Testing is a phase of software development that is crucial to the success of any product. If testing is not meticulous and thorough, then failure is bound to happen. During the Software Development Life Cycle, various approaches to testing software are possible. Through this article, we shall learn more about one such approach that comprises Agile Testing Strategies.
What Is Agile?
Prior to moving on to the strategies, it is first important to know the meaning of Agile. Dictionary meaning of agile is "dynamic and responsive". To this effect, Agile is a process that unites a development team with the customer through the ideology of transparency, simplicity, flexibility and feedback responsiveness. Usually, Agile adheres to the ever-evolving demands of the business in such a manner that interruptions to developmental work are minimal.
Agile Testing Strategy
Gone are the days when testing followed a serial wise testing methodology. Now is the time for prioritization and improvisation. Meeting these two demands and saving cost and time both are the Agile Testing Strategies. The test strategy in Agile development follows as given below:
Project Initiation And Test Plan – this includes setting up the testing team and creating a high-level test plan that consists of the scope of testing, functions that need to be tested, types of testing required, infrastructure and resource requirements for testing, the milestones and deliverables.
Defining Each Sprint – the period of time in which each task at hand needs to be completed has to be defined, this is Sprint Planning. This has to be done hand-in-hand with the Quality Assurance team. Detailed test cases are then developed and automatic tests are run on codes continuously in order to fix bugs. Pair Tests are conducted for immediate bug fixes and Feature Tests are conducted to log all errors that need to be prioritized during the next sprint. The results are reviewed and a demonstration is made to the stakeholders.
System Test – the prioritized bugs are the main consideration here. They are fixed and the complete system is tested to validate its efficient functioning.This is done by staging mock deploys and conducting smoke tests on it. Load, security and usability tests are performed along with complete regression testing. In other words, this is the time to manage all the remaining defects and find their solutions. In addition, now that the product is ready for release its final testing needs to be done to confirm adherence to the stakeholders requirements.
Final Release – The final part of Agile Testing Strategy is to describe the exit criteria. Here the severity of all the bugs found is reported along with the steps taken to eliminate them. Those that are still open are also reported. In the end, from the user perspective a complete guide is prepared for easy installation and documentation of the software.
Conclusion
The above mentioned is by no means an exhaustive guide to Agile Testing strategy but most of the Agile testing will find its basic groundwork here. Agile stands for continuous modifications and as such, the strategy to is open for changes as and when the demand arises.
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