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Agile testing methodology is an integral part of the agile software development process. It is because agile testers allow product owners and stakeholders to communicate more effectively with each other.
In this manner, the final product meets the expectations and requirements of stakeholders, while being developed in a timely fashion.
Throughout this article, we are going to discuss the strategic importance of agile testing methodologies within the context of software development.
First of all, let’s understand
The Agile Testing Methodology: What does it mean?
The agile testing methodology allows testers to work in small, self-organizing teams. The motivation is to increase efficiency and quality by identifying and fixing bugs during the development cycle.
According to the 4th Annual State of Marketing Report, Agile is one of the most commonly used marketing structures, with 55 percent using one or more agile marketing practices because this improves product quality and helps development teams release software faster.
The agile testing methodology is an iterative process that enables quickly identifying bugs and preventing them from happening again. Companies that adopt this methodology are more responsive, productive, efficient and agile while they produce higher-quality products.
Principles based on Agile Methodology
1. Performance is enhanced by continuous attention to technical excellence and good design – The software development team should use scrum tools and take time to review their solution during the development process. This will save a significant amount of time as compared with cleaning up code later –which may also mean never.
2. Implementing a continuous feedback system – Agile testing provides product feedback continuously so that the product is built in accordance with the business requirements.
3. Engage motivated individuals in the development of projects – The agile project management methodology does not allow micromanagement and teams should be self-directed and self-reliant with the right team in place that can be trusted to fulfill the objectives of the project.
4. Continual testing has significant value – The test should be conducted continuously by the agile team in order to ensure the product is being refined and that it is eventually evolving into a quality product.
5. Maintain a high level of customer satisfaction – As a first priority, Agile is committed to ensuring customer satisfaction by delivering necessary products in a timely and continuous manner.
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4 methods for testing agile software
Agile software testing is a process that ensures the quality of the application or software by obtaining information about its behavior under specific circumstances. If a bug is identified, the tester will report it to the concerned developer or management team.
1. Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
The BDD approach encourages communication between stakeholders to ensure each feature is understood before development begins.
Streamline documentation to ensure the process is efficient. Embrace a “three amigos” approach, where the developer, product owner, and tester work together to define scenarios and tests. Use a declarative test framework, such as Cucumber, to specify criteria. Build automated tests and reuse them across scenarios. Have business analysts write test cases and learn the Gherkin syntax.
2. Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
In ATDD, customers, developers, and testers participate in a “Three Amigos” meeting to collect input and develop acceptance tests with their input.
In order to ensure that our products align with customer expectations, we need to involve customer-facing team members who interact directly with customers on a regular basis. This way, we can get a better understanding of customer needs and develop acceptance criteria accordingly. Additionally, we should prioritize two questions: how should we validate that the system performs a certain function, and what are the customer expectations?
3. Exploratory Testing
Exploratory testing consists of executing tests and designing tests together and focuses on interacting with working software rather than planning, building, and running tests separately.
Organizing functionality in the application can help testers to focus on areas and scenarios which are at high risk or high value for users. By using a spreadsheet or mind map, testers can ensure that they document their results so they can be accountable for areas that were covered with exploratory testing.
4. Session-Based Testing
In contrast to exploratory testing, this approach is more orderly and ensures the software is comprehensively tested. It provides test charters, which help testers identify what to test, and test reports that document what testers discover while performing a test. Test sessions are time-boxed.
A goal for testing in the current sprint should be defined so that testers are clear about priorities. A charter that states areas of the software to test, when the session will occur and for how long, which testers will conduct the session, etc. should be developed. Uninterrupted testing sessions with a fixed, predefined length should be run. Activities, notes, and also takeaways from the face-to-face brief in a session report should be documented.
Tips to optimize the performance of Agile testing in a software development environment
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Conduct daily strategic meetings
The success of the project can be ensured by holding daily strategic meetings. In these meetings, discuss the goals of the strategy, review progress, and identify any areas that need improvement. Regularly conducting these meetings will allow you to ensure that your strategy is on track and is helping you to sustain your business growth.
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Ensure that the entire team is involved in agile testing
Having end-to-end test automation is fundamental to agile testing, and testers collaborate with other team specialists, customer teams, and programmers to complete testing tasks and other testing-related tasks such as designing for testability and building infrastructure.
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Participation of stakeholders
In order to develop a product of the highest quality, a testing team should create high-level test scenarios. A variety of stakeholders provide input, including testers, developers, business development professionals, and product owners.
