What is Agile Testing? Advantages of Agile Methodology
Agile development recognizes that testing is not a separate phase, but an
integral part of software development, along with coding. Agile teams use a
"whole-team" approach to "baking quality in" to the softwssare
product. Testers on agile teams lend their expertise in eliciting examples of
desired behavior from customers, collaborating with the development team to
turn those into executable specifications that guide coding. Testing and coding
are done incrementally and iteratively, building up each feature until it
provide
The conncept of "Time-To_Market" is the keyword in today's IT market that completer the software Vendors to come up with new strategies to save the time, resources, cut down the cost involved and at the same time, deliver reliable product that meets the user requirements.
In this case reasonably good amount of end-to-end testing is carried out and product could be acceptable with known issues/defects at the end of intermediate release. These defects are harmless the Application usability. .
As and
when the Developer implements the code, the Testing team identifies if the
application can be built using this code for a quick testing. This is to
identify the defects at the early stage so that the developer can fix them in
the next round on priority basis and continue with further development. This
iteration continues until the end of the code implementation. Once the testing
cycle starts, the Test team can now focus more on major test items such as
Integration, Usability Testing and System Testing etc.
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| Agile Methodology Life Cycle |
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Good communication must exist among Automation
testing team, developers, business analysts and stake holders. There must be
highly collaborative interaction between client and the delivery teams. More
client involvement implies more suggestions or changes from the client. It
implies more bandwidth for communication. The key challenge is that the process
should be able to capture and effectively implement all the changes and data
integrity needs to be retained. In traditional testing, developers and testers
are like oil and water, but in agile environment, the challenging task is that
they both must work together to achieve the target.
Daily Scrum Meeting is one of the key activities in
Agile Process. Teams do meet for 15 minutes stand up sessions. What is the
effectiveness of these meetings? How far these meetings help Automation
practice Developers?
The daily standup meeting or scrum meeting presents the team with a
regular opportunity to synchronize development activities with the
iteration plan and to check and reflect on the progress of the team’s
commitments towards the iteration goal.
The daily scrum meeting is not used as a problem-solving or issue
resolution meeting. Issues that are raised are taken offline and usually
dealt with by the relevant subgroup immediately after the meeting.
During the daily scrum, each team member answers the following three
questions:
-
What did you do yesterday?
-
What will you do today?
-
Are there any impediments in your way?
By focusing on what each person accomplished yesterday and will
accomplish today, the team gains an excellent understanding of what work
has been done and what work remains. The daily scrum meeting is not a
status update meeting in which a boss is collecting information about
who is behind schedule. Rather, it is a meeting in which team members
make commitments to each other.
If a programmer stands up and says, "Today, I will finish the data
storage module," everyone knows that in tomorrow's meeting, he will say
whether or not he finished. This has the wonderful effect of helping a
team realize the significance of these commitments, and that their
commitments are to
one another, not to some far-off customer or salesman.
In cases where the ScrumMaster cannot remove these impediments directly
himself (e.g., usually the more technical issues), he still takes
responsibility for making sure someone on the team does quickly resolve
the issue.
The vast majority of teams conduct the daily scrum meeting by having
each person answer the three questions in order. You answer all three,
then the next person, the next and so on. An interesting alternative
that some teams find helpful is to
talk through one product backlog item before
moving on to the next. In this way, an individual may give an update at
multiple different times during the same meeting.
sprint (software development)
In product development, a sprint is a set period of time during which specific work has to be
completed and made ready for review.
Each sprint begins with a planning meeting. During the meeting, the product owner (the person
requesting the work) and the development team agree upon exactly what work will be accomplished
during the sprint. The development team has the final say when it comes to determining how much
work can realistically be accomplished during the sprint, and the product owner has the final say
on what criteria needs to be met for the work to be approved and accepted.
The duration of a sprint is determined by the
scrum master, the team's
facilitator. Once the team reaches a consensus for how many days a sprint should last, all future
sprints should be the same. Traditionally, a sprint lasts 30 days.
After a sprint begins, the product owner must step back and let the team do their work. During
the sprint, the team holds daily stand up meeting to discuss progress and brainstorm solutions to
challenges. The project owner may attend these meetings as an observer but is not allowed to
participate unless it is to answer questions. (See
pigs and
chickens). The project owner may not make requests for changes during a sprint and only the
scrum master or project manager has
the power to interrupt or stop the sprint.
At the end of the sprint, the team presents its completed work to the project owner and the
project owner uses the criteria established at the sprint planning meeting to either accept or
reject the work.
