Agile Testing

Agile testing is the idea that the entire team shares the responsibility of testing

“Quality” is injected into the entire team. Agile development is an iterative approach to writing code. Agile testing is an iterative approach to testing code.

In agile, testing keeps the project moving forward. So long are the days that testing is done at the end. Testing is not a “phase” in agile, it is a mentality, a continuous activity. Agile testing promotes collaboration. It emphasizes integrated teams, frequent releases, and the ability to adapt to changing business requirements. It involves the entire team throughout the entire development lifecycle.

An agile approach to testing keeps the code clean. This means it’s easier and faster to develop new features. Writing new code in a messy code base is like trying to cook in a dirty kitchen. Agile testing shortens the feedback loop, and shorter feedback loops increase the team’s agility. If testing isn’t done, then the features are not done. Continuously testing means more velocity.

Agile testing does not eliminate the need for a QA team though. It does not replace manual testing. It means automated and manual testing is no longer only the responsibility of the QA team. QA and development can often pair together to conduct exploratory testing.

Agile teams put quality first and by doing so, they’re able to work faster. You can only go as fast as the slowest part of your team. Agile testing widens the throughout of the testing process and eliminates the testing bottleneck.