Testing challenges have been a topic of discussion for a long time, but mix in agile and everything picks up speed. This is mainly because Agile testing has become the popular choice for testing practices and methodologies, but also for what it truly stands for.
Quality has always been the number one priority and the main focus that places customer satisfaction above everything else. However, when you are releasing new features and build to the market in a short span of weeks, you have a lot on your plate already in terms of perfect bug-free development, release deadline, and of course, thorough testing before launch. Hence, there are bound to be certain agile testing challenges that the modern development teams face. In a nutshell, this is how do you test features rapidly and thoroughly as development speed increases?
Normally, the development teams work alongside testing teams to function in unison which creates a continuous yet productive loop of feedback geared towards improving the feature or project to the max – ensuring high-quality injected to the final code.
So How One Defines Agile Testing?
Agile testing begins from the start of the development process and carries on until the end with every progression. Unlike waterfall or previous testing methodology that included testing after the coding stage. In agile, testing is a continuous process happening in parallel. In addition, even testers are to communicate with the owners for a better understanding of the functionalities and behavior of the software as per the demand and vision of the owner/client. This makes testing easier as they are aware of the expected outcome. What’s more, developers are also assisted with bringing improvements to their code.
Some of the core functionalities of agile testing include constant communication flow with the owners, interaction with the developers, and involvement of the entire team of Quality Assurance.
Now that the basics are out of the way, let’s dive into the main part of this discussion.
Agile Testing Challenges
The ones listed below can be categorized as ‘common’ hurdles faced by testers of all software development companies near me and around the globe.
#1 Not Enough Information
This roadblock comes from product owners that have an idea about a new feature but fail to pin-point the important specifications of that feature. This lack of information leads to poorly written acceptance criteria as there is missing information about exact requirements. This leads to testers not being able to build and run comprehensive test cases.
In order to solve this gap, testers come up with scenarios themselves to test out the idea and check all high-level possibilities. However, this is a challenge within itself as testers do not fabricate tests, and require proper judgment from the owner or client. Otherwise, it is left open-ended.
#2 Rapidly Changing Requirements
There is nothing wrong with changing requirements as this is part of agile. However, sometimes stories or requirements are dropped or changed during a sprint and that usually isn’t advised. That is when the work that is almost near completion in terms of testing and development needs to be discarded and modified. This, in turn, changes the entire scope of testing abruptly.
Now imagine this happening frequently – which causes more disruption than smooth flow and testing transitions. However, these are just the challenges, and the right software development firm handles such frequent modifications with ease as change is common in agile.
#3 Frequent Regression Cycles
We are talking about fast iterations with new features constantly being added by the developers within a product. This is why regression testing is performed by the testers to identify any problems within the existing code and solve it if any. Moreover, testers have to run compatibility test case scenarios as web applications appear differently on different browsers and devices.
This is one of the most common challenges to face by any group of agile testers, and they overcome such hurdles through automation. Testers use Docker or Selenium Grid to run automated tests.
#4 Lack of Quality Measurement
Agile testing includes numerous metrics, such as unit test code coverage, lines of code AKA LOC, and code complexity, and this is why agile teams of today have no defined measurement of quality against which they can optimize and plan testing scenarios. Where they stand with ‘quality’ is a blur, and questions like which areas have quality issues remain unclear. Proactively responding to production failures and resolving bugs is indeed a crucial aspect, but what takes precedence is focusing on ‘quality’ and maintaining it throughout the development and after deployment.
Summing Up
All is not lost because of these challenges. Skilled and agile testing teams are aware of the quality intelligence platforms available at their disposal, specifically built to help agile teams curb the gaps discussed above. These technologies help them to identify key quality areas that need attention.
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