Agile Development

Agile Development is a very vast topic. Based on my hands-on experience, this blog is my attempt to illustrate how practically an implementation takes places in Agile Development. It should remove a lot of confusions that currently prevail in agile teams. I am assuming that you are somewhat familiar with basic artifacts and roles in Agile Development Methodology.

A story’s life cycle in Agile Development

1. Product Owner, Dev Engineer and QA Engineer drive clarity together. User Story Description, Acceptance Criterion (Accrit) is refined if needed.
2. QA Engineer start writing Test plan and Test Cases based on the Accrit. This includes creating/setting-up test data.
3. Dev Engineer start writing unit test cases. Note: We are doing Test Driven Development (TDD) here.
4. Dev Engineer writes code to make the test cases pass and refactors code.
5. Dev Engineer provides the regression scope to the QA Engineer. This is an important step which is often missed.
6. QA Engineer incorporated test cases for the regression scope.
7. QA Engineer gets the test cases reviewed by Product Owner and Dev Engineer.
8. Dev Engineer runs dev tests locally based on some realistic test data against the Accrit. Fix any failing cases.
9. Dev Engineer get the code reviewed. Multiple rounds and multiple reviewers may be involved depending on the complexity.
10. Dev Engineer incorporated the review comments.
11. Commits code and provides details about the successful build where the story can be tested by QA.
12. QA Engineer executes its test cases and produces test report.
13. If Test report has test cases which are failing cases or any interesting observations, they are discussed with Dev Engineer (and potentially Product Owner). Note: No “BUGS” are logged.
14. If any code changes are necessary, they go through the same review and deployment process.
15. If Test Report has no failing cases, the story can be close after checking your Definition-Of-Done (done).

What makes Agile development so Unique?

1. The work is collaborative. This reduces risk.
2. Development relies on strong direct communication. This reduces noise.
3. Estimates factor in effort needed for Reviews, Dev-Testing, Regression. Things that are often missed traditionally.
4. Removes Blaming, finger-pointing, authority bottlenecks.
5. Everyone involved in development gets the big pictures. This is a huge motivating factor for all.
6. The code produced is of superior quality as things are thought through and reviewed at the right time.

Role of QA in Agile Development

This is a very broad topic and definitely deserves a more detailed elaboration of its own. But as a general notes..

1. QA’s role in Agile Development is NOT to find bugs, but to prevent them.
2. With this new mindset in , they are perceived as an integral part of development and NOT an outside entity/department etc. I like to call them “QA Engineers” rather than mere “Testers”
3. Automating goes a long way in achieving Agility in Agile Development.