Agile Testing: a Symphony of People, Ideas, and Technology

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Software development and testing is a complex symphony of people, ideas, and technology. Our custom IT services aim at developing specific software solutions unique to your business needs with the highest functionality. While the process may seem complicated, Agile testing actually simplifies software development and testing by unifying all the players – the people, their ideas and building programs one step at a time.

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The People

Agile development begins at the human level – with the visionaries, the idea makers, the catalysts for new and better ways of doing things. An Agile team consists of product developers, product owners, project managers, clients, developers and testers. The entire team is on the same page from day one about the overall project goals and priority product backlogs. The development/testing strategy develops and receives scrutiny at daily team meetings.

Agile testing integrates the expertise of lead testers with the entire development team. There is no such thing as simply “developers” and “testers” anymore. In the Agile process, testers and developers communicate to build a program through a series of iterations, with thorough testing at each stage. (Just getting started with Agile? Check out Everything You Need to Know to Work on an Agile Software Development Team.)

The Process

Many people assume testing is a separate phase of software development. With the Agile approach, however, testing is absolutely integral to every stage of development and deployment. Test scenarios run in a predictable environment “with the goal of identifying and resolving defects quickly to reduce their impact later in the project.” According to the “Agile Testing Quadrants” there are three types of testing that happen continuously during the development phase:

  • Performance and load testing
  • Security testing
  • “-ility” testing

Performance and load testing are stress tests for each iteration, measuring load capacity, volume, and predicted user behavior. Security testing involves measuring authentication and confidentiality levels. “-ility” testing is IT shorthand for scalability (scaling up or out?), availability (measuring the mean time between failure gives the relative availability of a program), portability (a program’s ability to run on multiple platforms), reliability, and usability (among other -ilitys you can think of).

The heart of Agile testing is continual feedback and correction. During the intense development phase, team members meet once every 24 hours to compare notes, to bring new solutions to the table, and to keep everyone on the same page. Every stage of development is meticulously recorded and shared so everyone is able to watch the process unfold. Product backlogs, created in our initial discovery sessions, give the team clear landmarks to measure timely progress.

The Final Product

For our clients- deployment is the ultimate finish line. Your new software has been meticulously developed and tested to the highest possible standards. The Agile team has stayed within budget and met all the compliance and functionality requirements for the project. Launching new software opens exciting new frontiers for your business.

While the major part of development and testing has concluded, the Agile team still has work to do. Why? The initial development phase, called “alpha”, involves creating new code, launching in a controlled environment, testing against unique scenarios and being re-worked. When all program development milestones have been met, the new software goes into “beta” testing on a wider, live market before the final release. “Beta” testing provides end-user feedback that the Agile team can incorporate into the finished product.

All software requires maintenance and regular upgrades – some of which are automated like unit and component testing, and others that require manual input like fixing an unforeseen bug.

At Segue Technologies®, our development and testing solutions are end-to-end, encompassing the project from vision to testing to completion. Contact us to learn more about what Agile Testing can do for you.

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