Practical Agile Testing Practices
In today's blog, we'll emphasize the importance of the Agile Testing Quadrant and highlight different activities that can help test organizations overcome challenges and navigate successfully, regardless of the magnitude of those challenges. Success stories from large and complex engagements demonstrate that testing teams, regardless of their experience and ability, can adopt and effectively utilize agile best practices to deliver value, contribute to continuous improvement, and enhance customer experience.
Before delving into the details, it is helpful to understand the Agile Testing Quadrant introduced by Brian Marick, a prominent figure in the Agile and software testing communities. The Agile Testing Quadrants have gained significant popularity since their introduction and have been embraced by Agile teams and practitioners as a tool to structure and organize their testing strategies within the Agile development process. However, not all "Agile" organizations fully understand or implement the Agile quadrants. Hence, this blog focuses on them.
The Agile Testing Quadrants provide a taxonomy for teams to identify, plan, and execute the necessary testing. Tests can be manual, automated, or a combination of both, and tools play a significant role in all types of testing. We encourage you to explore the literature on the Agile Testing Quadrant and read Brian Marick's blog for valuable insights.
For brevity, the quadrant is represented by a 2x2 matrix divided into four quadrants: Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4. It serves as a framework for structuring and planning testing efforts in Agile development. It is crucial to consider the fusion of areas: Business Facing, Critique Product, Technology Facing, and Supporting the Team to create a comprehensive list of tests that ensure effective testing. The following diagram provides a visual representation of some of these tests, which can be modified based on organizational and project needs.
Organizations must utilize such models to ensure comprehensive testing and embrace a shift-left testing approach, which involves moving testing earlier in the development process to identify and resolve issues faster. The benefits of this approach include delivering valuable software early and continuously, enhancing agility through continuous technical improvement and good design, and receiving continual feedback.
Now, let's explore specific techniques and practices adopted by large enterprises that have mastered the art of "Testing in the Agile World." It is important to note that the following list is not a guaranteed solution for success. Organizations need to consider their immediate business goals, organizational culture, and existing test engineering maturity when adopting these practices. If an organization is unsure about its test engineering maturity level, an Agile Test Maturity Assessment can be conducted before implementing changes. This assessment helps benchmark the current test engineering maturity against industry standard practices and prioritize efforts for sustainable improvements.
Here are some techniques and practices employed by large enterprises to handle challenges and enable their test organizations to deliver value:
?
1.????Defining an organization development methodology that all Agile projects can implement with minor tailoring.
2.????Involving the testing team in the process of scheduled feature releases and hot fixes.
领英推荐
3.????Implementing automation-based continuous integration.
4.????Utilizing tools for overall test management, unit testing, static code analysis, services testing, and functional automation integrated into the CI/CD pipeline.
5.????Standardizing test plans and approaches used across all products, allowing deviations only for project-specific constraints.
6.????Categorizing historical defects (environment specific, test data specific, domain specific, product specific), converting them into easily executable automated scripts, and sharing them with Development and Business teams to ensure these tests are run prior to QA release.
7.????Empowering the testing team to review software architecture and create relevant test scenarios based on the chosen architecture patterns and tactics.
8.????Adopting Risk-Based Testing that considers historical data, current application failures, and the future roadmap to identify critical modules/features.
9.????Gradually transitioning to Acceptance Test-Driven Development (TDD).
10.?Maintaining a lightweight test suite by continuously refactoring tests and eliminating ineffective and irrelevant ones.
11.?Implementing a mechanism where everyone confirms their work meets the definition of "Done" instead of generating non-value-added "day-end reports."
12.?Conducting Agile Test Process Maturity assessments to measure and improve testing process maturity in accordance with Agile philosophy.
To summarize, testing teams should start their work as early as the development teams in the project, focus on a few key aspects effectively rather than attempting to cover everything, ensure effective collaboration among all teams, strive for continuous improvement, and prioritize increasing customer experience. Testing teams should understand that they are integral to the project and core to the business. The success formula for mature software engineering organizations is to integrate test teams into development. By continuously monitoring and improving the testing process, organizations can stay ahead in the game and meet the ever-changing demands of the software industry.