Today’s trend in Software Development is racing towards achieving Targets, Quality and Customer Satisfaction within a limited time frame and Agile methodology is one of the strategy adopted for addressing these challenges. As customer satisfaction and ROI are linked to product quality and cost of quality, QA and testing services have a critical bearing on the success of any Agile project.

Let’s have a look at the life of a tester in an Agile environment .The testing agenda during each development phase is very crucial for a tester. The different phases include:

Project Initiation Phase

As a part of the project team the Test Manager is responsible for establishing the quality of process. So in the initiation phase, the test strategy of a tester will include and should be aware of the details of the Agile development process being used.

Development Phase

The testers, developers, business analysts and project stakeholders all contribute to kick-off meetings where the “user stories” are selected for the upcoming sprint. The testers create test scenarios which are presented to the business analysts and project stakeholders for their approval and signoff. These test scenarios are then broken down to test cases that offer adequate test coverage for the given functionality.

The developers then write code that will pass the tests. In this approach the development and testing take place continuously throughout the sprint – there is no separate testing phase.

Sprints in an Agile project can extend to multiple levels in a complex system. At the end of the Sprint the testing team’s goal is to have a release available with minimal defects and risks thereby ensuring that existing functionality has not been impacted by the introduction of new functionality in each iteration cycle.

Release Phase

The aim of any Agile project is to deliver a basic working product as quickly as possible and then to go through a process of continual improvement. Prior to release, a final acceptance test is performed before transitioning the application into production.

What a Agile tester should be armed with?

Agile projects present their own challenges to the testing team like unclear project scope, multiple iterations, minimal documentation, early and frequent testing needs. All these challenges demand special and diverse skills from the testing team to tackle it. Some of the essential skills for getting equipped are:

* Resource Management

Test resource is required to define the scenarios and test cases. Conduct manual testing alongside the developers, write automated regression tests and execute the automated regression packs. The availability of a pool of professional test resources offers the scope for effective resource management across the agile project life cycle.

* Communication

The benefits of independent testing will not be realized unless good communication exists between the testers, developers, business analysts and project stakeholders. Keep up the conversation using a combination of face-to-face conversation, meetings and workshops, phone calls, email and WebEx meetings. The iterative model of development and the frequency of releases mandate that all teams have a common understanding of the user requirements.

* Processes

Another key success factor for Agile Development is the implementation of quality governance processes such as configuration management. Testing teams should be aware of the best practices that are accredited with globally recognized certifications (e.g. TMMi, CMMi, ISO etc.).

* Requirements Elicitation

Product requirements in Agile projects are often captured in the form of user stories. The testers should be experienced and smart in analyzing and defining the testing requirements in the absence of any product documentation. The testers should also be equipped with alternative ways of deriving test requirements. Although the customers should lead the effort, they benefit from testers’ technical expertise and ability to imagine diverse scenarios.

Specialist testers from the Agile test team should possess these and many more skills which are attained through experience as testing professionals. To ensure accelerated delivery of working software which conforms to the desired quality, the testing team should be involved from the beginning of every iterative development cycle and not just after the first couple of sprints. Their own agility and flexibility is essentially the key to their success in the project.