Understanding 7 Best Practices for Agile QA

Quality is one of the key factors in the software development process. Agile Quality Assurance, or QA, is an orderly process that ensures better product release and outstanding service. In this article, we discuss a few of the best methodologies in Agile QA. Before we start, we shall briefly examine agile software development.

Agile Software Development Strategy

The agile approach deals with breaking down a project into several stages and focuses on improvement and evaluation apart from collaboration. The collaborative features in the Agile development approach aimed at improving productivity.

Testing is conducted throughout the development cycle. Also, it helps teams to adopt changes as and when needed and alerts them in if any issue encounters. Collaborating with customers from the beginning to the end implies that they get fully involved in the development process.

What are the Best Approaches in Agile Quality Assurance?

A few best practices that help the QA team to deliver the best quality software products are explained below. Let’s go!

1. Defining the QA Process in Agile

Agile testing brings quality assurance into the project. It identifies issues in advance at a very early stage. In the Agile approach, QA engineers bifurcate the project into iterative stages. The biggest advantage is that it provides clients with useful software on or before the timeline. Also, they can address changes needed and give better estimates within a short period. Further, the QA team can learn from past projects, which will only help them in the future while dealing with new projects.

2. Risk Analysis

Analyzing risk is a major component of Agile QA strategy. Almost all software applications are prone to bugs, and it is only with the help of an expert QA team you can remove them. The team should have an idea about a project’s potential results. It lets them adopt preventive steps to mitigate the likelihood of issues.

3. Automation

Automation in the agile QA process helps QA staff boost their productivity. For example, regression testing can consume a major chunk of the time of QA testers; automation helps ensure that the existing features work even after making the changes. Further, QA automation enables the developers to adopt changes and recognize and resolve problems before the QA team receives the software for testing. It is necessary to prioritize test cases to check the test cases that can be automated. It is true that automation testing also takes time, but cost savings is much higher. Ultimately, it focuses on boosting efficiency between the developers and QA testers.

4. Know Your End-users

QA testers should know their target audience. It directly influences and improves the Quality Assurance process. They can customize the QA process and development following the requirements of users. Once you have a clear idea about what your end users need, it is easy to prioritize the QA process. Further, it saves money and time significantly. Therefore, before beginning the development process, QA teams should know their target audience for delivering better output.

5. White-box Testing vs. Black-box Testing

Testers need to have in-depth knowledge of how the software works. They start testing functionalities right from the beginning of the software development process. While in black-box testing, the QA testers verify product performance from the user’s end. It verifies if the software offers high-quality performance.

6. Early and Continuous Testing

The Agile QA process emphasizes the use of QA during almost all phases of product development. It helps identify issues quickly. The QA testers test the product early. Often, it includes new features as well. Therefore, it enables them to confirm that the new features are included per the plan. Further, it exposes any problem that could have been faced. In the end, it saves much time and indeed, cuts down cost as well.

7. Focus on Teamwork

The efforts of a hard-working team help release quality software products. Every team is responsible, but the QA team’s efforts are most valued in ensuring quality. Indeed, they are responsible for meeting clients’ requirements. With the help of the Agile QA process, testers help the Agile development team deliver high-quality deliverables and enhance company morale.

Final Words

In any Agile QA process, both the developers and testers should work together to add value to the business by delivering high-quality products. To simplify the Agile QA process and ensure successful product releases, rely on the best practices mentioned above. It helps QA teams deliver quality products that meet the needs of clients.