Large Enterprises Driving Agile Methodologies & Agile Testing Adoption?

By Author: Michael Wade
Total Articles: 67
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The paradigm of Agile Testing has emerged as the answer to such a scenario where the QA team instead of working as a separate entity in the overall Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC,) becomes an integral part of the development process and works in tandem as part of the scrum. As the paradigm of Agile Software Testing needs a change in the overall business work culture with all stakeholders becoming part of the SDLC, it is yet to be adapted by a majority of companies. The success of Agile Testing Methodologies depends on its adoption by large enterprises as against the popular belief of being unwieldy and being the last to accept change. In fact, large enterprises lead the way in adopting this cutting edge paradigm.

In a melting world economy where the dynamics of business changes on account of emerging technology, increased competition, cost imperatives and changing user preferences, the classical model of software development is not enough to meet the challenge. This makes way for a new paradigm of Agile to take root and address the issue. In the Agile model the QA and development teams form a single entity, ...
... which apart from testing particular software module alongside its development, interacts with stakeholders to arrive at a consensus. This consensus is related to determining the scope and criteria of testing.

Advantages of Agile Testing

• Testing is part of the whole software development cycle instead of being a separate process. This enables quick identification and redressal of glitches unlike in the classical waterfall model where there are chances of slippages in error detection.

• As the objectives and modalities of testing are set beforehand by agile testing experts and their development counterparts, they have to work in tandem to make things work.

• The overall quality of software does not rest solely on the agile testing team but is shared by the development team as well. This leaves out any scope for slippages as every member of the agile team takes personal responsibility for the final outcome.

• As development and testing become part of an iterative process, it brings down the time and effort in the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and accelerates speed to market.

• The final product sans glitches delivered in quick time makes it competitive.

How Agile Software Testing functions

At the outset the entire agile team (development + QA) in consultation with business stakeholders (management and client) approve the design and testing phases in tune with the overall business objectives. A specific time period called ‘sprint’ and the tasks (development and testing) to be accomplished during that period are agreed upon. If an error is identified during a particular ‘sprint’ the development team is asked to address the same depending upon its complexity and priority. Thereafter, in consultation with the client and management the decision to fix the error(s) in a specific sprint is taken. Importantly, the agile testing experts use automation as a preferred tool to accelerate the testing phase.

Conclusion

Even though Agile testing Methodologies bring about significant improvements in the development and delivery schedule of the software/application, small enterprises shy away from implementing the same due to initial cost inputs and the requirement of a change in work culture. It is only the large enterprises that take up the responsibility to adopt this new paradigm.