Agile Testing – A Tester’s Relief!

Agile as the name refers implies something to do very quickly. Hence Agile Testing refers to validate the client requirements as soon as possible and make it customer friendly. Agile development methodology is a conceptual framework for undertaking any software engineering projects. There are a number of agile software development methods but the most popular agile methods are Extreme Programming (XP) and Scrum.

To undertake testing, specifically test automation is not an easy task. Most of the testers face tough challenges in their projects while performing test automation. The interruptions may be based on manpower, geographic locations of teams, complexity of project, development methodologies or technologies and so on. And the test automation process becomes even more complicated when it occurs in an Agile environment.

In general agile methods attempt to minimize risk and maximize productivity by developing software in short iterations and de-emphasizing work on interim work artifacts and it is people oriented. Agile methodologies have gained immense popularity throughout the past decade However, when it comes to testing in Agile environments, you are all essentially required to carefully consider your decision and decide what, how, and when to automate in order to gear up your overall efficiency and test coverage.

To get a head start into the overall discussions, product features, the testing team should choose the route of Test Driven Development (TDD). In addition, the team will also be able to get robust tests ready to enable coding process.

Detailed specifications are not always available and are liable to change throughout the development process. In order to make it helpful for the testers, tests are created to lead the team via specific situations rather than sticking to particular cases. This kind of testing help testers to cover a wide range of tests that don’t essentially need to be documented.

Investigate testing is time consuming in the Agile model. It is a fact that exploratory testing gives amazing results but one should keep the bugs found from such test in mind in for future tests. The results from exploratory testing today form a part of the regression test suite that is going to be executed in later versions of your software.

In Agile environments where changes are frequent, test maintenance is crucial. If you fail to ensure that the tests in place are optimized, it will affect the overall product quality.

Here are Important Keys to Innovation:

• Creative: A good Agile Tester needs to be extremely creative when trying to cope up with speed of development/release. For a tester, being creative is more important than being critical.
• Talented: He must be highly talented and strives for more learning and innovating new ideas. Talented Testers are never satisfied with what they have achieved and always strives to find unimaginable bugs of high value and priority.
• Fearless – An Agile Tester should not be afraid to look at a developer’s code and if need be, hopefully in extreme cases, go in and correct it.
• Visionary – He must have a comprehensive vision, which includes client’s expectations and delivery of the good product.
• Empowered – He must be empowered to work in Pairs. He will be involved in Pair Programming to bring shorter scripts, better designs and finding more bugs.
• Passionate – Passionate Testers always have something unique to contribute that may be in terms of their innovative ideas, the way they carry day-to-day work, their outputs and improve things around them tirelessly.
• Multiple Disciplines – Agile Tester must have multiple skills like, Manual, Functional, Performance testing skills and soft skills like Leadership skills, Communication skills, EI, etc. so that agile testing will become a cake walk.