Software Development is one of those areas that have witnessed tremendous alterations in the last few years. Since industrialization 4.0, more and more technologies pave their way in the process of application development. For developers or to be specific, the application development companies to remain at the forefront, it is important to not only embed such technological transformations but also speed up the process of development. There are thousands of agencies and if you delay the development process, clients are more likely to make a shift.
Having said that, it is not just the development process that needs to be triggered but also the others associated with it. Precisely, we are talking about the testing process. Until recently, testing was done manually and in a way that followed the waterfall development model. However, wiry rising trends and increasing competition, the waterfall model was replaced by the agile method of software development and this includes testing too.
As we know, the waterfall model follows the principle of doing a task only after completion of the previous one. Meaning that only after the entire project is developed, will the team begin with the testing phase. Considering that today applications involve a bundle of features that needs to be tested and fast. If you stick to the traditional norms of the waterfall development model, you strong bound to delay the work. On the other hand, the agile method of testing is far quicker and comparatively better.
The fact that agile development resonates around the idea of continuous development, continuous integration and continuous deployment, the process of testing speeds up. Further, the tools that come along with the agile methodology help the testers automate the process of testing. Embedding automation in agile testing would take the SDLC cycle to a different level, one where the features are tested and the application gets continuously deployed.
This isn’t enough to give you the idea of the importance of automation in agile testing and hence, we extend our discussion to why agile automation?
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Automation in Agile Testing
Knowing that the agile methodology is driven by quality development of software while reducing plausible risks, manually testing each of the features not only consumes time but also compromises on the quality of the product. The term agile, itself, points to the need for continuous development and updates, and if you keep a manual workforce to test every change, you are just wasting money and resources. In such a scenario, it is seen that automation fits the puzzle best.
Automating the process of agile testing saves considerable time, effort and also reduces the risk of errors. Agile testing when automated performs the process in the cycle same as that of the development. And if you have had a hard time with regression testing, automation would help you get over that too.
Convincing right? Well, if you aren’t yet sure the next section would outline the advantages of automation in agile testing.
Why Automate – The Importance Of Automation In Agile Testing?
- Detect and fix bugs
Prior to agile testing, testers relied on waterfall development where testing was done at the end of development. Meaning that detection of errors or bugs happened at the end. Now, fixing these glitches meant resisting the entire code structure and then mending each of the pitfalls. And the cycle repeated for every other defect.
On the contrary, agile testing is about continuous integration and continuous development. So, testing is done simultaneously with the development. This implies that when the development team is developing a feature, the automation tool will run the test script once the code is stable. And it is just a matter before the process completes. If there appears a bug, the developer is notified at the earliest. Since the process is automated it is both quick and free from errors.
- Regression Testing On The Go
Performing regression testing with the agile testing manually appeared to be difficult as testers failed to map the speed required to run the test. Upon embedding automation in the testing process, the entire testing is done through predetermined scripts and does not consume much time. Considering regression testing to be an important part of the testing process, agile automation would be the last resort for developers.
- Enhanced Testing
Testing does not have any boundaries or in simple words, an end. You can keep on creating test cases, the more you test the better is the viability of the developed product. Where the human mind is limited, automated scripts are efficient in unlimited testing.
Also, agile testing takes into consideration every feature, no matter how small or insignificant to the testers. It is possible that manual testers fail to take into account the unanticipated changes and miss out on some important features but automated scripts are adept in all-round testing of the product.
- Fix Broken Codes
Frequent changes in the code give rise to the issue of broken builds which can cause the entire code to break. While manual testing would struggle to fix this issue, agile automation in the process of the continuous build would take care of all the broken builds, detect errors and also fix them.
The automated tools used to test the developed product, take care of all the defects and save a lot of time. Such tools not only create build but at the same time, compile and run them to ensure break-free code.
- Enhanced Performance Testing
The performance of the developed product is one of the crucial aspects when testing the same. There doesn’t exist any standard way to detect the software performance and it is only the testers who have the ability to go beyond bounds to test the project performance. Manual testing, is, therefore, restricted and confined to the testers.
On the other hand, automated scripts lead to the creation of a realistic environment where the software is exposed to extreme conditions and this reveals the idea performance of the product.
The Final Word
Though making a shift from traditional testing to automated agile testing might seem difficult, the benefits laid by the same is worth doing it. Agile automation encourages better testing and at a speed, greater than the manual testing. Not to forget, automated testing improves the process, saves time and quickens error detection. If you haven’t yet adopted automation, it’s time to take the leap.
