7 Core Practices of Agile Test Automation

Agile testing helps make test automation more efficient and effective with shortened development cycles. Agile Test Automation bolsters quality assurance and quickens application delivery. Some of the core practices of agile test automation can be listed as follows:

1. Automation based on coverage: The scope of test automation depends on the amount of code that has to be covered. As part of the test automation execution system, test traceability can be easily understood through test automation runs that are based on code-coverage.
2. System level automation: In an agile workflow, dependent on team input and user feedback, the UI is bound to experience many changes and multiple versions. So in terms of UI maintenance, test automation tends to be very time-consuming. In order to keep maintenance costs down and enhance overall coverage, automation needs to be conducted at the level of systems and services.
3. Development driven by testing: Testers need to work closely with product dev teams in cases where the testers first design automation tests and make those tests the foundation for the source code. Implementation of such testing therefore requires persistent collaboration between the different teams.
4. Automated testing before its manual counterpart: Before automated testing was as widespread as it is now, a round of manual testing was necessary before implementing a round of test automation. But in today’s fast-paced market with rigid demands, teams don’t really have the time to engage in manual testing. They dive straight into the automated environment, but in spite of the efficiency and thoroughness of this process, it would be a good idea for testers to conduct one manual run-through to confirm the stability of the application and get rid of any glitches that the program may have ignored.
5. Choice of Tool: In an agile workflow, poor decisions and erroneous choices can have detrimental effects that could take a long time to reverse. Selecting the right tools for the job is absolutely key to ensuring successful test runs, and testers can choose from a wide variety of commercial and open-source solutions. Apart from the suitability of a particular tool to a particular automation issue, testers need to take into account a number of other potential problems, such as integration capabilities, installation requirements, overall cost, maintenance, and compatibility with the testing environment.
6. Verifying test automation code: The automation code itself needs to be tested to ensure consistency and high quality. The code needs to be verified top to bottom, and all issues must be eliminated before implementing a test of any product. In an agile workflow, the pressing lack of time means that the code has to be flawless, and has to guarantee low maintenance costs, reliability, and robustness. In test automation, each step (tool choice, framework design, data generation, test design, code review, execution, maintenance, etc.) is handled in a sequential flow, which means that any automation program is conducted in a traditional testing environment by one single tester who takes care of each step.
7. Sharing code to encourage code usage across teams: Development, build, and operations teams should ideally be kept in the loop with regard to any given automation code. The advantages of such transparency are numerous – a general increase in the focus on product quality, shorter test and dev cycles, and the free sharing of knowledge to facilitate an efficient workflow. Bringing in people from the non-testing departments brings in new perspectives and approaches to dealing with potential issues, and so the automation code is more likely to be reliable.

Bottom Line: Agile development now is a permanent fixture in the modern world. Test teams therefore have no choice but to combine the best practices of traditional manual mechanisms with new product cycles in order to deliver robust, stable, high-quality apps.

Get in touch with Cigniti’s Agile Test Specialists who can guide you well on Agile Test Automation and realities of agile testing and help you truly realize the potential of an agile environment.