the QA team should focus on extending agile test automation to other test types like smoke testing. Developers should play a crucial role in enabling the QA team to set up automation or conduct exploratory testing.
Adopting RPA: Robotic Process Automation can drive high performance in the IT systems by reducing the level of end-to-end testing. It helps to automate tedious processes, reduce glitches, and remove drudge work, thereby allowing the QA team to focus more on exploratory testing or other important activities. It is more about automating the processes by using the correct functionality.
Real-time testing: Although test virtualization can mimic the test scenarios and parameters on the cloud, real-time testing is a different ballgame altogether. It allows testers to identify the functional issues, which can only be found in the real world. Real-time testing can be handy when it comes to testing during peak periods and is a valuable proposition for brands to expand their test coverage.
Conclusion
Organizations are becoming agile to stay competitive and deliver the best user experience to their users. However, traditional QA needs to adapt to the build ecosystem that agile entails. The first step in this transition is embracing a culture change where QA becomes a cumulative responsibility of both the development and testing teams.
What are the latest trends in Agile Testing?
The global digital transformation journey requires the quality of processes, models, products, and services to be top-notch. To ensure accelerated growth, enterprises are embracing the Agile model and moving away from the traditional ones - waterfall, spiral, and iterative. The reason being the slowness and inadequacies of these models. Enterprises have realized the need to adopt innovative ways to offer customer delight, the final outcome to stay competitive. The agile testing approach is mainly embraced by enterprises that need their development pipeline to create continuous builds. This calls for both development and testing to be conducted simultaneously instead of the earlier silo-based waterfall method.
The need for adopting the agile testing approach has been necessitated due to the growing complexity of software applications. Today, the performance of the software is determined by the quality of its interfaces with third-party applications, browsers, devices, and operating systems. The more complex a software is, the more comprehensive testing it demands. Agile testing is about shift-left testing where planning, designing, writing, and testing code becomes part of the sprint. It is a collaborative approach instead of the waterfall’s silo-driven approach and drives better outcomes. Agile testing involves taking continual feedback from the customers and stakeholders.
Why is agile software testing advantageous?
The complexity of software applications has shifted the focus on testing. This is to ensure the applications live up to the expectations of both businesses and customers. The agile testing approach focuses on smart testing through automation rather than using the time-consuming manual means. Here, the testers and developers follow a collaborative approach with the former offering timely feedback to the latter. This makes the final product fully aligned to the customers’ requirements or expectations.
Principles of Agile Testing
Agile application testing follows a set of principles to deliver glitch-free products to the end-customers:
Continuous Testing: Agile testing experts conduct continuous testing to identify glitches at various stages of development and integration.
Continuous Feedback: One of the main reasons why products often fail to meet customers’ expectations is the apparent disconnect that exists between the end customers and other stakeholders. The agile testing strategy ensures the development team receives continuous feedback on the quality of builds. This helps the product to meet the business as well as customer needs.
Test-Driven: The agile testing approach includes testing at the time of development itself rather than later. This saves time and costs as mitigating a glitch after development can be expensive and time-consuming.
Less Documentation: The reusable checklist used by the agile testing specialists ensures the focus is on testing rather than on keeping the incidental details.
Simplified and Clean Coding: Since the glitches are identified and remedied within the sprint, the final code remains simplified and clean.
Accountability is shared by all: In the traditional system of testing, only the testing team is held responsible for the presence of glitches. However, in agile testing methodology, the development, testing, and business analyst teams share equal responsibility for the outcome.
Latest trends in Agile Testing
The spiraling demand for software testing and the advent of new technologies like IoT, AI, big data, and analytics emphasize the need to follow the latest trends. These include:
Artificial Intelligence (AI): The objective of agile in identifying and mitigating errors early on in the development cycle can be met effectively by using AI. For example, AI can analyze the database of past codes and check for patterns that contained glitches. These patterns can then be flagged for the developers and testers to gain necessary insights. Artificial intelligence can analyze the code under development to find if it deviated from its intended objective. This way it can help the agile-driven team to align the build with the business objectives and customer expectations.
Move towards Quality Engineering: The growing technological complexity of software applications means more chances for the ingress of bugs. So, along with continuous testing to identify errors in real-time, the focus should be on eliminating the ingress of errors in the first place. This calls for moving towards quality engineering where products and services are designed and built to meet or exceed customers’ expectations. It also involves the development, management, operation, and maintenance of IT systems displaying a high-quality standard.
Big Data Testing: With applications interfacing with other IT ecosystems (SMAC for example), a huge quantum of data gets generated. These need to be tested for errors using big data testing. Here, rather than testing the individual features of the software application, activities like data creation, storage, retrieval, and processing are validated.
Continuous Improvement, Integration, and Delivery: Agile is giving way to DevOps where apart from development and testing, the operations team is also involved. Here, any software build is tested continuously and enhanced based on the customers’ feedback. The entire DevOps process is geared towards ensuring the integration and delivery of glitch-free software quickly.
Conclusion
Is agile testing meeting the rising expectations of software applications? With delivering better customer experiences becoming critical for companies to stay competitive, the agile way of testing needs to follow the latest trends. Capturing and mitigating glitches earlier in the SDLC or even preempting them can significantly increase the acceptance of software in the market.
This article is originally published on medium.com.
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W3softech is the most promising Software Testing Solution provider for Agile Testing Services offer a proven QA & Test solution that integrates with the agile team - W3Softech