Why Should Organizations Go Agile in Their Testing Approach

The agile project management methodology emphasizes on software applications being developed and tested in rapid and incremental cycles. The model does not consider software development and software testing as two distinct processes. In an agile environment, the programmers and testers have to work together to ensure that the software quality is maintained. The collaboration promotes continuous iteration of development and testing throughout the entire software development life cycle (SDLC).  Each business can reap a number of benefits by adopting the agile software testing model.

Understanding Important Benefits of Agile Testing Methodology

Instantaneous Feedback

In an agile environment, programmers and testers work as a single team. So the entire team is responsible for software quality. The testers can write unit tests each time a new feature or functionality is added to the application, and test the new code almost immediately. Further, they can provide instant feedback to the programmers about defects or bugs in the software. Based on the feedback received from the testers, the programmers can fix the bugs in the same build.

Better and Continuous Communication

In an agile environment, testers have to stay connected with programmers, project managers, customers and other stakeholders in the project. The emphasis on people and interaction results in better and effective communication. The programmers can simply contact the testers to gather more specific and detailed information about the bugs identified by them.  The daily scrum sessions further help the entire team to focus on identifying and fixing important issues in advance.

Easy to Eliminate Major Defects

It becomes easier for programmers to fix the bugs when the defects in the application are identified immediate after the coding phase. As the code it still fresh in the programmer’s mind, he can get the defects fixed without putting any extra time and effort. The instant feedback provided by testers help developers to work on major bugs in the application almost immediately. The business can further avoid additional cost when the bugs are identified during the coding phase.

Easy to Reproduce Bugs

While preparing a bug report, testers have to write detailed and specific information about the bugs identified in the software. They can further reduce the defect turnaround time drastically by reproducing the bugs. But testers have to put additional time and effort to reproduce the bugs. In an agile environment, they test the software once the code is written. So they find time to write detailed bug reports and reproduce the defects accurately. 

Easy to Incorporate Changes

To reap benefits of waterfall software testing, a business has to define the business requirements from the beginning of the project. But software developers nowadays have to build applications based on frequently-changing business requirements. So it becomes impossible for the managers to outline the business requirements clearly before the project starts. But a business can always adopt agile testing methodology to incorporate changes and enhancements required by the client. In an agile environment, applications are developed and tested in short sprints. So the programmer and testers have to focus only on a single sprint with specific features. They can easily accommodate the new business requirements in the next sprint without any hassle.

Enhanced Test Coverage

Often developers have to test software thoroughly without increasing its time to delivery. So they have to prioritize the defects at the time of preparing bug reports. But agile methodology enables testers to perform tests continuously throughout the software development life cycle. Many enterprises even invest in test automation tools to enable testers to repeat the tests under various conditions. Thus, the testers can assess all aspects of the software without affecting the delivery time.

Shorter Delivery Period

Each business has to deliver software continuously and rapidly to make the client happy. Hence, businesses frequently explore ways to shorten the delivery period. Agile methodology emphasize on development and testing of the application in small iterations. So it becomes easier for enterprises to deliver the working software to the client at frequent intervals.  The constant interaction between the testers and customers further resolve various issues and differences without any delay.

However, it is also important for the organization to keep in mind some of the important shortcomings of agile testing model. Likewise, the managers also need to understand when to use the agile testing methodology. But each enterprise can reap benefits in terms of time, quality and cost by implementing a custom agile testing strategy.