The world is witnessing the rise of Agile methodologies in software development. They require a new approach to software testing, which must well align with the nature of Agile, a fast-moving philosophy. Test automation was not born to serve Agile teams, however, it makes Agile testing- a crucial part of the Agile concept- achievable. This article shows all essentials for the implementation of automation testing for Agile teams.
Agile methodology has been a buzz phrase dominating the software industry in recent years. Many product teams have transitioned from Waterfall to Agile to promote continuous iterations in the software development life cycle (SDLC). In Agile methodology, development and testing processes happen in parallel, presenting the critical need for a collaborative team.
Agile projects require agile testing, which follows all principles of the practice. It is indeed an irreplaceable part of Agile software development. Adopting this approach, QA teams start testing at early stages and keep continuously testing for the entire process instead of waiting for the final build.
As with its proactive nature, Agile enables QA teams to access all basic units and levels of the product to validate its functionality, performance, and appearance. It allows the completion of an Agile SDLC, ensures all client’s requirements are developed correctly, and shortens the time to market, all in a lean way.
Between Agile methodologies and traditional means like Waterfall, the Agile manifesto heightens the principle of interactions and iterations.
From the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB®), an Agile project focuses on establishing:
A people-centered culture. Instead of being dependent on tools to work with different participants, the collaboration from business representatives, QA engineers to developers needs to be streamlined. With distinct and imperative skillsets that each position has, let it be deciding on the product features to develop or a testing strategy to follow, efficient team dynamics is surely determinant to the success of a project.
Sooner and faster feedback. Continuous integration is crucial. Contrasting to traditional approaches in sequential development, stakeholders are now accessible to the status or any issues of the software at any given stage. Some examples such as feature requests or requirements can be addressed and clarified to steer clear of any false expectations from both sides.
Efficient development and project management. Management frameworks like Scrum and Kanban, or the Extreme Programming (XP) approach are what Agile teams often follow to optimize workflows. Different practices and instruments to have iteration-divided projects, symbolized tasks and work-in-progress in tickets to break down large chunks of work to manageable workloads.
Working software delivery with testing and development activities. To keep all testing and development doings in parallel with each other, teams must adhere to the idea of short iteration sequences. Having changed the role of testing to shared responsibility, a simplified process ideally have:
User stories developed with the involvement of both business stakeholders, QA engineers and developers
Unit and integrations tests created and ran by developers as features based on user stories are developed
QA engineers script and run acceptance tests in accordance with the Acceptance Criteria (AC), as well as end-to-end tests to ensure the functionality of the software from top to bottom
Stakeholders utilize pre-written acceptance test scripts to experiment and see if the completed features fulfill the Acceptance Criteria in the user story as feedback for developers
Agile methodology is the fastest approach to turn an idea into reality, especially for dynamic projects that are constantly changing. Nevertheless, the transformation into Agile is challenging. Its biggest advantage—the capability of continuous iteration—is the root of many major obstacles:
While the development work scope is divided into specific sprints, the QA team must always ensure all developed features work well with the current build. With such tremendous testing coverage, manual testing turns out to be a painful option. Automation testing, on the contrary, by its very definition, guarantees time efficiency in test execution and the testing quality overall
Specifically, automation testing in Agile methodology helps:
Test automation contrasts with agility by nature. Automation testing best performs on stable products with little changes in the last minute, not on dynamic projects adapting the Agile methodology. Therefore, knowing how to implement automation in Agile teams is essential before jumping into Agile testing.
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As mentioned, not all tests in Agile should be automated. However, the choice of automation testing tool for Agile teams should cover the scope of testing as much as possible.
To do so, the team must consider some criteria when selecting the automation tool, with the nature of Agile methodology in mind:
Apart from these criteria, there are more requirements for the team to look at to choose the most appropriate automation tool for their projects.
Read more about How to select the right automation testing tool.
The rising demand for Agile applications for almost every software development team makes the competitive advantage of automation stand out. Although the positive outcomes of automation can only be clarified in the long run, QA teams must plan their automation strategies right from the start.
These five steps above are basics for all Agile to keep in mind when deciding to go for test automation. However, the list is not exhaustive. On a case-by-case basis, every team and business will need to consider other factors for their Agile automation testing strategy to utilize the methodology’s benefits best.