An Analysis of the Effects of the Agile Model in Software Testing

Software professionals are under pressure to discover and measure quality aspects including usability, testability, maintainability, and dependability as well as engineering methods that assist the creation of high-quality products with these advantageous characteristics. Like other engineering objects, the software development process has to be designed. In other words, it has to be developed, put into practise, assessed, and maintained. The finest technical and management techniques must be incorporated in a methodical manner throughout the software development process, just as in other engineering disciplines.

App Bug fixing

Agile development approaches are becoming more popular among companies that are under pressure to provide apps of a better calibre in order to remain competitive. Agile and other iterative techniques are actually taking over as the industry norm for creating applications. Agile’s ideal goal is to accelerate the delivery of the greatest amount of business value possible by putting an emphasis on people and ongoing development. Although the agile technique is typically thought of as primarily relevant to development teams, the entire organisation must adapt.

Agile development confronts businesses with two significant challenges: being flexible enough to keep up with the iterative nature of the agile approach, and providing quality and stability to applications much earlier in the development process in order to align with the business.

The fundamentals of agile testing

The fundamental tenets of agile testing are as follows:

1. Working software is the main gauge of success in this Agile testing strategy.
2. Self-organizing teams have the highest chance of success.
3. Our first aim is to consistently and promptly deliver high-quality software.
4. Daily activity gathering is required of software engineers throughout the project.
5. Increasing agility through steady technology advancement and superior design.
6. Agile testing, which offers continuous input, makes ensuring that the final product lives up to the business’s expectations.
7. The Agile Test approach requires us to carry out the testing process as we implement it, which cuts down on the amount of time needed for development.
8. The Agile testing methodology should focus on maintaining a constant development speed.
9. Regularly reflect on ways to improve your effectiveness.
10. Self-organizing teams provide the finest architectures, requirements, and designs.
11. The team evaluates and modifies its behaviour to improve efficiency at each meeting.
12. The most effective and efficient way to share knowledge within the development team is through face-to-face conversations.

Read Also: Agile Software Development Methodologies

Process of Testing Software

Software testing is a technique for confirming and validating the software; it ensures that the software/applications are executed without errors or problems. An agile model created to satisfy all technical and commercial requirements. When applied, this model may be constructed with the same qualities and will function as intended. Software testing finds program/software bugs, mistakes, and faults. The software testing procedure must include fixing these faults, mistakes, and defects. When programme updates are made, the software should be tested once again and then once more after that, until all flaws have been discovered and corrected. The testing process and the condition of the software under test are monitored and reported on during test operations.

Important flaws are checked during test planning by going over the requirements and design papers. The testing team fixes these flaws but is unable to raise the software’s quality. Prior to testing, all enhancements should be implemented into the system, therefore they should all be recorded during the coding phase of software development. If software architects and designers acquire all the improvements within a certain time limit, they will have created a good model. The design of the software or application can be improved by testing before coding.

Read Also: What is Agile Testing? Process, Methodology and Strategies

Pros and Cons of the Agile Model

Agile methodologies are now extensively used in the software industry, however they might not necessarily be appropriate for all products. The agile paradigm has the following benefits and drawbacks.

The following shows the benefits and drawbacks of the agile model:

Pros

  • Is an extremely practical method for developing software.
  • Encourages collaboration and cross-training.
  • Functionality can be quickly built and proven.
  • Minimum resource requirements.
  • Adaptable to both changing and fixed needs
  • Provides early, imperfect answers.
  • Effective model for continuously changing surroundings.
  • Few rules, simple to use documentation.
  • Allows development and delivery to occur concurrently within a larger, planned environment.
  • Requires little to no planning
  • Simple to handle
  • Provides developers with flexibility

    Cons
  • Ineffective for managing complicated dependencies.
  • A greater risk of extensibility, maintenance, and sustainability
  • Without an overarching strategy, an agile leader, and an agile PM practise, it will not succeed.
  • The scope, functionality to be supplied, and modifications to fulfil deadlines are determined by strict delivery management.
  • Relies significantly on client contact; as a result, if the consumer is unclear, the team may be led astray.
  • Since little documentation is produced, there is a great deal of individual dependence.
  • The absence of documentation may make it difficult for new team members to learn technology.
Commercial Agile Testing Methodology

Agile testing is currently widely utilised in industries since it entails close customer participation and short week cycles. Due to all these qualities, the project moves very quickly. The shortcomings of the V-Model and the Waterfall Model are eliminated, making it the optimum technique.

For projects with shifting needs and unclear project scope, it is the optimum model. Customers are more confident and satisfied with the finished product as a result of the regular customer participation at every stage, which also reduces the likelihood of future defects. Since there is client engagement throughout every cycle, the final product that is given at the conclusion of each cycle meets the criteria.

Agile testing also lowers project costs since workable products are supplied in increments after each cycle, reducing the likelihood of future defects. Additionally, this process improves communication and team trust in QA.

Due to its benefits, lower delivery costs, and other qualities in the modern industry, Agile is now a new and one of the methodologies that takes the longest to adopt.

Read Also: Agile VS DevOps: Difference between Agile and DevOps

Distinguish between Agile Testing and Waterfall Testing

The Development Life Cycle activities take place in phases that are sequential in a Waterfall Development approach. As a result, testing is a distinct phase that begins only after the development phase is over.

The key distinctions between Agile Testing and Waterfall Testing are as follows:

Sr. No. Agile Testing Waterfall Testing
1. Testing takes place concurrently with development and is not a distinct step. Testing is a different stage. Only when development is complete can testing at all levels and levels begin.
2. Developers and testers collaborate. Testing is a different stage. Only when development is complete can testing at all levels and levels begin.
3. The creation of requirements involves testers. This aids in establishing the acceptance criteria and linking requirements to behaviours in the real-world scenario. Along with the criteria, logical Acceptance Test Cases would also be prepared. It’s possible that testers are not involved in the requirements phase.
4. Acceptance after each iteration, testing is carried out, and client feedback is gathered. Acceptance Only the last stages of the project is tested.
5. Regression testing may be used whenever new functions or logic are published because each loop finishes its own testing. Regression Testing can only be put into practise once development is finished.
6. There are no wait times between coding and testing. Regular gaps of time between coding and testing
7. Testing that is on-going and involves many test levels. Test levels cannot overlap since testing is a timed activity.

Conclusions

The agile method has been in use for a while. It has proven essential in many of the intricate projects that both small and large businesses are now working on. The most creative businesses of today and future will keep pushing the boundaries of agile methods. For them, the ability to develop, plan, and carry out initiatives successfully in a fast-paced, dynamic environment will be the difference between just existing and thriving. Making the proper judgments throughout project execution as well as planning is a key component of agility.

Testing methods, skills, techniques, and equipment may need to shift in order to handle that sort of change. The mechanics of test execution are one area of software testing that does not change merely because the project team is utilising an agile strategy to build software, although certain testers may need to significantly alter their testing methodology if they are to be useful on an agile software project. Agile testers must decide what work to complete next, how to complete it, how to make it relevant to the client, and how to exercise the application in various ways to enhance their understanding of how things operate and potential risk areas.

What is Agile Testing? Process, Methodology and Strategies

The agile Testing methodology has gained a lot of importance and popularity nowadays when it comes to software testing modern-day software. It is an intelligent way of testing complex software that bears more efficient end results than traditional testing methods.
This is a complete guide to Agile Testing, explaining all the important aspects related to it.

What is Agile Testing?
Agile testing is an iterative and incremental testing process in which software requirements are gathered gradually throughout the testing process.
Agile Testing is a part of the Agile Software development process which is carried out with the help of customer’s involvement. The agile testing process starts at the beginning of the software development process and there is no integration required between the development and testing processes.

As the development and testing are integrated into this process, it allows early error detection and removal which results in less development time as well as costs. This also ensures high product quality as errors get removed in the initial stage itself.
The basic principles on which Agile Testing is conducted are:

  • Agile testing is a continuous process and it ensures smooth project progress.
  • Product and business requirements are realized through continuous feedback. Feedback are provided on an on-going basis.
  • In Agile Testing, the development team, testing team, and the customers, all are involved in the testing process.
  • There is very little documentation required in Agile Testing as all the testers us a reusable checklist instead of lengthy documents. The main focus is on the test in this process.
  • The errors are resolved by the testing team as and when they occur, in the same iteration. This results in simpler and clean code.
  • Traditional testing is performed after the software is developed. However, agile testing is performed along with the development process which helps reducing development time.

Agile Testing  Methodology
Agile Testing  Methodology
TDD (Test Driven Development)
As the name suggests, the test-driven development approach starts with the test itself. It depends upon the repetition of the development cycle.
The first step in this development cycle is to create a unit test case. The next step involves creating the code which fits the test case so that the test case can be run. Thus, the entire code is created until the unit test passes.
This test is usually performed with the help of automated testing tools and run on units and components of the code.
ATDD (Acceptance Test Driven Development)
In this testing methodology, the developers, testers and the customers together build an acceptance test from the point of view of the customers in order to understand the requirements of the customers.
The code is developed according to the acceptance test case created.
This testing method is very customer-centered, and the main aim is to get to develop a program according to the user’s perception.
BDD (Behaviour Driven Development)
BDD is built on the same principles as TDD and ATDD. Thus, the code is developed according to the test case created in this testing methodology too.
The main aim of this development is to focus on the identification of business needs and outcomes. The development should be related to a business outcome.
The steps that are followed in BDD are:

  • First, describe the behavior
  • Creating the test case
  • Writing code according to the test case defined
  • Continuing the process until the code passes the test case.

Exploratory Testing
In this software testing methodologies, the testers have complete freedom to explore with the code and develop the most efficient software.
The testers create multiple test cases in order to explore each aspect of the software functionality. Testers perform different tests and record the process to study it and figure out the exact flow of the software.
This type of testing is a very important part of the agile test as it helps uncover hidden risks from the software which could not have been detected by simple testing methods.
Session-Based Testing
Session-based testing is built on the principles of exploratory testing. However, unlike exploratory testing which is conducted spontaneously without any planning, there is some structure in session-based testing.
This structure is provided by conducting tests during uninterrupted sessions where testers are required to report the tests that took place during the process.
The session-based testing methodology also helps in finding hidden bugs and defects in the software.
Agile Testing Life-cycle
agile testing life cycle
There are 5 phases in the Agile Testing Life-cycle:

  •  Agile Test Planning

The first phase is creating Agile Test Plans. In this phase, all the stakeholders: developers, testers, customers and users, come together and plan testing schedules.

  •   Daily Scrums

The goals and targets of the day are set at the start of each day. It helps testers realize the status of the testing.

  • Test Agility Review

Agility reviews are performed frequently in the development process. These are done to analyze the progress of the development.

  • Release Readiness

In this phase, testers decide which assess which features are completely developed and ready to go live and which ones need to go back to the previous development phase.

  •  Impact Assessment

This phase is the feedback phase of the life cycle which helps testers set goals for the next life-cycle. The inputs and feedback are collected from users and stakeholders to perform an impact assessment.
Agile Test Plan
Agile Test Plan
The Agile Test plan includes all the types of testing performed in a particular iteration. It includes the following:

  • It defines the test scope, sprint goals, test and extent to which the test is to be performed
  • It specifies the testing tools to be used, data and configurations for the test and the environment in which the test will be performed.
  • It schedules the test tasks and frequency of tests, i.e. how many times will they be performed.
  • It defines the testing methods and techniques
  • It also determines the expertise and training required to carry out tests.
  • It sets the priority of the tests according to the customer’s point of view.

Agile Testing Strategies
agile testing strategies
iteration 0
Process involved

  • Initial stages of testing such as tester selection, selection of testing tools, resource allocation, testing method selection, etc.
  • Risk identification
  • Cost estimation
  • Boundary condition establishment and scope defining

Construction iteration
This process can be divided into two confirmatory testing and investigative testing. confirmatory testing is performed to make sure that the product satisfies all the requirements of the stakeholders.
Investigative testing is performed to test deep and find all the issues that are ignored in confirmatory testing.
confirmatory testing can be again divided into agile acceptance testing and developer testing. Both the tests can be automated to make sure that continuous regression testing happens
Agile acceptance testing is a combination of functional testing as well as acceptance testing. on the other hand developer testing is a mix of unit testing and integration testing
Production
Once the release stage is completed the product will move on to the production stage
Agile Testing Quadrants
agile testing quadrants
The Agile testing quadrant divides the entire testing process into 4 parts. This makes the Agile testing process easy to understand.
Among the 4 quadrants, the left 2 tell the testers which code to write and the right 2 quadrants help them understand the code better with the help of feedback to the left quadrants.
Quadrant 1
This quadrant focuses on the quality of the code. It includes test cases and test components that are implemented by the testers.
These test cases are for automation testing to help to improve the code.
Quadrant 2
This quadrant contains business-driven test cases which are also implemented by the testing team.
The main focus of this quadrant is on customer requirements. It improves the business outcomes of the software being created.
It contains the following tests:

  1. Testing scenarios which may occur and workflow
  2. Testing the user experience
  3. Performing pair testing

Quadrant 3
This phase provides feedback for the previous two phases.
There are many iterations of reviews and feedbacks carried out in this quadrant which helps to strengthen the code.
Usability tests, exploratory tests, user acceptance tests, and collaborative tests are performed in this quadrant.
Quadrant 4
The non-functional requirements of the code, such as performance, security, scalability, etc. are taken care of in this quadrant.
Testing for stress and performance is carried out in this phase. Security and infrastructure test, data migration and load testing.
This quadrant makes sure that the code satisfies all the non-functional requirements.
 Difference Between Agile Testing Vs Waterfall Testing

 Agile Testing Waterfall Testing
Incremental approach Sequential process
The project will be divided into sprints The project will be divided into a sequential process
Meant for small projects Meant for all sort of projects
Starts at the beginning of the product and changes in the middle is not an issue The product can be only tested at the end of the project
unstructured More secured
Less priority for documents High priority
Testers and developers can work together Both testers and developers have to work separately

Advantages of Agile Testing

  • saves time and money.  Because the testing is carried along with the development. The errors and bugs are fixed at the same time and no additional time s required to test the entire software, find errors and solve them.
  • There is little to no documentation required in Agile testing as testers use reusable checklists.
  • Feedback is also a part of the Agile testing life-cycle and users give feedback after each process iteration.

Conclusion
Agile Testing is the best testing methodology for the modern-day software which is highly complicated and requires in-depth testing.
This testing methodology is very customer-centric. It requires high customer involvement in order to deliver a better quality of software that meets customer and user expectations.

This testing demands a high level of communication between developers, testers as well as customers and users as they all work together in testing the software.
Agile testing allows testers to be flexible and incorporating any requirement changes is very easy in Agile development.
This testing is becoming increasingly popular among major software development companies. It is a smart way of testing and the end result is of better quality too.
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