How to Enhance the Quality of Software Through Agile Testing Practices

 



Agile software development entails the participation of QA teams that bake in code quality and ensure the delivery of business-aligned outcomes. Testing is not always given its due in software development, especially by stakeholders like developers and IT managers. The reasons could range from lack of time, skills, focus, and resources, among others. The focus has mostly been on accelerating the time to market and making the first move to outgun the competitors. That the performance of the software product is underpinned by its quality alone did not quite resonate with them for a long time. Consequently, the absence or near absence of quality testing in the SDLC often led to ramifications that were way beyond poorly functioning software. These include compromised quality, revenue loss, cost and schedule overruns, customer dissatisfaction, brand injury, and competitive threat.

However, of late, the realization has hit home with businesses looking to adopt Agile testing, where development and testing go together. With Agile application testing, the above-mentioned risks can be mitigated, and businesses can meet their expectations. So, what is Agile testing all about, and how can Agile testing practices deliver high-quality software applications?

Defining Agile Testing

Agile testing is a methodology where testing is integrated into the development process instead of existing as a separate phase in the SDLC. Here, testing occurs in real-time in collaboration with the development team in an incremental and iterative way. The development process is divided into sprints where testers check the quality of the code against set parameters as and when it is built. If the code is found to be correct, it is forwarded to the next sprint for integration and further development. And should there be any fault in the code, it is reverted to the developer for remediation.

The Agile Testing Approach

In the Agile testing methodology, the sprint is a specified time frame wherein specific work should be completed and readied for review. Both the development and testing teams define the sprint goal, which is then validated by the team and the client for actual execution. Once the development team begins working on the modules, the Agile testing experts design the test cases. The same is then shared with the developer and other stakeholders for review.

Once the test case and modifications are done for a particular sprint, the QA team sets up the QA environment. Any bugs or vulnerabilities found therein are tracked and logged into a tool and shared with the development team for mitigation. At the end of every sprint, the stakeholders decide the bugs or vulnerabilities to be fixed in the current iteration of the sprint. They also decide on Agile test automation for specific sets of code.

Best Practices for Agile Application Testing

Some of the best practices followed by Agile testing services are given below:

Keep the focus on the customer: Learn how the customer will use the software product. Combine that knowledge with the working system to define test cases and scenarios. Knowing about the customer can help developers and testers identify the blind spots. For instance, what actions will the customer take with the application to meet his or her needs? Understanding the customer perspective can unravel various assumptions, the presence of which can create quality issues in the software application.

Automate test suite: Automation should be an integral part of the Agile testing strategy given that testing is done in parallel to development. In the absence of automation, a particular functionality can get tested repeatedly, leaving the delivery schedule to go haywire. Developers usually write and conduct unit tests using white-box testing methods without covering all the scenarios. However, Agile testers can test the same from the outside as if the software product is a black box. Automated tests can be used by developers to execute unit and integration tests in the development pipeline without any manual intervention.

Continuously improve: The testing practices should be continuously improved. The QA team can help create healthy integration test suites with developers and ensure that they work perfectly. As continuous integration is one of the keys to practicing Agile, try to integrate the quality code into the build frequently.


Conclusion

In an Agile testing approach, both developers and QA teams are responsible for ensuring the quality of the software product. An Agile-driven development process can help achieve better quality code and higher test coverage. So, even if the Agile team does not perform regression testing in every sprint, it needs to follow the incremental and iterative approach to get the best quality outcomes for the product.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Top 5 Game Changers in Digital Engineering

Image
Businesses, to stay competitive, need to accelerate their digital transformation journeys and make the transition to industry 4.0. It would include achieving real-time convergence between physical and digital platforms and disrupting the market through innovation. There is an urgent need to shift towards an intelligent industry and create a sustainable value chain by embracing connectivity. The next phase of digital transformation is fueled by the advent of futuristic technologies. These include artificial intelligence, the cloud, the internet of things, 5G, and edge computing. According to a survey on digital engineering conducted by the Capgemini Research Institute, 57 percent of companies in the manufacturing sector are unable to generate, capture, share, and reuse data across their value chain. However, with digital transformation being the buzzword for these companies to remain competitive, maintaining digital continuity will be critical. This posits the role of digital engineerin...
Read more

How to Go About Modernizing Legacy Applications

Image
Change is the only constant, so goes the saying, wherein businesses across domains and geographies need to change and adapt for a host of reasons. These include the need to stay competitive, deliver better user experiences, control costs, launch new products or services, comply with regulations, and others. Digital transformation has become the mantra for businesses to deliver business value, strengthen brand equity, and drive customer loyalty, to name a few goals. It involves making incremental changes to the application landscape, transforming the organization’s culture as mandated by Agile-DevOps, and implementing technologies to speed up delivery and improve quality. Digital transformation involves taking an application modernization approach combined with quality engineering to change the existing processes and methodologies. It leads to building intelligent workflows, removing silos, enhancing collaboration, and accelerating time-to-market. According to Statista, global spending ...
Read more

What Are the 5 Benefits of Modernizing Data Platforms by Businesses?

Image
Today, business enterprises are operating in a highly competitive landscape with multiple touchpoints, channels, and operating and regulatory environments. For such business enterprises, data has become their most important asset, which is being continuously acquired from all types of sources. These may include IoT networks, social media, websites, customers, employees, the cloud, and many more. Here, data is no longer defined only as highly structured information. They constitute a wide variety of data types and structures emanating from a multitude of sources. With all this high volume of information, the question arises: does the data deliver true value to the enterprise? If enterprises cannot extract timely data insights from business data, then they are not adding any value. The challenge before businesses today is to leverage data in alignment with technology, security, and governance into a cohesive modernization framework to deliver tangible benefits. Although using data from ...
Read more