Agile testing teams
Agile Testing is a software testing process that follows the principles of agile software development. Unlike traditional testing models, the Agile testing methodology follows the development methodology in which requirements develop gradually from customers and testing teams. Hence, agile testing teams are all about changes in requirements.
The main objective of the agile development team is to deliver new features with quality. When teams move to agile, they often have to find out the best way to incorporate testing time at the speed of agile, which can be a challenge as most traditional testing methodologies don’t include an agile context. The speed of development then requires a new approach that can ensure quality at every step.
To achieve the best quality for a product, developers are key members of the agile team. Indeed, they are good at solving problems with code, they are more proficient when fixing tests that they wrote when they fail, and they understand the feature requirements and the code.
Of course, developers don’t work alone. Quality Assurance (QA) engineers bring an essential perspective to the development process and can help prevent bugs.
How does it add value?
In agile development teams, developers and QA engineers work together in exploratory testing, which adds serious value during development to prevent and fix important bugs. Better code is delivered when developers become better testers.
Exploratory testing improves the quality of the code and, as a result, it makes the team stronger. Contrary to manual testing, exploratory testing is a risk-based, critical thinking approach to testing which allows developers and testers to use their knowledge of risks, implementation details, and the customers’ needs.
Having this knowledge early in the process enable developers or QA engineers to find and understand bugs quickly. It is often more efficient than manual testing as it has insights from exploratory testing sessions back to the original code and automated tests. Exploratory testing also explores the experience of using the feature in a way that scripted testing doesn’t.
In order to maintain the quality of the feature, there is a need to blend both exploratory and automated testing. With exploratory testing, teams can ensure that the new code meets the quality standard in a greater way than automated tests can. Hence, it involves an easier use, better visual design, and effectiveness of the feature, which are added to the solid protections against regressions that automated testing provides.
In conclusion
Incorporating agile into the development team means improving the quality over and saving quite a lot of time. Developers are more involved in the testing process and have the knowledge and skills to fix issues as soon as they appear. In the long run, Agile testing will have a positive impact on the team and add productivity and value.
In an agile team, every single member is responsible for quality. Working as a team allows the sharing of skills and knowledge that leads to building quality into the development process. The goal is not to find bugs and defects but to prevent them.
