Engineering

Agile Testing: How does Quality Assurance Work?

When your company becomes agile, deployments will be more frequent, and iterative. 

Agile development and deployments make codebase testing a nightmare since the code base changes daily. Please be aware that when a company adopts an agile methodology, it typically removes the need for QA and testers. So, how will you cope in such a situation? 

The bigger question is, what is the role of QA in agile?

The short answer to that question is businesses will still require QA in the new agile world, but with new QA goals. These new goals include preventing defects and assisting in the faster shipment of products. In this blog, we will discuss guiding principles for QA in Agile to develop a full-proof and healthy QA process. We will also look at what heading agile means from a QA viewpoint and how you can adapt to flourish in this environment.

QA Agile Manifesto

The Agile Manifesto is the driving force behind the agile movement. However, it did not consider QA as part of its core team. Let us take a quick look at the values.

 

When we review agile values and principles, we do not see testing acknowledged as evidently as we would like. Also, businesses are not sure if traditional QA has a future. So, let us go over it thoroughly and understand what it signifies.

Working Software Over Comprehensive Documentation

Your goal should not be to create extensive test documentation. Writing and running manual tests takes a long time and results in mistakes. After all, we are humans! 

If you want to create working software, consider rethinking your approach. It is an excellent time to investigate test automation tools that will make your testing more efficient, repeatable, and easier to track.

This value does not exclude the existence of documentation. Also, you should only create purposeful documentation and not waste time on unnecessary tasks. 

Look for efficient methods for conducting tests and then effectively articulate the defect to the development team with minimal effort. And, whatever you choose, make sure it leads to the result of having functional software.

Customer Collaboration Over Contract Negotiation

Collaboration is a crucial aspect of agile, so always keep the users in mind. What sort of quality do they expect? What non-functional requirements (NFR) would they have? 

Recognizing the client will aid you in automating the appropriate tests. These tests may include system functionality as well as speed and other anticipations. Your association with your clients should resemble a collaboration rather than a criminal investigation.

Responding to Change Over Following a Plan

One big concern that testers have with frequent software delivery is keeping up with testing. Agile requires ongoing learning and adjustment, so refrain from planning for the future. Focus on implementing automated test cases and guardrails that will allow you to respond quickly to changing priorities and functionality. Give preference to automation so that you are ready whenever a change occurs.

Individuals and Interactions Over Process and Tools

QA should be a part of the agile process, and testers should be in the team. Agile teams often have ad hoc design discussions, and testers should be co-located and available to participate in those discussions whenever they occur. So, instead of creating more paperwork and processes, try to get involved in the entire software delivery process.

Quality Assurance in an Agile Environment

After discussing Agile Manifestos, the main concern is how to work when Agile. We will discuss how our QA skills can help the team deliver high-quality software.

Partake in the Agile Team

The most significant change is that QA needs integration into the agile development team rather than being a separate team. As part of the team from the beginning, QA will be able to influence product delivery. As a tester, if you understand good testing practices, do share your expertise with the team. Testers can make a feature easier to test and can look for ways to improve the design's testability.

Testers should involve themselves in stand-ups, retros, and demos daily. By maintaining an awareness of the team's work, they will be aware of story dependencies and can see additional checks needed. When the team focuses on delivering working software to the customer as quickly as possible, QA will provide stability to your teammates.

Focus on the Customer

With Agile, you will always keep the customer in your head. You will also need to understand a great deal about how the customer interacts with the product with application design in mind. Understanding the design of your product can help you pinpoint enticing cases.

Knowing the client can also help engineers identify potential blind spots. What actions might the customer take to meet their needs? Are we missing something from their point of view? The more the team members focus on the customer, the more standpoints you will have. It will help you identify assumptions that may leave a distended quality hole in your final product.

Automate Your Testing Procedures

Because agile testing occurs concurrently with development, automation is essential. Without it, you'll find yourself repeatedly testing the same functionality and quickly falling behind.

Your developers should write unit and integration tests. They also use white box testing methods to test knowing the system's internals. Being a QA professional, you'll be able to test the application from the outside as if it were a black box. You will get both black-box and white-box testing with developers and QA tackling automated testing in agile.

You will also create tests that engineers can use with automated testing. These tests can be added to the development pipeline and run automatically without manual intervention. Use testing tools to create product automation testing. The acceptance criteria in developer stories can drive these automated tests. Create tests to make sure that your product functions properly. Look for areas where there may be gaps in understanding, indicating the need for additional testing.

Manual Testing for the Right Reasons

Exploratory testing can identify flaws in automated tests. It should not involve mindlessly repeating the same manual processes. Spend time on exploratory testing to ensure your team did not miss a critical bug or lose features.

Continuously Improvement

Because everyone on an agile team is accountable for quality, you should strive for continuous improvement in testing practices. Discover the methodologies and strategies for agile testing, and help developers in developing integration tests that are not unreliable but instead focus on providing system functionality. Choose test suites that are both workable and healthy.

Final Note

Everyone on an agile team is accountable for quality. Collaborate with your team to incorporate quality into the development process. The goal is no longer to find bugs and errors but to dissuade them during the development cycle. But that's a dramatic development. And, with agile, we want to find ways to break that issue down and iteratively work toward the end goal. You must quickly see the benefits and tweak from there.

Begin using the testing tool and see where the automation can take you. You can interpolate, enhance, and develop on your quick early wins as you improve efficiency and build an automated test suite.

Codvo believes in continuous testing practice improvement. We have seasoned experts who can assist you in increasing your productivity. Contact us today for any type of quality assurance services!

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