Agile testing is now a crucial part of current software development methods. With the increasing demand for rapid delivery, development teams are expected to produce high-quality software code in shorter time frames.
“Agile testing frameworks play a vital role in project management, helping teams reach their software delivery objectives.”
However, building an agile and user-friendly practical test automation framework is challenging. Developers need to understand the underlying principles of agile testing and how to integrate them into the testing framework. Here are the critical agile testing principles:
- Early and frequent testing implementation.
- Continuous testing throughout SDLC.
- Inter-team collaboration between developers, admins, and testers.
- Flexibility to adapt the changing requirements.
With these principles in mind, let’s look at the steps you must follow to build a practical agile-friendly test automation framework.
Choose The Right tools for agile project management
The first step in building a test automation framework is to select the right software tools. Among all available tools, the most popular ones are listed below:
- Trello
- JIRA
- Asana
- Aha!
- Pivotal Tracker
When choosing a tool, consider user-friendliness, integration with your development process, and the ability to track progress and manage backlogs.
Define Software Code Testing Process
Once you have chosen the right tools, the next step is to define the entire testing process. This involves determining the steps you need to follow to test your software and the tools you need to use. It’s essential to have a clear and concise agile testing process in place to ensure that your testing is consistent and effective. This process should include the types of tests that need to be performed, the scope of each test, and the expected outcome. Consider creating templates for your testing process to ensure that all tests are performed consistently.
Collaborate With Development Teams
The success of the testing framework depends on collaboration between operations, development, and testing teams. These agile teams must work together to initiate testing at every stage of the continuous development process. This helps everyone stay on the same page and maintain clear transparency project-wide. The agile testing framework should encourage smooth collaboration through regular meetings, knowledge sharing, and inter-team communications.
Implement Continuous Unit & Implementation Testing
Continuous testing is a key aspect of agile testing. You must ensure that testing is integrated into your development process and happens continuously throughout the software development life cycle. Automated testing can help you achieve this goal, providing feedback to your development team as soon as possible.
Adopt Scrum Project Management
Scrum project management is a popular agile methodology for managing various agile projects. It helps break down one project into small chunks so that teams can work iteratively. This helps deliver high-quality software in a shorter time frame. To build an agile-friendly test automation framework, you should adopt agile scrum project management to ensure that testing is integrated into your development process and happens continuously. This can be achieved through regular sprints and retrospectives, where both development and testing teams can review the project’s progress and make any necessary changes.
Utilize Test Driven Development (TDD)
TDD process helps developers write test cases without writing the software code. This approach enables you to ensure your code is testable and meets the required quality standards. TDD is a crucial aspect of agile testing, as it allows you to test your code frequently and quickly, providing feedback to your development team as soon as possible.
Integrate Continuous Integration Tools With Pipelines
In agile project management, CI software development practice encourages the integration of code builts frequently through the CI/CD pipelines. In fact, developers can detect bugs and code defects while performing code integration testing at an early development stage. Thus it helps build an agile-friendly test automation process.
Utilize Automation Tools To Complete The Testing Process
Automation tools like Selenium, JUnit, TestNG, Cucumber, and Appium can reduce the time and effort required to perform unit or integration testing. However, each tool has unique capabilities. So choose an automation tool after considering factors such as compatibility with your development environment, ease of use, and support for different testing frameworks.
The Ultimate Outcome
Building an agile testing process requires the right tools, processes, and team collaboration. By following these steps and incorporating the principles of agile testing, you can build an effective and user-friendly framework. The key is to ensure that testing is integrated into your development process and that it happens continuously, providing feedback to your development team as soon as possible. By adopting scrum project management, making use of TDD, using a CI tool, and utilizing automation tools, you can ensure that your testing framework is both agile and effective.
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