Testing in an agile environment can be a challenge, but the benefits to having good testing are enormous. Here are a few keys to agile testing success:

* Test Early - The key to agile is iteration: developing, testing, and developing again. To get the most out of an agile process, you have to test early. That means that you think about testing not just after the first couple of sprints, but at the very beginning of the development cycle.
* Test Often - A good agile process emphasizes frequent testing. You are looking for defects early in the testing cycle. The longer defects wait in the code, the harder and more expensive they will be to remove.
* Refactoring/Regression – Stop every few weeks to focus on stability. Fix bugs, refactor old code, and run extensive regression testing to make sure you didn’t miss bugs during the ongoing testing process.
* Test from a Customer Point of View - As with any development process, it’s critical that the testers and developers know the customer’s point of view. That means having good stories with customer relevant material, and then sharing those stories with the development team as well as the testing team.
* Separate Testing from Development - This is often difficult for smaller teams, but testers should be independent. Keeping testers separate means they can develop true testing expertise while focusing on finding bugs.
* Communicate – Having good communication between the testers, developers, and product guys is a key essential to a solid agile process. Even though testers should be separate from developers, they should work closely together to get the most from testing.
* Automate What you Can - The best agile teams automate as much of their testing load as they can. Repeatedly testing the same case over and over is a waste of time. Locating new bugs is far more valuable for any tester.

These are a few basic guidelines to getting the most from an agile development process, and there are certainly many more best practices.

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Cheers,

Roy
www.uTest.com