Agile is a Discipline, Not Merely a Process

It is More of Quality Assurance than Testing, it is Testing Driven Development.

Many organizations have begun to use agile development techniques. With the increasing need for faster software development and a context of user oriented applications, the use of iterative Agile methods is here to stay. The biggest implication for testers in this context is that testing is also integrated throughout the life cycle.

 Agile practices put a premium value on collaboration, flexibility (responding to change) and alter the development cycle, because requirements are changing and being completed incrementally as the project is under way based on continuous customer feedback. Agile methods focus on developers and testers being a part of cross-functional teams dedicated to delivering end customer satisfaction. This new type of project management methodology, often called ‘Scrum’ is having a major impact on how testing is managed within organizations.

 Agile methods also focus on the drive to push quality upstream through techniques such as unit testing and code reviews. Automation (automated acceptance testing) being a much required facet,  Agile practices are encouraging vendors in the tool market to build tools that recognize these process changes and address the shift from isolated specialist tools to coordinated suites that share information and manage and update each other in a seamless fashion.

 Agile testing involves testing from the customer perspective as early as possible, testing early and often as soon as the code becomes available and stable enough from module/unit level testing. This leads to a situation where testing is no longer performed in the final phase of development but in the early stages of projects – iteratively and more frequently. In a very mature Agile based project we can agree, as stated in the Agile manifesto - Testing Driven Development.

 Agile is a relatively new discipline and if the products and services make sense to the customer the customer is more than eager to get help from vendors.