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Exploratory Testing in Agile

Exploratory testing plays an important role in Agile environment due to limited time available and limited details of the user stories. To get the best results out of exploratory testing, it should be combined with other experience based testing techniques.
Some of the important features of exploratory testing in agile are:

  • Test design and execution take place at the same time guided by prepared Test Charter
  • The result of most recent tests are used to guide the next tests.
  • As mentioned earlier, it is combined with other experienced based testing in order to get the best results
  • It is a time boxed testing session and test charter provides the test conditions to cover. 
Test Charter

Test Charter is a statement of test objectives and test ideas (how to test) and mainly used in carrying out the exploratory testing. Below are some of the details included in preparing Test Charter:
  • Actor : the expected user of the system
  • Setup : the test environment set up needed to carry out exploratory testing
  • Data: test data to be used for testing
  • Priority: determines the importance of the charter based on the user story's priority and risk level associated with it.
  • Purpose: all the test conditions (what user is trying to achieve) 
  • Reference: all the related information sources
  • Activities: a list of ideas what to test
  • Notes: evaluation of the correct results by comparing actual and expected behavior, also known as oracle notes
  • Variations: alternative actions to complement the ideas given in activities 
Exploratory testing is managed by session based test which lasts from 1-2 hours (60-120 mins) uninterrupted testing. A typical session includes:
  1. Survey session which included the learning of how the system works.
  2. Analysis session includes the functionality and characteristics of the system under test
  3. Deep coverage session would have all the border cases and scenarios to have maximum coverage. 
Tester should have deep knowledge and understanding of the system. He can use heuristic guide to cover boundaries, functionalities, variations and interruptions. It is equally important to document the process like Test coverage, Notes, Risks, Issues and Actual behavior. 
This information would be used by stakeholders to understand the status of the tests performed during exploratory testing and also, if there were issues found during the test execution then this information would be used as a guide to understand the issue and help in replicating it. 

This is a summary of how exploratory testing works in Agile. Agile extension syllabus was referred before writing this article. 

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