To do testing in Agile,is not an easy task as agile is dynamic and focusing on "inspect-and-adapt" approach. QA should be ready to adapt changes at any level of Testing. QA/Tester has to focus on each & every stages of product and team collaboration require more. There are more chances of errors, as in agile, documentations are less important. So pressure comes on QA in that case.
There are some best practices for testing which I would like to share so you can deliver customer satisfied and stable product.
1. Understand requirement as per Customer perspective and provide Value-Added Suggestions if any needed.
- Understand all the requirements in detail and the acceptance criteria.
- While understanding think as a End User i.e. How easily it can be usable for end user and provide feedback and suggestions as per that.
- Be thoughtful and bold enough to give proper and timely feedback.
2. Create strong Test Scenarios as per User Stories for each and every Sprint.
- Create Test Scenarios and Test Plan as per user stories which ensures Test Coverage.
- Breakdown Test Scenarios in Test Cases as a use cases.
- Cover Functionality, UI/UX related test cases, API test case and also ensure end-to-end testing.
3. Always be with team.
- In agile Requirements/Functionalities are changing frequently at any stage. So instant inter-communication at every level is must. Always be up to date, about what is happening in project.
- Always ready to adopt changes.
4. Be Proactive, Innovative, Creative and always take Initiative as key Agile Team Player.
- Being an key team player Communication should be effective. Communicate goals, plans, expectations, strategies and impediments properly.
- Self Discipline is must for Agile Team Player. Each individual has to take responsibility of his/her own tasks for each Sprint. They have to manage their Tasks/Assignments by managing Dashboards.
5. Involvement of QA should be continuous rather than involving only for QA cycles.
6. Tester's role is to prevent defects rather than finding defects.
- Agile tester's role is to make sure that Software is built correctly instead of breaking the software.
7. Participate actively in Daily Scrum (Stand up) Meetings, Team Retrospective, suggesting and implementing improvements.
- Give attention while doing Scums. Ask proper questions/queries/doubts in scrum. Raise Impediments on time.
- Attend Team Retrospective as there is always room for improvement.
8. In agile, Team works and Team wins rather than Individual work and Individual wins.
- Always work with team and help each other to achieve sprint goals.
9. Tester has to ensure how to use testing methodologies for full coverage and effective output.
- Establish small and proper process which covers Regression testing and Sanity testing.
- Always improve your test cases periodically.
10. Use Continuous Integration in Agile.
- Apply automation testing with continuous integration so that we can reduce testing time. Automate smoke test suite, regression test suits. To prevent bug leakage and confirm stability of build.
People follow Agile in many different ways but I believe that by using above techniques QA can assure quality at high level.
