Software Testing Techie

In this post I am going to share my experience and preparation for ISTQB Agile Foundation Level exam. The pre-requisite for this exam is ISTQB Foundation Level Certificate. This is an extension exam since it deals with only Agile development. Who is eligible for this exam? Every Tester who has ISTQB foundation level certificate is eligible. If you are planning to work in an agile environment or your current job demands so then you must go for this certificate since it will give you a basic idea of how Agile development works. What you will learn from the certification? After completing the certification, you will be able to understand how testing is a crucial part in agile. Role of a tester, how as a tester you can make a difference. Difference between Agile and Traditional methods. You will also learn about agile values and principles, continuous integration, planning, Kanban, XP and scrum methods. What is the exam structure? Exam consists of total 40 questions with multiple...

In my last post,  Benefits of Early and Frequent Feedback in Agile development  I mentioned how Continuous Integration helps in early and frequent feedback. In this post, we are going to go deeper into the concept and see what exactly it does, how it does and its benefits and challenges. Continuous Integration is an automated system which wraps configuration management, software build, deployment and testing into one repeatable process. The best practice is to run the whole set of set into the new build (with all the new code check ins) at least once a day. This gives a feedback on the  build quality. If all the automated tests passed then the build can be used to perform deeper testing. Below are some of the activities carried out by CI: Code analysis Compilation of code and generating an executable file Perform Unit testing Deploying the build onto the testing environment Performing integration testing Generating reports In our project, nightly build and...

One of the reasons why Agile is preferred over traditional development method is "Early and Frequent Customer Feedback". This is not only helps customer to get what he wants but also helps development team to understand the requirement better. There is no room for misunderstandings and delays. so no BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE! In this post, I am going to discuss about some of the major benefits of early and frequent feedback in Agile. One way to get the early feedback is "CI" or Continuous Integration. There are many tools available in the market like Jenkins which help in running automated tests when a change is introduced in the build and give the feedback on the build performance or quality. Below are some of the advantages of early and frequent feedback: Early and regular feedback helps in clearing out the misunderstanding of the requirements. Unlike in traditional method, fixing the issues or requirements change is a lot less expensive. Customer get to see the...

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 ca...

Agile manifesto refers to the set of rules or values used in an agile project. It contains mainly 4 values: Individual and Interactions Working software Customer collaboration Responding to change Over (in traditional project): Processes and Tools Comprehensive documentation Contract negotiation Following a plan Let's discuss these four values in details: Individual and Interactions : Agile development follows a whole team approach and is very people centered. Development team builds software through communication and interaction among different teams and people instead of depending on tools and processes. Individual team member offers a specific skill set and whole team involves in planning the development and testing strategies.  Working software : It is always beneficial to see the working software instead of heavy documentation. It also helps developers in getting early feedback from the clients which in turn cuts down the cost of accommodating c...

Tester in agile is no different from that of traditional tester but in agile, he has to play multiple roles apart from just testing the software. In this post, we are going to discuss about the role of a tester in a project following a scrum life cycle. To make a project successful, testing plays a vital role. In agile, the main idea is whole team approach where testers, developers and business representatives work together as a team. Below are some of the main roles or best practices followed by team members in an agile (Scrum) environment: Cross-Functional: Every team has team members with a specific skill set which they bring to the table. The team work together on Test strategy, Test plan, Test execution and evaluation. Quality is a shared responsibility.  Self-Organizing : There are no leads in Agile. Team is self organized, meaning every team member knows and understands his responsibility and work accordingly.  Co-located : In most of the cases, testers, de...

This post is referred from ISTQB Agile certification syllabus plus I have included my own experience working in Agile environment as a Tester. Let's discuss about the skills first. I have categorized skills in two categories:  Technical Skills  Interpersonal Skills Technical skills include: Test automation : It is crucial to have at least a basic understanding of automation and the tools which are used for automating. Automation not only saves a lot of time and efforts but also, gives you quick defects on the newest build.  TDD (Test Driven Development) : This is used to develop code which is mainly guided by the automation. In other words, we call it "test-first" approach, so the test is written first and then code follows.  ATDD (Acceptance Test Driven Development): As the same suggests, this defines the acceptance criteria and helps developers, testers and business people to understand what they need to get the expected results. This approach incl...