Why Use Agile as a Tester? Part 2

In Agile, regression testing is all the more a must, but due to the increasing size of the product, automation will become a bigger necessity. Testing plays a huge role in continuous integration and deployment to make sure that all components are working well before being pulled into another branch. Manual testing will never go away, as there are always things such as user interface quality that cannot be assessed by code. Both manual and automated testing are needed, and they will be there to stay.

It is also important to have the right tools for the Agile team and their collaborative needs. Depending on the team set-up, whether they are all collocated or distributed, they must have the right applications for backlog management, communication, and other project tasks. These are needed to help track issues, facilitate the discussions needed for resolution, and monitor the health and statuses of the system. After all, Agile is all about transparency, inspection, and adaptation.

Analysing Factors with PESTLE

Making the jump from Waterfall to Agile is not as simple as saying “We’re going Agile!” Any good organisation will make the necessary preparations to ensure that switching to another mode of delivery will be manageable, if not perfect. And part of making the necessary preparations is knowing all the important factors that would affect the organisation’s transition. One way to do this is to do the PESTLE analysis.

PESTLE stands for: Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environment. These are the different categories that encompass the different external factors that an organisation will want to take into account. While these may not have direct impact on the product, external factors such as recession and real estate pricings affect companies from a high level point of view.

For one, in the context of testing, part of switching to Agile would be getting the right tools and technology needed to make testing tasks appropriate for the project. Going as far as researching on the company behind the testing tools they plan to purchase licenses from can help ensure that they are making a sound investment. There will be contracts and company-vendor agreements to be made, so Agile teams must ensure that they are fully aware of those.

Even if delivery is made faster with Agile, quality isn’t compromised thanks to having the necessary research, set-up, and testing practices in place. Short feedback loops enable teams to act on the changes needed to make the product better.

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Our Book Recommendations

We found these books great for finding out more information on Agile Scrum: