Ways to Make Test Automation Successful in Agile Environment

18. April 2019 Uncategorized 0

Software enterprises are rapidly switching to automation testing to cope with continuous development and integration on one side and integration on the other side along with continuous sprint-wise releases With increasing adoption of agile development approach. Test automation meets demands of the agile environment by delivering faster results and resolving the issues of manual testing.

The latest software testing training in Cochin is also teaching advanced methods to students that can help them to oversee the process of automation testing. If you are keen on developing a career as a software tester, it is important that you learn everything about the industry and its testing operations from a leading education center which gives the best software testing training in Kerala that can offer highly competent software performance testing lessons.

Although test automation helps enterprises in automating critical, repetitive and lengthy test processes, it can be difficult if it is conducted in an unplanned manner, without appropriate understanding and analysis.

Here are some ways to help you make your test automation work successfully in the agile environment.

Conduct Parallel Testing

Agile development is all about continuous releases in a number of iterations which is the reason test automation team often miss out on quality objectives. In cases where there are more sprints requiring fixing, it becomes even more difficult to devote time identifying, fixing and testing each iteration. So it is important to allocate proper time for testing and start conducting test automation in parallel to development cycles to avoid lags. Conducting parallel testing also will help the team become more productive and respond the requirements quickly, avoiding last minute rushes.It will also help them invest time in exploratory testing, which requires manual efforts.

Develop Quality Test Scripts

The developers should develop quality test scripts considering regression testing cycles. The objective behind this is to execute smoother and correct testing, especially regression testing without any intervention from the testers. If the test scripts are of sound and stable, the testing team can complete the regression test cycle without making unnecessary changes and can also avail the benefits of performance, speed, and accuracy.

Adopt DevOps

DevOps is a principal of merging the Development, Testing, and Operations role. You can tap the benefits of collaboration and cross-functioning from the same team, which enhances the speed and software delivery process. DevOps promotes shared working, development, integration and testing happen in real-time, which makes the entire agile cycle more efficient.

Get the Right Automation Tool

It is important to select the right test automation tool and for this, you must invest enough time in evaluating the capabilities of the tool. Ideally, before purchasing any test automation tool, you must ensure it meets certain basic criteria or features to ensure the success of the test automation program.

It should be noted that the tool should be OS friendly in that the number of operating systems it supports, the better it is for teams to perform testing and be capable of meeting end-to-end testing requirements.

The tool should come with easy-to-understand UI, navigation, and functionality. It should offer integration support with cross-functional tools like bug tracking tools, test management tools, continuous integrations, etc. Most important - It should be within the company’s budget and should offer features as per its pricing.The tool you choose should be robust and provide quick results so that testers can respond to the test results quickly.

Keep a Check on Development Environment

It is also important for testing teams to keep a check of the development environment which may consist of simple to complex virtual machines and cloud environments that work with external database and services. A bug or problem cannot always lie within the application. Sometimes, it can also appear because of the environment, network conditions, configuration, service availability and back end database.

Keep Your Tests Small & Lean

Make sure that your test cases are small and lean. This will help in attaching unnecessary test data which add no value to the test outcomes. Keeping smaller test cases will also help in making quick changes as per regression requirements. Moreover, it reduces the maintenance of large test suites, which contain different codes, configuration, and scenarios, thereby reducing the overall load on the development environment.

Following the above-listed ways, you can make your test automation not only successful but more efficient. At the same time, performing testing on a continuous basis can make your test automation program really effective in the agile environment.