How important is agile testing in software development?

The practice of agile testing follows the principles that are involved with agile software development. Along with coding, agile testing is an integral part of the software development process.

The main goal of developers is to achieve quality; so that the software looks and performs exactly as it’s supposed to. Let’s take a closer look at the importance of agile testing.

Agile Testing Methods

There are three primary agile testing methods available to software developers.

The Behavior-Driven Development method helps to improve communication, via examples, between developers and business analysts, whereas the Acceptance Test Driven Development method focuses on involving team members who have varying perspectives, such as the developer, tester, and customer.

Lastly, exploratory testing is employed to emphasize working software over documentation. In exploratory testing, individuals and interactions are more important than the tools and processes.

Other testing techniques will be required, too. For instance, agile regression testing is a must because developers continually make code changes to live software, to confirm every important part of the software is working correctly every time code is changed.

The Key Benefits of Agile Testing

Software developers gain the advantages of increased interaction, faster delivery, and ensuring a high-quality product when they use agile software testing methods.

Increased Interaction

Increased interaction refers to the fact that all team members communicate effectively about things like methodologies, tool preferences, and setbacks. Developers and testers also interact more with business analysts and others involved in bringing the product to market.

Faster Delivery

Faster delivery occurs as a result of agile software testing because there is continuous feedback and communication between all parties. That means errors can be fixed in the middle of a project, unlike waterfall testing, in which the testing of the product takes place at the end of the development.

High Quality

The other main benefit of agile testing is that it helps to deliver a very high-quality product. That largely happens due to the increased interaction between the people involved in a project and the fact that testing begins at the start of a project, not at the end.

The Principles of Agile Testing

It should now be clear how agile testing can play a part in quickly creating high-quality, error-free software. Let’s take a brief look at the key principles of agile testing so you can see just how important it is in creating quality products.

Testing Is Continuous

To ensure a product progresses throughout its development lifecycle, continuous testing is a must. With agile testing, tests are continuously performed.

Feedback Is Continuous

Going hand in hand with the above point, feedback is also continuous with agile testing. When feedback between everyone involved in the project is continuous, it’s much easier to achieve required results quickly.

Tests Are Performed by the Entire Project Team

Often, only developers and test teams are responsible for software development. With agile testing, the developers and the business analysts are involved with the testing process to ensure everyone is happy with the results.

Less Documentation

Because agile test teams use reusable checklists, less documentation needs to be used. Teams can focus on performing the tests instead of the incidental details.

Simple and Clean Code

Because any defects that are found by the team are fixed in the same iteration, it means that code is always kept clean and simple with agile testing.