To integrate testing in the Agile software development lifecycle, the QA team must collaborate with the Scrum master and product owners throughout the process, including manual regression and automated regression testing.
The Definitive Guide to Implementing Shift Left Testing in QARapidValue
In today's digital world, even though most of the projects are following the Agile methodology, often testers might not get enough time to quantify the problem scope and test the product effectively. Even if a sprint lasts for two weeks, the QA team would get the complete functionality for testing, only two or three days before the sprint completion. Eventually, the QA team would have to rush the testing, struggle for test completion and even end up with improper test coverage and bugs being leaked into production. So the testing phase is often considered as a bottleneck for the release by the management.
Studies done by analysts suggest that the maximum number of defects occur during the requirement
and design phase of the software development life cycle. More than half of the defects occur during the
requirement and design phase of the SDLC, i.e 56% of the total defects. Out of this 56%, 23% occurs during the design phase, 7% in the development phase and 10% defects emerge during the other phases. 2019 witnessed test automation going mainstream with 44% of IT organizations automating more than 50% of
all testing and these figures are expected to go up in the upcoming years. Thus it becomes highly necessary to step up the testing game and ensure that it is done quite efficiently and this is where Shift Left Testing comes into play. Detecting defects early in the software development cycle can prove to be very crucial in regards to cost and efficiency.
This whitepaper discusses how shift left testing could help you reimagine the entire QA testing process.
Agile testing: from Quality Assurance to Quality AssistanceLuca Giovenzana
The history of the CHILI Agile transition from Quality Assurance to Quality Assistance.
Presented during a meetup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZewEdNgo_oI&t=19s
and at the Working Software 2021:
https://www.agilemovement.it/workingsoftware/index.html
Test Automation Strategies and Frameworks: What Should Your Team Do?TechWell
Agile practices have done a magnificent job of speeding up the software development process. Unfortunately, simply applying agile practices to testing isn't enough to keep testers at the same pace. Test automation is necessary to support agile delivery. Max Saperstone explores popular test automation frameworks and shares the benefits of applying these frameworks, their implementation strategies, and best usage practices. Focusing on the pros and cons of each framework, Max discusses data-driven, keyword-driven, and action-driven approaches. Find out which framework and automation strategy are most beneficial for specific situations. Although this presentation is tool agnostic, Max demonstrates automation with examples from current tooling options. If you are new to test automation or trying to optimize your current automation strategy, this session is for you.
This is a free module from my course ISTQB CTAL Test Manager revised to 2012 syllabus. If you need full training feel free to contact me by email (amraldo@hotmail.com) or by mobile (+201223600207).
Agile testing is the soware testing
methodology that stems from the Agile
soware development principles. The
essence of Agile testing practice is that it
incorporates testing into the dev process,
rather than keeping it a separate SDLC
phase.
The Definitive Guide to Implementing Shift Left Testing in QARapidValue
In today's digital world, even though most of the projects are following the Agile methodology, often testers might not get enough time to quantify the problem scope and test the product effectively. Even if a sprint lasts for two weeks, the QA team would get the complete functionality for testing, only two or three days before the sprint completion. Eventually, the QA team would have to rush the testing, struggle for test completion and even end up with improper test coverage and bugs being leaked into production. So the testing phase is often considered as a bottleneck for the release by the management.
Studies done by analysts suggest that the maximum number of defects occur during the requirement
and design phase of the software development life cycle. More than half of the defects occur during the
requirement and design phase of the SDLC, i.e 56% of the total defects. Out of this 56%, 23% occurs during the design phase, 7% in the development phase and 10% defects emerge during the other phases. 2019 witnessed test automation going mainstream with 44% of IT organizations automating more than 50% of
all testing and these figures are expected to go up in the upcoming years. Thus it becomes highly necessary to step up the testing game and ensure that it is done quite efficiently and this is where Shift Left Testing comes into play. Detecting defects early in the software development cycle can prove to be very crucial in regards to cost and efficiency.
This whitepaper discusses how shift left testing could help you reimagine the entire QA testing process.
Agile testing: from Quality Assurance to Quality AssistanceLuca Giovenzana
The history of the CHILI Agile transition from Quality Assurance to Quality Assistance.
Presented during a meetup:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZewEdNgo_oI&t=19s
and at the Working Software 2021:
https://www.agilemovement.it/workingsoftware/index.html
Test Automation Strategies and Frameworks: What Should Your Team Do?TechWell
Agile practices have done a magnificent job of speeding up the software development process. Unfortunately, simply applying agile practices to testing isn't enough to keep testers at the same pace. Test automation is necessary to support agile delivery. Max Saperstone explores popular test automation frameworks and shares the benefits of applying these frameworks, their implementation strategies, and best usage practices. Focusing on the pros and cons of each framework, Max discusses data-driven, keyword-driven, and action-driven approaches. Find out which framework and automation strategy are most beneficial for specific situations. Although this presentation is tool agnostic, Max demonstrates automation with examples from current tooling options. If you are new to test automation or trying to optimize your current automation strategy, this session is for you.
This is a free module from my course ISTQB CTAL Test Manager revised to 2012 syllabus. If you need full training feel free to contact me by email (amraldo@hotmail.com) or by mobile (+201223600207).
Agile testing is the soware testing
methodology that stems from the Agile
soware development principles. The
essence of Agile testing practice is that it
incorporates testing into the dev process,
rather than keeping it a separate SDLC
phase.
Introduction to Investigation And Utilizing Lean Test Metrics In Agile Softwa...IJERA Editor
The growth of the software development industry approaches the new development methodologies to deliver the
error free software to its end-user fulfilling the business values to product. The growth of tools and technology
has brought the automation in the development and software testing process, it has also increased the demand of
the fast testing and delivery of the software to end customers. Traditional software development methodologies
to trending agile software development trend have brought new philosophy, dimensions, and processes having
invested new tools to make process easy. The Agile development (Scrum, XP, FDD, BDD, ATDD, ASD,
DSDM, Kanban, Crystal and Lean) process also faces the software testing model crises because of the fast
development of life cycles, fast delivery to end users without having appropriate test metrics which make the
software testing process slow as well as increase the risk. The analysis of the testing metrics in the software
testing process and setting the right lean test metrics help to improve the software quality effectively in agile
process.
A Research Study on importance of Testing and Quality Assurance in Software D...Sehrish Asif
A Research Study on importance of Testing and Quality Assurance in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Models & Quality Assurance for Product Development using Agile & A Software Quality Framework for Mobile Application Testing
Presentation (animated) on Agilve vs Iterative vs Waterfall models in SDLC.
Detailed comparison across Process, Planning, Execution and Completion.
#Cricket Analogy#
Waterfall (Test Match) vs Iterative (ODI) Format vs Agile (T20)
#Waterfall: Test Match Format - Strategic-Phase by Phase like Innings by Innings.
Game for Specialists, Slow and Steady.
#One Day (ODI) Format : Strategic approach – First10/Middle/Slog overs.
Mix of Specialists and
All-Rounders, Result oriented.
#T20 Format: Lively,Dynamic, Full of Action. Game for All-Rounders. Changes with every over.
Highly Result oriented
Tester’s considerations when moving towards successful CI/CDDerk-Jan de Grood
These are the slides of the tutorial I gave at QA&Testing in Bilbao on 17 October 2018
Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) empowers organizations to bring their solution in production fast and frequent. This interactive session will share the benefits of this concept and introduce eight conditions that need to be met in order to make CI/CD a success. After this brief introduction, we will make small groups and explore these conditions, exchange experiences and you will get an understanding what needs to be improved in your organization. Talk to your peers and learn where they stand. Of course each of the groups will share their learnings, so we all go home with an understanding of how you can benefit from CI/CD and what needs to be done to make it work.
Finally we will see what test strategy we would advise if our company would decide to move towards CI/CD and this cover we consider much more than just automate our tests…
Addressing Performance Testing Challenges in Agile: Process and Tools: Impetu...Impetus Technologies
Register at http://lf1.me/ocb/
Impetus webinar on ‘Addressing Performance Testing Challenges in Agile: Process and Tools‘
Date: July 3 (10 am PT / 1 pm ET)
A NOVEL METHOD FOR REDUCING TESTING TIME IN SCRUM AGILE PROCESSijseajournal
Recently, the software development in the industry is moving towards agile due to the advantages provided
by the agile development process. Main advantages of agile software development process are: delivering
high quality software in shorter intervals and embracing change. Testing is a vital activity for delivering a
high quality software product. Often testing accounts for more project effort and time than any other
software development activities. Testing strategies for conventional process models are well established,
but these strategies are not directly applicable to agile testing without modifications and changes. In this
paper, a novel method for agile testing in the scrum software development environment is proposed and
presented. The sprint and testing activities which form the context for the proposed testing method are
presented. The proposed method is applied on two cases studies. The results indicated that the testing time
can be reduced considerably by applying the proposed method
A software testing practice that follow the principle of agile software development is called Agile Testing.
Agile is an iterative development methodology where requirement evolve through collaboration between the customer and self-organizing teams and agile aligns development with customer need.
Website: https://www.1solutions.biz/
Incorporating Performance Testing in Agile Development ProcessMichael Vax
This presentations explains different aspects of software performance testing and give actionable recommendations on how to integrate it into the Agile Software development process
STX Next - Scrum Development Process OverviewSTX Next
An overview of Software Development Process at STX Next presenting basic SCRUM ceremonies and workflows. To learn more about STX Next visit https://stxnext.com
Yesterday Jan Jaap Cannegieter and I gave an amazing tutorial at the Agile testing days. In our full day tutorial we discussed the role of the test manager and how to add value in an agile environment.
We discovered that a test manager is operation at two interfaces. One is being that of a quality ambassador that shows the business and stakeholders how testing is done and how its progressing . On the other interface the test manager is enabling the team(s) to build quality into their deliverables. During this full day tutorial we deep dived on both aspects. We discussed the agile test strategy and investigated what activities we test managers undertake, what activities we find important and what is valued most by our stakeholder. You wouldn’t be surprised if we told you that there is a gap between both. Next we practiced with defining agile test plans at MVP and sprint level. And assessed other roles that test managers can adopt. We closed the full circle by concluding that extra activities might be added to our initial brainstorm results. The topic is truly alive. Not only did we have a full rum (we had an all-time conference record with the amount of attendees), during the day we had a lot of lively discussions and answered a lot of questions from the participants. We loved the participation of all in the room and believe we all had a good day.
Agile Business Day 2020 - Refinement- Unlock the full potential of your refi...Derk-Jan de Grood
Good refinement makes development more predictable, leads to better solutions and enables the Product Owner to set the right priorities. Still many teams fail to unlock the full potential of refinement. Join this session to get practical tips to get more out of your refinement sessions.I have guided many teams during their transition toward Agile. Initially most attention went to the ceremonies and understanding the agile values. Experience taught me that when the team gets up to speed refinement becomes a bottleneck. Crucial because good refinement makes development more predictable, leads to better solutions and enables the Product Owner to set the right priorities.Unfortunately, I see many teams that do not unlock the full potential of refinement. Not only is the time spent on refinement often limited, many of the refinement meetings I join are inefficient. I meet teams that spent half the meeting watching the Product Owner entering the new backlog items in the workflow system. Although they poker the user stories afterwards, little time is left to discussions the best solution and risks that need to be avoided.In this talk I will focus on the following topics• Advantages of good refinement and what I see in daily practise• How we can boost the potential of Refinement by organising it as a process rather than a meeting• Introduction of challenging questions that can be used to prepare your refinement• And last but not least, how you can involve the off-site team members of distributed teamsJoin this session if you are an Agile Coach of SM and want to help your team(s) to get more out of refinement. If you are a PO and feel a need to boost quality and predictability, or if you are a member of a distributed team and want to involve your fellow team members making better solutions.
In many web or cloud applications, performance testing is critical part of application testing since it affects
business revenue, credibility, and customer satisfaction. Conventional software development models are known
to pushing the performance testing to the very end of project, with the expectations that, only minor tweaks
and tune up are required to meet the performance requirements from the business, however any major
performance bottlenecks found during this phase were major factors for delay in Go to Market. With more and
more companies are adapting the agile software development process which believes in performance testing
should never be an afterthought but it should tightly integrate from initial planning to production analysis of
software development lifecycle. This white paper explains how any company can integrate performance testing
into agile process, and key barriers for agile performance testing when team decides to adopt agile performance
testing.
Agile Software Development with Scrum_ A Complete Guide to The Steps in Agile...Fibonalabs
Agile scrum methodology is not only a model but a wonderful exercise in itself. It takes care of so many parameters that are involved in the development of software. Giving eye to detail is one of the most fascinating features of this framework. The steps in an agile scrum methodology involve envisioning, planning, developing, testing, and bug fixing for software. With scrum architecture, you can ensure continuous development, improvement, and delivery of a software product.
Introduction to Investigation And Utilizing Lean Test Metrics In Agile Softwa...IJERA Editor
The growth of the software development industry approaches the new development methodologies to deliver the
error free software to its end-user fulfilling the business values to product. The growth of tools and technology
has brought the automation in the development and software testing process, it has also increased the demand of
the fast testing and delivery of the software to end customers. Traditional software development methodologies
to trending agile software development trend have brought new philosophy, dimensions, and processes having
invested new tools to make process easy. The Agile development (Scrum, XP, FDD, BDD, ATDD, ASD,
DSDM, Kanban, Crystal and Lean) process also faces the software testing model crises because of the fast
development of life cycles, fast delivery to end users without having appropriate test metrics which make the
software testing process slow as well as increase the risk. The analysis of the testing metrics in the software
testing process and setting the right lean test metrics help to improve the software quality effectively in agile
process.
A Research Study on importance of Testing and Quality Assurance in Software D...Sehrish Asif
A Research Study on importance of Testing and Quality Assurance in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) Models & Quality Assurance for Product Development using Agile & A Software Quality Framework for Mobile Application Testing
Presentation (animated) on Agilve vs Iterative vs Waterfall models in SDLC.
Detailed comparison across Process, Planning, Execution and Completion.
#Cricket Analogy#
Waterfall (Test Match) vs Iterative (ODI) Format vs Agile (T20)
#Waterfall: Test Match Format - Strategic-Phase by Phase like Innings by Innings.
Game for Specialists, Slow and Steady.
#One Day (ODI) Format : Strategic approach – First10/Middle/Slog overs.
Mix of Specialists and
All-Rounders, Result oriented.
#T20 Format: Lively,Dynamic, Full of Action. Game for All-Rounders. Changes with every over.
Highly Result oriented
Tester’s considerations when moving towards successful CI/CDDerk-Jan de Grood
These are the slides of the tutorial I gave at QA&Testing in Bilbao on 17 October 2018
Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) empowers organizations to bring their solution in production fast and frequent. This interactive session will share the benefits of this concept and introduce eight conditions that need to be met in order to make CI/CD a success. After this brief introduction, we will make small groups and explore these conditions, exchange experiences and you will get an understanding what needs to be improved in your organization. Talk to your peers and learn where they stand. Of course each of the groups will share their learnings, so we all go home with an understanding of how you can benefit from CI/CD and what needs to be done to make it work.
Finally we will see what test strategy we would advise if our company would decide to move towards CI/CD and this cover we consider much more than just automate our tests…
Addressing Performance Testing Challenges in Agile: Process and Tools: Impetu...Impetus Technologies
Register at http://lf1.me/ocb/
Impetus webinar on ‘Addressing Performance Testing Challenges in Agile: Process and Tools‘
Date: July 3 (10 am PT / 1 pm ET)
A NOVEL METHOD FOR REDUCING TESTING TIME IN SCRUM AGILE PROCESSijseajournal
Recently, the software development in the industry is moving towards agile due to the advantages provided
by the agile development process. Main advantages of agile software development process are: delivering
high quality software in shorter intervals and embracing change. Testing is a vital activity for delivering a
high quality software product. Often testing accounts for more project effort and time than any other
software development activities. Testing strategies for conventional process models are well established,
but these strategies are not directly applicable to agile testing without modifications and changes. In this
paper, a novel method for agile testing in the scrum software development environment is proposed and
presented. The sprint and testing activities which form the context for the proposed testing method are
presented. The proposed method is applied on two cases studies. The results indicated that the testing time
can be reduced considerably by applying the proposed method
A software testing practice that follow the principle of agile software development is called Agile Testing.
Agile is an iterative development methodology where requirement evolve through collaboration between the customer and self-organizing teams and agile aligns development with customer need.
Website: https://www.1solutions.biz/
Incorporating Performance Testing in Agile Development ProcessMichael Vax
This presentations explains different aspects of software performance testing and give actionable recommendations on how to integrate it into the Agile Software development process
STX Next - Scrum Development Process OverviewSTX Next
An overview of Software Development Process at STX Next presenting basic SCRUM ceremonies and workflows. To learn more about STX Next visit https://stxnext.com
Yesterday Jan Jaap Cannegieter and I gave an amazing tutorial at the Agile testing days. In our full day tutorial we discussed the role of the test manager and how to add value in an agile environment.
We discovered that a test manager is operation at two interfaces. One is being that of a quality ambassador that shows the business and stakeholders how testing is done and how its progressing . On the other interface the test manager is enabling the team(s) to build quality into their deliverables. During this full day tutorial we deep dived on both aspects. We discussed the agile test strategy and investigated what activities we test managers undertake, what activities we find important and what is valued most by our stakeholder. You wouldn’t be surprised if we told you that there is a gap between both. Next we practiced with defining agile test plans at MVP and sprint level. And assessed other roles that test managers can adopt. We closed the full circle by concluding that extra activities might be added to our initial brainstorm results. The topic is truly alive. Not only did we have a full rum (we had an all-time conference record with the amount of attendees), during the day we had a lot of lively discussions and answered a lot of questions from the participants. We loved the participation of all in the room and believe we all had a good day.
Agile Business Day 2020 - Refinement- Unlock the full potential of your refi...Derk-Jan de Grood
Good refinement makes development more predictable, leads to better solutions and enables the Product Owner to set the right priorities. Still many teams fail to unlock the full potential of refinement. Join this session to get practical tips to get more out of your refinement sessions.I have guided many teams during their transition toward Agile. Initially most attention went to the ceremonies and understanding the agile values. Experience taught me that when the team gets up to speed refinement becomes a bottleneck. Crucial because good refinement makes development more predictable, leads to better solutions and enables the Product Owner to set the right priorities.Unfortunately, I see many teams that do not unlock the full potential of refinement. Not only is the time spent on refinement often limited, many of the refinement meetings I join are inefficient. I meet teams that spent half the meeting watching the Product Owner entering the new backlog items in the workflow system. Although they poker the user stories afterwards, little time is left to discussions the best solution and risks that need to be avoided.In this talk I will focus on the following topics• Advantages of good refinement and what I see in daily practise• How we can boost the potential of Refinement by organising it as a process rather than a meeting• Introduction of challenging questions that can be used to prepare your refinement• And last but not least, how you can involve the off-site team members of distributed teamsJoin this session if you are an Agile Coach of SM and want to help your team(s) to get more out of refinement. If you are a PO and feel a need to boost quality and predictability, or if you are a member of a distributed team and want to involve your fellow team members making better solutions.
In many web or cloud applications, performance testing is critical part of application testing since it affects
business revenue, credibility, and customer satisfaction. Conventional software development models are known
to pushing the performance testing to the very end of project, with the expectations that, only minor tweaks
and tune up are required to meet the performance requirements from the business, however any major
performance bottlenecks found during this phase were major factors for delay in Go to Market. With more and
more companies are adapting the agile software development process which believes in performance testing
should never be an afterthought but it should tightly integrate from initial planning to production analysis of
software development lifecycle. This white paper explains how any company can integrate performance testing
into agile process, and key barriers for agile performance testing when team decides to adopt agile performance
testing.
Agile Software Development with Scrum_ A Complete Guide to The Steps in Agile...Fibonalabs
Agile scrum methodology is not only a model but a wonderful exercise in itself. It takes care of so many parameters that are involved in the development of software. Giving eye to detail is one of the most fascinating features of this framework. The steps in an agile scrum methodology involve envisioning, planning, developing, testing, and bug fixing for software. With scrum architecture, you can ensure continuous development, improvement, and delivery of a software product.
An Ultimate Guide to Continuous Testing in Agile Projects.pdfKMSSolutionsMarketin
As more businesses apply Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) to release their software faster, Continuous testing becomes the final piece that completes a continuous development process. By automatically testing code right after developers submit it to the repository, testers can locate bugs before another line of code is written.
Interview questions and answers for quality assuranceGaruda Trainings
Future of Software Testing is always good... as long as developers are developing projects we will be testing them and even when they stops developing then also we will test the enhancements and maintenance etc... Testing will always be needed
Customer will never accept the product Without complete testing .Scope of testing is always good as it gives everyone a confidence of the work we all are doing...Its always good to add more processes while doing testing so that one should not think that testing is a boring and easy job....Process is very imp. for testing.
Register for Free DEMO: www.p2cinfotech.com
email id: p2cinfotech@gmail.com
+1-732-546-3607 (USA)
QACampus, a renowned software testing training institute where testing experts are engaged in developing the skills of aspiring testers. A detailed knowledge of software testing life cycle with practical approaches of test and automation tools implementation is provided during training. This effective knowledge is helpful for a great testing career of students.
Mastering Continuous Testing_ A Definitive Guide to Seamless Software Deliver...kalichargn70th171
Once an overlooked aspect, continuous testing has become indispensable for enterprises striving to accelerate application delivery and reduce business impacts. According to a Statista report, 31.3% of global enterprises have embraced continuous integration and deployment within their DevOps, signaling a pervasive trend toward hastening release cycles.
The ultimate guide to release management processEnov8
If your organisation is vested in developing applications and updating software features, you’re already familiar with the concept of release management. And you understand the importance of an efficient release management process. Release management is the bridge that connects all the stages encompassing a software release from codebase creation, functionality testing to deployment.
EMBEDDING PERFORMANCE TESTING IN AGILE SOFTWARE MODELijseajournal
In the last couple of decades, the software development process has evolved drastically, starting from Big
Bang to Waterfall to Agile. The primary driver for the evolution of the software was the “Speed of
Delivery” of the Software Product which has significantly accelerated from months to less than weeks and
days. For IT (Information Technology) Organizations to be successful, they inevitably need a strong
technology presence to roll out new software and features as quickly as possible to their customer base.
The current user generation tends to use technology to maximum potential and is always striving to keep
up with the new trends. The main subject is for the organizations to be ready with their Speed of Delivery
strategy adapting to all technology modernization initiatives like CICD (Continuous Integration and
Continuous Deployment), Agile, DevOps, and Cloud so that there are negligible customer friction and no
risks to their Market shares,. The aim of this paper is to compare the performance testing in every stage of
the agile model to the traditional end testing. The results of the corresponding testing phases are presented
in this paper.
Programming testing is the method involved with assessing and confirming that a product item or application does what it should do. The advantages of testing incorporate forestalling bugs, lessening improvement costs and further developing execution.
Programming testing is the method involved with assessing and confirming that a product item or application does what it should do. The advantages of testing incorporate forestalling bugs, lessening improvement costs and further developing execution.
Programming testing is the method involved with assessing and confirming that a product item or application does what it should do. The advantages of testing incorporate forestalling bugs, lessening improvement costs and further developing execution.
Using Adaptive Scrum to Tame Process Reverse Engineering in Data Analytics Pr...Cognizant
Organizations rely on analytics to make intelligent decisions and improve business performance, which sometimes requires reproducing business processes from a legacy application to a digital-native state to reduce the functional, technical and operational debts. Adaptive Scrum can reduce the complexity of the reproduction process iteratively as well as provide transparency in data analytics porojects.
It Takes an Ecosystem: How Technology Companies Deliver Exceptional ExperiencesCognizant
Experience is evolving into a strategy that reaches across technology companies. We offer guidance on the rise of experience and its role in business modernization, with details on how orgnizations can build the ecosystem to support it.
The Work Ahead: Transportation and Logistics Delivering on the Digital-Physic...Cognizant
The T&L industry appears poised to accelerate its long-overdue modernization drive, as the pandemic spurs an increased need for agility and resilience, according to our study.
Enhancing Desirability: Five Considerations for Winning Digital InitiativesCognizant
To be a modern digital business in the post-COVID era, organizations must be fanatical about the experiences they deliver to an increasingly savvy and expectant user community. Getting there requires a mastery of human-design thinking, compelling user interface and interaction design, and a focus on functional and nonfunctional capabilities that drive business differentiation and results.
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
According to our research, manufacturers are well ahead of other industries in their IoT deployments but need to marshal the investment required to meet today’s intensified demands for business resilience.
The Work Ahead in Higher Education: Repaving the Road for the Employees of To...Cognizant
Higher-ed institutions expect pandemic-driven disruption to continue, especially as hyperconnectivity, analytics and AI drive personalized education models over the lifetime of the learner, according to our recent research.
Engineering the Next-Gen Digital Claims Organisation for Australian General I...Cognizant
In recent years, insurers have invested in technology platforms and process improvements to improve
claims outcomes. Leaders will build on this foundation across the claims landscape, spanning experience,
operations, customer service and the overall supply chain with market-differentiating capabilities to
achieve sustainable results.
Profitability in the Direct-to-Consumer Marketplace: A Playbook for Media and...Cognizant
Amid constant change, industry leaders need an upgraded IT infrastructure capable of adapting to audience expectations while proactively anticipating ever-evolving business requirements.
Green Rush: The Economic Imperative for SustainabilityCognizant
Green business is good business, according to our recent research, whether for companies monetizing tech tools used for sustainability or for those that see the impact of these initiatives on business goals.
Policy Administration Modernization: Four Paths for InsurersCognizant
The pivot to digital is fraught with numerous obstacles but with proper planning and execution, legacy carriers can update their core systems and keep pace with the competition, while proactively addressing customer needs.
The Work Ahead in Utilities: Powering a Sustainable Future with DigitalCognizant
Utilities are starting to adopt digital technologies to eliminate slow processes, elevate customer experience and boost sustainability, according to our recent study.
AI in Media & Entertainment: Starting the Journey to ValueCognizant
Up to now, the global media & entertainment industry (M&E) has been lagging most other sectors in its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). But our research shows that M&E companies are set to close the gap over the coming three years, as they ramp up their investments in AI and reap rising returns. The first steps? Getting a firm grip on data – the foundation of any successful AI strategy – and balancing technology spend with investments in AI skills.
Operations Workforce Management: A Data-Informed, Digital-First ApproachCognizant
As #WorkFromAnywhere becomes the rule rather than the exception, organizations face an important question: How can they increase their digital quotient to engage and enable a remote operations workforce to work collaboratively to deliver onclient requirements and contractual commitments?
Five Priorities for Quality Engineering When Taking Banking to the CloudCognizant
As banks move to cloud-based banking platforms for lower costs and greater agility, they must seamlessly integrate technologies and workflows while ensuring security, performance and an enhanced user experience. Here are five ways cloud-focused quality assurance helps banks maximize the benefits.
Getting Ahead With AI: How APAC Companies Replicate Success by Remaining FocusedCognizant
Changing market dynamics are propelling Asia-Pacific businesses to take a highly disciplined and focused approach to ensuring that their AI initiatives rapidly scale and quickly generate heightened business impact.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...Cognizant
Intelligent automation continues to be a top driver of the future of work, according to our recent study. To reap the full advantages, businesses need to move from isolated to widespread deployment.
The Work Ahead in Intelligent Automation: Coping with Complexity in a Post-Pa...
The Case for Agile testing
1. The Case for Agile Testing
By applying principles of Agile software development, QA teams can help
bake in code quality as applications are being developed, ensuring more
stable and business-aligned outcomes.
Executive Summary
For a variety of reasons (time, money, skills, etc.),
the testing phase of software development some-
times gets short shrift from developers and IT
managers. Yet testing is the only way to determine
the quality of software and whether an applica-
tion will function properly in real time. It plays an
important role in the software development lifecy-
cle (SDLC). Without an effective testing strategy,
companies sometimes blindly take on significant
risks that may go well beyond simply having
poorly functioning software. Organizational rami-
fications can be dire, including the risk of:
• Customer dissatisfaction.
• Brand injury.
• Competitive threat.
• Product revenue loss.
At the development level, an oversight in testing
can trigger countless technical and project
outcome challenges:
• Cost overruns.
• Poor resource estimations.
• Schedule overruns.
• Overlooked functionalities and scenarios
triggered by poor developer/tester communi-
cation, resulting in compromised quality.
Agile testing mitigates these risks and ensures
that IT organizations achieve the technical and
business goals of the development process. In
this white paper, we provide an overview of how
Agile testing works, why it is important, and the
challenges it poses.
Agile Testing Defined
Agile testing is a software testing practice that
follows the principles of Agile software develop-
ment. Agile development integrates testing into
the development process, rather than keeping
it as a separate and distinct SDLC phase. Agile
testing involves a cross-functional Agile team
actively relying on the special expertise contrib-
uted by testers.
Agile teams use a “whole-team” approach to
“bake in quality” to the software product. Because
testing occurs in real time, this approach allows
the team to collaborate actively with the devel-
opment team, helping them identify and transfer
issues into executable specifications that guide
coding. Before the start of testing, the develop-
ment team’s detailed design documents must be
approved so that test case creation can start. Both
coding and testing are performed incrementally
and iteratively in Sprints (or iterations), building
each feature until it delivers enough stability and
adds quality to the product (see Figure 1).
cognizant 20-20 insights | june 2014
• Cognizant 20-20 Insights
2. 2
Sprinting Ahead
In the Agile methodology, a Sprint is a set period
of time during which specific work must be
completed and made ready for review.
Each Sprint begins with a planning meeting.
During the meeting, the product owner (who
requested the work) and the development and
testing teams agree upon exactly which activities
will be accomplished during the Sprint. The devel-
opment team has the final say when it comes to
determining how much work can realistically be
accomplished during the Sprint, and the product
owner has the final say on what criteria need to
be met for the work to be approved and accepted.
The duration of a Sprint is determined by the
Scrum master, the team’s facilitator. Once the
team reaches a consensus on how many days a
Sprint should last, all future Sprints should be the
same. Traditionally, a Sprint lasts 30 days.
After a Sprint begins, the product owner must
step back and let the development team do
its work. During the Sprint, the team holds a
daily stand-up meeting to discuss progress and
brainstorm solutions to challenges. The project
owner may attend these meetings as an observer
but is not allowed to participate unless it is to
answer questions. The project owner may not
make requests for changes during a Sprint and
only the Scrum master or project manager has
the power to interrupt or stop the Sprint.
At the end of the Sprint, the team presents its
completed work to the project owner and the
project owner uses the criteria established at the
Sprint planning meeting to either accept or reject
the work.
The Mechanics of Agile Testing
The combined team, including both development
and testing, takes responsibility for analyzing the
business specifications. Together, they define the
Sprint goal.
The QA team defines the testing scope (i.e., test
plan). That is then validated and approved by the
entire team and the client.
Simultaneously, while the development team
starts the implementation of modules (in the
very first Sprint), the QA team begins work on the
test case design. These are properly documented
either in a testing tool or in an Excel spreadsheet
that is handed over to the development team and
project sponsor from the business side to review.
This is to ensure that test coverage is as complete
as possible.
Once the test case review and any modifications
are completed for a particular Sprint, the QA
team then begins testing on the QA environment.
Defects found during testing are logged properly
in a defect tracking tool. Depending on the
severity and priority of defects, fixing them can
be delayed but then is taken care of in upcoming
cognizant 20-20 insights
A More Flexible Approach to Software Development
Onsite
Development Team Virtual QA
Agile Lifecycle
Technology &
Common Tools
Offshore QA Team
Design
Execute
Wrap
User Review User Review
Small
Release
Small
Release
Small
Release
Iteration 1 Iteration 2
Pilot
Launch
Production
Launch
User Review
Figure 1
3. Sprints. At the end of each Sprint, the team
determines, along with the project sponsor, which
defects are to be fixed in the current iteration.
This iteration continues until all planned Sprints
are completed.
QA, along with the development team and
business organization, defines which main flows
(test cases) will be automated.
When code is ready to test (after the end of each
Sprint), QA works with development to execute
test cases on the development environment,
in order to identify the early stage defects so
developers can fix them during the next round,
on a priority basis. This process is then repeated
throughout the development process. Automated
test cases are run daily throughout the SDLC.
White-board/stand-up meetings are conducted
daily involving members of all teams associated
with product development, support and testing.
This helps to resolve the issues faced by team
members and provides a clear picture of progress
in both the coding and testing areas. Agile
promotes the introduction of requirements at
all stages/iterations of the SDLC; however, the
testing team determines when to end this process
to ensure product stability (see Figure 2).
Manual Testing: Regression
The manual testing team plays an important role
in determining product quality.
Once the majority of coding is completed (i.e., in
the last planned Sprint), the manual regression
test cycle starts. This is key since it helps to
determine the stability of the application before
it is pushed to preproduction deployment. Code
and defect fixes continue during this phase, but
this is to add value to the product. Preproduction
deployment is dependent on the approval of the
test manager’s testing report; deployment only
occurs if the report depicts green status for all
application modules.
Although a dedicated testing team exists in the
Agile environment, unit testing by an individual
developer is beneficial to find early defects and
minimize the rework of both the testing and
development team.
Automated Testing: Regression
Automation is a critical component of Agile
testing. It would otherwise be impossible to
keep pace with the Agile development schedule.
Automation is also used to run regression testing.
The combined team (developers, product owners
and testers) usually predetermines, at the start
Quick Take
The Agile Manifesto1
is based on 12 principles:
• Customer satisfaction by rapid delivery of
useful software.
• Welcome changes in requirements, even late
in development.
• Working software is delivered frequently
(weeks rather than months).
• Working software is the principal measure of
progress.
• Sustainable development – the ability to
maintain a constant pace.
• Close, daily cooperation between business pro-
fessionals and developers.
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of
communication (colocation).
• Projects are built around motivated individu-
als, who should be trusted.
• Continuous attention to technical excellence
and good design.
• Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount
of work not done – is essential.
• Self-organizing teams.
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstanc-
es.
An Agile Principles Review
3cognizant 20-20 insights
4. cognizant 20-20 insights 4
of the project, which parts of the software will be
tested using automation.
Continuousintegration/builds,unit,functionaland
integration test execution as well as continuous
or automated deployment are common areas
where automation may work better than tradi-
tional tests.
The entire project team agrees up front about
which of the main flows will be automated.
Automated tests consist of unit tests, capable
of verifying even the most minute segment of
software. Automation is required primarily to
determine the stability of modules developed in
each Sprint. Any defect found is reported and
fixed, based on its priority.
Furthermore, it is possible to execute the test set
multiple times per day, per hour or even more
frequently if needed.
Best Practices in Agile Testing
Effective Agile projects generally address the
following important elements:
• Include testers and QA managers as members
of the Agile development team.
• Include testers as active contributors in
planning and requirements analysis.
• Promote the importance of testers and
encourage continuous feedback sharing with
the programmers and the customer.
• Testers actively participate in meetings to
define the main business flows.
• Testers work on short iteration activities
alongside developers.
• Encourage traceability between the require-
ments, test cases and bugs.
• Testers contribute to user Story improvements.
• Leverage the specialized skills of test-driven
development, including unit testing, continuous
integration and unit level.
• Leverage automation testing as a key way to do
regression testing.
Agile Testing Advantages
The benefits of Agile testing include:
• Testing requirements are discussed and refined
as a team (during stand-ups/Scrums) allowing
the combined team to better address the
business/technical aspects of the requirement.
This enables overall alignment and prevents
misunderstandings.
• The Agile process often requires having entry
and exit criteria for Stories (a compression of
Typical QA Approach for Agile Projects
Inception
Understand
project scope
effort sestimation
Design Build Integrate UAT
Test
Design
Test Automation
Test
Execution Regression
Working
product for
review
and feedback
Open
Defects
Sprint
Backlog
Open
Defects
Sprint
Backlog
Product
after
Sprint 1
Product
after
Sprint 2
Product
after
Sprint N
Working
product for review
and feedback
Incrementally
develop and test
the final product
Test
Report
Understand
user Stories
Prepare test plan
Requirements
understanding
document
(To evolve over time)
Product backlog
Sprint 1
Design Build Integrate UAT
Test
Design
Test Automation
Test
Execution Regression
Test
Report
Sprint 2
Design Build Integrate UAT
Test
Design
Test Automation
Test
Execution Regression
Test
Report
Sprint N
Test Automation
Test Closure
Final Product
Test Execution Test Report
Sprint Regression
Test Automation
Test Execution Test Report
Test Plan Product
Backlog
Can’t
read
PPT
Release
Goal
Sprint
Backlog
Product
Backlog
Sprint
Planning
Meeting
Daily
Status
Meetings
Sprint
Goal
Design
Test
Develop
Regression
Implementation
Testing
Sprint
Implement
Regular
Backlog
Backlog
Iterative Sprints-Based Testing
Development Team
Figure 2
5. cognizant 20-20 insights 5
things to do in a particular release/iteration).
Agile testing ensures that each requirement is
well defined and measurable, allowing QA spe-
cialists to determine whether the requirement
was actually completed or not.
• QA participates in the big-picture require-
ments-writing stage, thus ensuring that testing
estimates aren’t overlooked.
• Automated tests are fully leveraged to
implement regression testing.
• Quality becomes the combined team’s respon-
sibility, rather than just solely that of the
testing team. The entire team agrees to the
testing strategies, test cases and defects pri-
oritization plan.
Agile Testing Disadvantages and
Mitigations
Agile testing proves to be the best testing meth-
odology only if the requirements are clear to the
project sponsors. If the big-picture requirements
are unclear, the details can become muddied. For
new products, the software architecture normally
takes a path based on the initial requirements. If
the requirements frequently change (as allowed
for in Agile), the following scenarios can occur:
• The team struggles to adapt to changes
because significant effort has already gone
into the initial requirements development and
testing process.
• Challenges in estimations and sizing require-
ments. Sometimes QA gets short shrift since
it’s logically the last task in completing the user
Story. Therefore, any delay in the prior devel-
opment task risks impacting QA timelines.
• QA is sometimes prevented from executing a
test case for the whole iteration, leaving the
team struggling to finish the task.
• Not asking the right questions. It is very dan-
gerous for QA not to ask questions, especially
at the point where the user Story is picked up
for implementation. Daily team meetings can
avoid this problem.
• Addition of new user Stories into the current
iteration. QA should be included in the addition
of the new user Story, to build up appropriate
commitments and estimations in order to avoid
misalignment and protracted timeframes.
Looking Forward: Getting
Started with Agile
Kicking off an Agile testing project is easy. Where
to dive in depends on organizational maturity
and skills, among other factors. Regardless of
how your organization stacks up, the following
guidelines can be applied:
• Tackle things one day at a time. A good first
step might be to start having a daily stand-up
meeting.
• Attack it incrementally. Now that the team
is communicating a little better, start breaking
things into iterations. Your goal is to develop
each feature, unit test it, QA it and accept it
within the two weeks.
• Plan just as much as you need to. The Scrum
master, product owner and each developer, QA
and writer should attend (along with usability,
architects, etc.). The goal is to enumerate what
will be accomplished in the iteration as well as
what the acceptance criteria are.
• Review what you’ve accomplished. End the
iteration with a demo and a retrospective.
• Integrate frequently. Continuous integration
will likely be key. Integrate at least daily. Stay
as releasable as possible.
• Focus on what is most important. Another
key area (which takes a while to master) is
backlog, or the ranked list of features/Stories
that the team will address. These are ranked
by priority (most important first). This is key —
even if in some cases the order between two
items is arbitrary. At least once, the organiza-
tion should iterate and reevaluate the rankings.
Adding, removing and shuffling based on
knowledge gained is a good thing.
Footnote
1
www.agilealliance.org/the-alliance/the-agile-manifesto.