What are Some of the Ideal Practices for Test Automation in Agile Testing
David Morey 
The optimal approach to automation testing within an agile setting involves ensuring that frequent software releases maintain top-notch quality. Aligning automated testing with the Agile development methodology is vital to encompassing all required aspects before software goes live. Prioritizing early and frequent testing is pivotal for achieving superior quality in regular software rollouts.
Additionally, during the continuous deployment phase, test automation gains greater significance by promptly delivering feedback to the development team.
Introduction to Agile Testing
To begin, agile testing represents a testing methodology rooted in the principles of agile software development. It emphasizes both iterative product development and continuous testing. Customer-derived product requirements drive the process, involving pertinent members of the testing team throughout.
Unlike traditional software testing, agile testing aligns product development and testing seamlessly. This close integration aids in early bug detection during the initial stages of product development.
Agile testing not only contributes to constructing a superior software product but also enhances collaboration among developers, integrators, and testers—essential components of any software product’s foundation.
What is Agile Software Development?
To grasp agile testing, it’s essential to comprehend the Agile development methodology. It serves as a comprehensive term encompassing various practices distinct from conventional development techniques.
Let’s delve into the fundamental principles of agile software development, which revolve around four core values:
● Prioritizing people over processes and tools
● Emphasizing a functional software piece over exhaustive documentation
● Valuing continual collaboration with customers over rigid contracts
● Embracing adaptability to change rather than adhering strictly to a plan
As the term implies, Agile methodology centers on adaptability. In contrast to traditional development, where team members are often segregated by their roles and gradually assemble pieces to finalize a product, Agile emphasizes continuous integration. The entire team collaborates, integrating new features as they progress. This results in an entirely different software development life cycle, necessitating the implementation of agile testing methods by teams.
Key Principles of Agile
● Ensure customer satisfaction through consistent and timely delivery of valuable software.
● Embrace evolving requirements, even in the later stages of development.
● Deliver functional software frequently, emphasizing shorter timescales ranging from weeks to months.
● Organize projects around motivated individuals, fostering an environment of trust to facilitate task completion.
● Evaluate progress primarily based on the delivery of functional software.
● Prioritize simplicity, aiming to enhance productivity by eliminating unnecessary tasks.
● Encourage face-to-face communication as the most effective mode within development teams.
● Pursue continuous excellence in all endeavors.
● Leverage change to gain a competitive advantage.
Why Utilize Automation in Agile?
The Agile development methodology revolves around constructing a product through brief iterative cycles for ongoing refinements and rapid releases, all while adapting to customer-driven changes. It operates through a multifaceted team comprising a Scrum master, product owner, business analyst (BA), developers, and quality assurance (QA) personnel, necessitating continuous collaboration and communication among them.
Roles Within the Agile Team Include:
● Scrum master, responsible for coordinating meetings and addressing obstacles
● Product owner, identifying and prioritizing system functionalities
● BA, tasked with gathering and documenting acceptance criteria
● Dev, involved in product development
● QA, ensuring product quality
In many instances, Agile teams operate in sprints, aiming to develop and test new functionalities within a two-week timeframe. This accelerated pace often requires more time for testing both new and existing functionalities.
Despite time constraints, automation in Agile serves to guarantee the quality of both existing and new functionalities. Regression testing validates existing functionalities, ensuring they remain intact despite the introduction of new features.
New functionalities must be fully operational and conform to the intended design within each sprint cycle. Through the integration of automation into Agile practices, executing automated test scripts facilitates prompt and dependable feedback. Before commencing automation in Agile, here are five key considerations:
● Automate repetitive tasks.
● Automate pain points within the product.
● Automate critical paths of the product.
● Automate tests requiring multiple datasets.
● Automate time-consuming human intervention steps.
Approaches to Agile Automation Testing
When discussing test automation, the immediate focus often gravitates toward the user interface (UI). However, apart from the UI, engineers have the option to automate at both the unit and service layers. Visualized in the test pyramid diagram are these layers: UI, service, and unit.
Test Automation Pyramid
● Unit: Constituting the foundational layer, developers craft unit tests here.
● Service: Positioned in the middle, this layer manages information exchange via requests and responses.
● UI: Occupying the top tier, test scripts interact with the application at this level.
The unit layer holds the largest share within the pyramid, predominantly due to its pivotal role. It facilitates the identification of specific data points for developers in the event of errors. Employing frameworks like JUnit, TestNG, etc., developers generate and execute small code units. Many Agile teams adhere to test-driven development (TDD), conducting unit tests before finalizing software development.
The service layer handles requests, encompassing automation of business logic and web services. It’s also recognized as a domain for automating APIs. Test construction involves a sequence of inputs, allowing the bypassing of certain steps already automated by the UI.
Testing at the UI layer often demands more time compared to the service and unit layers. Factors influencing this duration include network speed and application interactions. Network speed directly impacts application loading times, while behaviors like button clicks or data input in fields dictate test completion.
However, an effective strategy for Agile automation testing involves automation across all three layers: unit, service, and UI. Each layer holds relevance and offers distinct advantages in delivering a robust product to the market.
Best Practices for Test Automation in Agile Testing
Ensuring product quality becomes increasingly critical as Agile teams accelerate their product release pace. Quality assurance (QA) must match the speed of product development and testing as swiftly as products are created. Utilizing test automation proves beneficial for swiftly verifying product quality. Here are the recommended best practices for Agile automation testing:
Maintain Compact Tests and Operate Efficiently
Ensure that your continuous testing methodology focuses on delivering tangible business value. Rather than investing resources in generating artifacts that may not offer substantial value, prioritize crafting a streamlined testing strategy. Opting for concise test cases allows for the elimination of unnecessary test data, facilitates immediate adjustments to meet regression needs, and reduces the burden of maintaining extensive test suites.
Focus on flexibility
Developing top-notch test scripts requires testers to focus on flexibility, allowing adaptation to regression testing needs. Evaluating the scripts for accuracy, maintainability, portability, integrity, and performance is essential. This approach guarantees the smooth execution of regression tests with minimal intervention from testers.
Introducing DevOps into your processes
Introducing DevOps into your processes when feasible integrates development, testing, and operations within the product life cycle. Leveraging DevOps fosters collaboration and cross-functionality among the Dev and QA teams, enhancing the pace of product delivery. As DevOps emphasizes shared development, integration, and precise time-based testing, coupling it with the Agile cycle amplifies overall efficiency.
Collaborate closely with Business Analysts
This facilitates effective, continuous testing right from the project’s outset. The entire team must grasp a comprehensive understanding of the product and business requirements before development. This entails close coordination between the QA team and business analysts, preferably involving the latter in the test automation process.
Validate that each user story aligns precisely with the acceptance criteria established. Develop comprehensive end-to-end test scenarios based on prevailing trends and analytics to gain insights into user behavior and activities.
Choose a Good Automation Testing Tool
Before finalizing a tool, ensure it meets the fundamental requirements necessary for your test automation program.
Consider these initial features, regardless of your specific testing requirements:
● Operating system compatibility: the more operating systems the tool supports, the better.
● Intuitiveness –A tool with a user-friendly interface (inclusive of videos, screenshots, and logs for clear comprehension across user levels) and straightforward functionality.
● Ease of use – Facilitating quick initiation for the QA team into the test automation process.
● Seamless integration with bug tracking, CI/CD integration, and collaboration tools.
● Prompt and accurate result generation for informed decision-making.
● Minimal learning curve – A tool that’s easy to comprehend reduces the necessity for extensive team training.
● Versatility to suit diverse project requirements.
● Support for Data-Driven testing – Ability to test multiple datasets and execute a single test script with different input values stored in Excel, CSV, or XML formats.
● Cross-browser and cross-device testing capabilities across various web browser versions in parallel.
● Adaptability to changes in an application’s UI.
● Ultimately, the tool’s pricing should align with its features and capabilities.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform that meets the majority of the specified criteria. This cloud-based platform facilitates manual and automated testing on over 3,000 browsers and operating systems.
By embracing Agile methodologies, LambdaTest continually enhances its platform. This involves integrating user feedback, introducing fresh functionalities, and swiftly resolving issues within shorter development cycles. Such an approach empowers LambdaTest with flexibility, quicker update deliveries, and closer collaboration among development teams. Ultimately, it aids in better catering to the evolving demands of its expanding customer base.
Monitor the Development Environment Vigilantly
This encompasses virtual machines and cloud setups interconnected with external databases and services. The rationale behind this practice is that not all bugs originate within the application itself. At times, issues might arise due to environmental factors like network conditions, configurations, or backend databases.
Regularly overseeing the actual development environment aids in promptly identifying the root cause of test failures, saving valuable time in the debugging process.
Conclusion
Agility necessitates rapidity, yet it also demands risk mitigation and performance optimization. Typically, new features are developed within two-week sprints. The integration of automation in Agile serves the purpose of encompassing both new and existing features.
A successful approach involves integrating testing across the unit, service, and UI layers. For instance, testing can combine the services and UI layers to validate specific product functionalities. Leveraging the API in the services layer along with UI automation steps reduces code complexity.
Nevertheless, achieving Agile automation testing success relies on preparation and strategic planning. Preparation becomes crucial to tackle challenges such as maintaining test scripts, handling failed tests, and overcoming obstacles. A well-thought-out plan acts as a bridge toward achieving successful project outcomes with automation in Agile.
