Ever wondered what is an Agile Methodology and Agile testing? How does it help a project? In lucid terms, an Agile Methodology is a process which emphasizes enhancing the development life cycle of a particular project. In comparison to the Waterfall model, agile testing is circumstantial in terms of both developmental and testing competencies. Here are the pros and cons of agile testing.
Defining Agile testing
Now the question is what is Agile testing? Simply put, Agile testing refers to making changes to the existing project during its development lifecycle as per the project requirements. To get a deeper and better understanding of the Agile methodologies, it is crucial for you to figure out how Agile testing could help in shaping the project effectively. It is an incessant process which is done during the different stages of the project. As a matter of fact, with every testing, the project tends to become smoother in terms of features, capabilities, operations etc. with the end result being customer satisfaction. In brief, testing ensures the product is in good shape and there is minimal damage and can be delivered to the client without any hassles.
Let’s explore some of the benefits of using Agile testing in a particular project.
Advantages:
Meets project requirements: Agile testing is a practice of ensuring that the product caters to all the requirements of the project in each iteration and it progresses in its lifecycle.
Teamwork: Agile testing is a collective effort of the entire team and not just done by the testing professionals. The team as a whole works together and maintains a track record in terms of lightweight documents, SOPs, and checklists which make it easier for newbies in the project to get a fair idea of every particular detail of the product.
Ensures customer satisfaction: Agile testing helps the developers and testers to run and use applications which guarantee high performance and expedited delivery which can satisfy the end consumer/ customer/ client completely. Despite the fact agile testing proves beneficial to the project, there are certain demerits or cons which cannot be ignored. Let’s find out:
Disadvantages:
Time-consuming: A lot of the project team’s time is spent on fixing bugs and rolling out software releases for minor glitches. As a result of which, there is an increase in the number of regression bugs which ultimately delays the project delivery.
Adaptability issues: Agile testing as a process which is perpetual in nature. This implies the team needs to turn around instantaneously and every test strategy has a very short lifespan which is likely to change more often. Many a time, good test strategies are done away with in haste to keep up with the practice of Agile testing in a project.
No fixed process: In Agile testing, the entire team is extremely flexible. The whole test team constantly works on developing a powerful product by implementing changes without leaving any footprints whatsoever. As a result, this creates a chaotic situation among the team members.
Although there are certain demerits of implementing Agile in a process, the advantages of using Agile testing can go a long way in benefitting the project team and overshadow the disadvantages easily. It is important to note that the use of automation tools play a vital role in the agile testing process. Selecting the right automation tools potentially play a key factor in the success of a particular product. But always remember to use licensed tools as these impose stringent security access to different kinds of users when it comes to accessing diversified resources.
It’s been observed that Agile testing methodology poses some serious threats for non-Agile users. Hence, testers should possess in-depth knowledge and thorough understanding of the application under test. Nonetheless, certified Agile practitioners tend to have an upper hand in product handling than the rest of the team members. We can clearly connote saying that the Agile method is an iterative and incremental approach to software development. By bringing Agile testing to the forefront, errors can be fixed in an ongoing project at any given point of time. All that is required is a close coordination and free flow of communication among the developers, testers and the rest of the product team.
Finally, to conclude, the primary focus of Agile testing methodology is to ensure an effective and faster delivery of the automation test scripts within the allocated time frame as per the project requirements in a more structured and disciplined manner. Have any thoughts? Leave a comment below.
Author Bio: I am Maria Thomas, Content Marketing Manager and Product Specialist at GreyCampus with eight years rich experience on professional certification courses like PMI- Project Management Professional, PMI-ACP, Prince2, ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library), Big Data, Cloud and Six Sigma.
