Establishing a groundwork of understanding, documentation, and evaluation is critical during the shift to Agile.
Agile development and testing is not merely a methodology; it’s a state of mind. A study by VersionOne revealed that 88% of businesses adopt agile development, but many face difficulties moving because of “organizational culture and aversion to adapt.”
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Success in transitioning to Agile for your team primarily requires cultivating the proper mindset.
Historically, the focus of agile techniques adoption was principally on developers, neglecting the significance of agile testing. Nevertheless, conventional testing methods don’t necessarily fit well with agile approaches.
If your team is contemplating shifting to Agile, or you are a tester finding it hard to adapt, it might be essential to divert the attention from merely following an agile methodology to adopting an agile mentality.
Alright, but what does that mean for your team?
To know more, explore our collection of articles on Agile testing and Scrum Guide => Agile Testing and Scrum Guide
What You Will Learn:
4 Steps Towards Developing The Agile Testing Mindset
Step #1) Education, Education, Education!
To adopt an agile mindset, testers must initially acquaint themselves with the upcoming modifications in agile processes. They should comprehend the revamped workflow and their roles within the new system.
- Testers need to acquaint themselves with the new agile processes. They should understand the targeted workflow and their anticipated roles.
- The testing team ought to have a voice within the organization. They should have the authority to inform management or the agile steering team. Ensuring their requirements are addressed and they actively partake in the adoption of agile practices is crucial.
- Testers must proactively educate themselves about each project. From the inception of a new project, they should stay informed and involved. They should aspire to comprehend the business value and the requirements of the final user.
Step #2) Balancing Documentation
Overemphasizing documentation is a practice that needs to be discarded when familiarizing with Agile. The assumptions about documentation need to be reconsidered. Relying on requirements documents formulated prior to development commencement will not be efficient anymore.
Agile is about adjustability and constant feedback, indicating that documentation must be updated as the development and design progress.
An agile testing mindset entails avoiding unnecessary red tape and excessive documentation. Testers should concentrate on constructive activities, like identifying defects, instead of wasting too much time on mundane tasks like cataloging test cases. Autogenerating scripts for regression testing through exploratory testing sessions can be an ingenious solution.
What’s needed in an agile environment is clever and intentional documentation. There should be an understanding that not everything can or should be documented, with the focus on what genuinely supports the processes.
Finding the right equilibrium between documentation and efficiency can pose a challenge when integrating Agile methodologies.
For more insights, read our article “Test smarter with less documentation” => Intelligently Testing with less documentation
Step #3) Realigning Your Metrics
One of the most substantial perspective shifts required for a successful agile testing transition revolves around the testers’ perception of metrics. Traditional metrics that revolve around the finalization of testing activities and the count of defects generated do not align with the value-focused nature of agile development.
The following “Don’ts” might unnerve testers accustomed to traditional metrics, but they will aid the team in redefining metrics that genuinely measure business success:
- Avoid focusing only on defect count. The number of defects detected by a tester is not a sufficient evaluator of their competence. Quality should not be compromised for quantity. Testers shouldn’t feel compelled to attain specific numbers, which might lead to reporting doubtful defects. Feature requests, design gaps, and vague requirements are not defects.
- Don’t prioritize the quantity of test scripts executed daily. Not every test is of equal significance, and the focus should be on delivering quality rather than quantity.
- Don’t exclusively depend on pass rates for test scripts. The fact that individual test scripts ran without errors does not signal if the product meets end-user expectations and offers a satisfactory user experience. Testers should concentrate on ensuring the end-user’s satisfaction rather than just passing scripts.
The focus should deflect towards end-user satisfaction rather than activity monitoring. If everyone in the company aims to deliver the finest product for the customer by taking their feedback into account, success will follow naturally.
Step #4) Changing Attitudes
Productive communication and collaboration are key factors for achieving agile success. Previously, QA departments often functioned independently, serving as product wardens and viewing themselves as challengers to developers.
It’s time to modify that perspective. Testers should be integrated into the teamwork process, empowered, and supported. Educating testers and aligning their aims with other departments will lead to delivering greater business value.
This is a reciprocal path. Empower testers from top to bottom, and assume responsibility for their professional growth. The entire organization should aim to provide the best user experience possible.
About the Author: Kevin Dunne is a product expert at QASymphony, a premier provider of test management platforms for agile development teams. He previously served as a Business Technology Analyst for Deloitte in Atlanta. You can reach him at [email protected]
Have you faced any hurdles while embracing an Agile mindset? Please share your experiences and questions in the comments section.