Agile Testing, and What’s Involved in Switching To It
The main difference between Agile and Waterfall is that Agile delivers the product earlier on and more often. Because of the iterative nature of Agile, testing also needs to keep up to speed with the pace. Thanks to backlog management and breaking down the product into increments, all development activities including design, coding, and testing are managed to adjust to the pace as well, but not without compromising on traditional practices.
For one, because Agile values “working product” over “comprehensive documentation”, test plans, test cases, and other testing documents found in Waterfall don’t have to be as thorough as in Agile. One approach that can be done by Agile teams is to have a test plan for a certain release, with a list of scenarios and acceptance criteria to watch out for. The collaborative nature of Agile also does away with detailed System Requirement Specifications documents and makes do with user stories and road maps instead.
The faster pace of Agile also calls for an “all hands on deck” approach to quality. Gone are the days of team members keeping within silos. Instead, all roles in the project are even more responsible for not just testing but also ensuring that the product is built the way it should be. For example, the tester could give performance and usability insights to the Product Owner when designing user stories. The tester could also act as a business analyst and help clarify requirements between the clients and the development team. Cross-functionality in an Agile project means that the strengths of each role complements with the others, instead of separating responsibilities by role.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: