QA Agile Process Best Practices

Quality is a major factor when it comes to software development. Agile Quality Assurance or QA is a systematic procedure confirming better product and service excellence. The team of robust QA elaborates the need to manufacture, develop, and design authentic products and at the same time, it enhances company credibility, client confidence, and the ability to stand in a competitive environment. The QA Agile Process starts at the establishment of the life cycle of software development. Moreover, it covers the initial design meeting and the development phase, as well as the hardening and final testing of the application. The process is divided into two-week sprints and repeated until the project is finished. Let us check out some of the best QA practices in Agile. The related facts are given below. So read further to explore more about it. 

What is Agile Software Development?

Understanding the things involved in the Agile development methodology is essential to perceive Agile testing. In fact, it is an umbrella term encompassing various practices unique from traditional development techniques. As the name itself suggests, an Agile framework mainly focuses on responding to change. Currently, various frameworks are used by Agile teams like Kanban & Scrum, but as a whole, it is a collaborative approach. Some of the key principles of Agile software development are as follows:

• Continuous collaboration with the matters of customers that is more than a fixed contract
• Concentrate on people in place of tools and processes
• Be flexible to change besides sticking to the plan
• A working piece of software is much more essential than comprehensive documentation

What is the difference between Agile Software Testing and Traditional Testing Method?

The testers keep things from breaking into customers' hands by trying to break them first and then get them fixed. When it comes to the traditional waterfall method, the sequence of events goes:

Requirements>System Design>Implementation>Integration and Testing>Deployment of System>Maintenance.

Under this method, the next step does not start until the previous step has been accomplished fully. It simply means that until late in the development cycle, the testing team does not get the product. Now, this might be a challenge for an Agile team as any bugs they grab would be costly and complicated to eliminate from the product or application. The testers who get into the process at this point cannot perform the right tests or ask the right questions. This is because they sometimes receive little feedback from customers or other development team members (sometimes considered as ‘the enemy’).

Therefore, testers are made to wait for the product or application to get down the assembly line to use a narrow set of skills and techniques to decide if it is required to kick back to a previous step in the software development process. On the other hand, the test plan is placed throughout the agile process. Moreover, a new update is made to the code every time, and thereby, testers get their hands on it and hand it to the developers for feedback directly. During the test cycles, automated tests are also encouraged with a small selection of customers.

Qualities of an Agile Tester

The qualities or characteristics of an Agile Tester are as follows:

• A unique and technical-based skill
• Critical communication skills
• A result-oriented character and personality
• A willingness and power to respond to change
• Well-versed with different test automation and testing tools
• Wide experience in deep testing
• A desire to deliver value in business on time
• A skill to collaborate with everyone from DevOps to business analysts
• An ability to cooperate with others effortlessly

Best Practices for Quality Assurance in Agile Process

Have a look at a few of the best QA practices in Agile, which are as follows:

1. Analysis of Risk

Risk analysis is a crucial factor in any QA process. It is described as the procedure or technique of recognizing and evaluating potential risks and their influence. The whole process helps enterprises to mitigate and avoid risks. Most of the applications are highly unlikely to be 100% bug-free but it is only possible by a dedicated QA team as he knows how to prevent or remove the most problematic bugs. Perceiving a project's potential outputs lets your team implement preventive measures that decrease the chances of occurrence.

2. Defining an Agile QA Process

Most organizations rely on the Agile process rather than the traditional waterfall development. Agile testing brings QA into the project to identify issues write and undertake test cases as early as possible. By dividing the project into iterative stages, the engineers of QA concentrate on the software development process and render rapid, ongoing feedback. When it is about Sprints it offers various benefits to clients by providing valuable software at the right time or earlier. At the same time, they respond to changes, allow course corrections, and offer better estimates in a short time rather than getting out of track completely in the entire project. In addition, the QA team can adopt lessons and improvements learned from old projects to boost the process for future projects.

3. Black Box Vs. White-Box

White-box testing allows the QA engineer to form a detailed understanding of the system's internals. The QA engineer can start testing as early as possible using this knowledge. In fact, the testers require this high level of system understanding in an Agile QA process to prove the features as early as they are formed. Black-box testing is a software testing technique that describes an application's performance without peering into its working or internal structures. It only covers the understanding from the perspective of the user what actually it should do.

4. Automation

Automation is a good approach to optimize the effectiveness of your QA staff. As regression testing can take a large percentage of time of the QA team, automation offers a method to make sure that previous deliverables should continue to operate. In contrast, QA test engineers concentrate on testing of newly developed features. Moreover, it gives your development team the confidence to bring changes to the system, quickly identify, and fix issues before the product is delivered to the QA team. However, your team should prioritize test cases in order to decide which of them can be automated. Even though you need to spend a lot while implementing automation, it saves a lot of money in the long run by enhancing efficiency between QA and development teams.

5. Understand Your Target Audience

As a tester, you should try to know your target audience, as it will improve the Quality Assurance process. By tailoring the QA process and development to the end-users' requirements, you can allow your development team to develop value-driving applications. When you know the actual requirements of your target audience, you can prioritize the QA process better to save money and time.

6. Teamwork Makes the Work Successful

Undoubtedly, it is a team of hard-working professionals behind every high-quality product. They work with dedication and cooperation to maintain high-quality standards that meet organizational needs. Even though every team should take responsibility for delivering value, the main responsibility for ensuring quality remains with the QA team. As the team of QA knows what the client needs in the system, they can satisfy the clients' requirements along with the system. Using the Agile QA process, the test engineers help the agile team to ensure client confidence, high-quality product delivery, successful product delivery, and company credibility.

7. Test Often and Test Early

The Agile methodology focuses on adopting QA at every stage of product development to recognize problems immediately. In every sprint, the QA test engineers test the product early and often with the addition of each new feature. This enables them to confirm that the new features were incorporated as planned and to discover any issues that might have been encountered. This way of testing also saves money and time. 

Bottom Line

In an Agile team, each and every member is responsible for delivering value and quality to the business. Of course, this is a time when you can show your skills and ability as a QA engineer. You should work hard and with dedication to your team to bring value into the software development process. The aim is just to discover defects and bugs and avoid potential risks during the entire development cycle. You can go through the above-mentioned practices that are effective and help you to deliver a quality product at the right time as per the requirements of your organization.