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Delivering quality software at a faster pace was the end goal of the agile approach in the beginning. But today the approach has expanded to other aspects of software development as well. Agile testing is a real thing these days. It is an integral part of the software development process that is helping entrepreneurs build high-quality software products that are free of bugs and other issues.
However, getting agile testing right is easier said than done. Numerous approaches exist. How would you decide which approach works for you and which doesn’t?
In this blog, we’ll discuss five agile testing approaches that work at present and continue to be effective in upcoming years. Let’s begin:
Top 5 agile testing practices
1. Sharing responsibilities as a team
Communication and collaboration play a crucial role in the agile approach. A similar rule applies in agile testing.
When the entire team accepts responsibility for ensuring software quality, we can leverage different skill sets and levels of expertise to identify and fix complex issues on time. Moreover, making testing a shared responsibility also ensures you are following a proactive approach. As a result, you can detect and fix issues at the beginning of the software development rather than waiting for a major ruckus to happen.
Sharing responsibilities as a team also ensures that testers have less load on their shoulders and they can spend more time enhancing skills that will make them more productive. Overall, this move will create a win-win situation for everyone involved.
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2. Adopting an agile testing mindset
Every agile approach no matter if it’s agile software development or agile testing starts from the right mindset. You can expect your agile testing efforts to be successful only after you have established the right environment. Therefore, you must start with establishing an agile testing mindset within your team. Here are the traits you should encourage in your team:
- Seeing failures as an opportunity to learn and improve
- Accepting constructive criticism
- Continuously seeking better, more efficient methods
Always remember that people, not processes or tools are the center of the agile approach. No method or strategy will work if you don’t make a cultural shift in your organization. Change the mindset and you’ll see a radical shift in your team’s productivity.
3. Focusing on one feature at a time
Trying to do everything at once will only lead your agile testing efforts to fail. It will lead to situations where you will miss out on crucial aspects of the software just because you were everywhere at the same time. Therefore, it would be best to focus on one feature at a time for agile testing. This way you can devote enough time and resources to functionalities that matter.
The best approach will be to ask your team to prepare separate use cases for each feature, and then thoroughly test it for various aspects before moving on to the next one.
4. Maintaining austerity in the code
Always make sure the code your application’s code has all necessary attributes before you execute an agile test case on it. Doing so will help you simplify the review and testing process.
Also, make sure your code is easy to understand so that anyone working on it can easily make enhancements. Another thing you must do is to use version control tools to avoid code merge issues later on.
5. Providing & obtaining continuous feedback
Continuous feedback is the key to success in agile testing. It is the sole reason why we develop software in small sprints. The idea is to provide constant feedback so that the entire team stays on track and there are fewer mistakes. Hence, you should focus on providing and obtaining continuous feedback throughout the agile testing process.
You can provide this feedback in the form of automated & exploratory test results and observations from actual users. Besides this, make sure you also gather feedback from programmers and customers. They can offer some valuable insights. Here’s what you can ask them:
- Ask programmers if they have enough information to understand your requirements.
- Ask customers how you can improve the quality of your product.
These questions will help you ensure you can gather enough feedback from your customers and programmers.
Bonus: A few other agile testing tips
Besides the best agile testing practices I mentioned above, there are also a few others that you can use to make the most of your agile testing efforts. Let’s have a look at a few such agile testing methods:
- Perform tests repetitively to ensure you are precisely checking all software units and no code is broken.
- Clearly define what needs to be achieved by the end of the development process so that you can easily identify if something is wrong later.
- Make sure each function code is effectively running without impacting other functionalities. Also, maintain a record of all test cases, engaging team members, and system documentation to ensure agile tests can be run smoothly.
- Use test-driven development (TDD) as it can significantly reduce the chances of error by offering a more controlled environment.
- You must know when to use test-driven development (TDD). It can be an efficient approach but may not work for some scenarios. We suggest you use TDD for simple scenarios like functional testing. But avoid using TDD for projects that are complex and can’t be quickly tested.
- Always keep in mind the bigger picture. Each and every step in your project should add to its quality. Only then, it will be successful.
In a nutshell
So, these are a few agile testing practices that you can implement to ensure there are no issues, bugs, and other complications in your product before its launch. These practices will ensure you can redefine the agile testing process and become more productive.
We hope by now you have a clear overview of what you should do in the agile testing process for quality results and what you shouldn’t. Still, if you are looking for a few other points, feel free to share in the comments. I would be happy to help.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is the set of tools, cultural philosophies, and practices that improves the ability of an organization to deliver projects at high velocity by automating and integrating processes between development and operation teams. DevOps accentuates cross-team collaboration & communication, team empowerment, and automation.