The Role of QA Testing in an Agile Project

Keeping the project pace fast with the Agile Methods can be helpful for you. However, without testing, your project activities can suffer. It is not the quality of the project that matters but the quality should align with the business goals. So, QA Testing covers all those factors that influence the project’s quality, no matter how small their influence is.

In this article, we will gain insights into QA Testing and its role in the Agile Process. It will enable you to realize the importance of QA Testing in Agile Project Management.

What is the Agile QA Process?

The Agile Quality Assurance (QA) is a process that focuses on continuous testing and collaboration throughout the lifecycle of the product. It involves Continuous testing in parallel with development so that we can quickly identify and resolve the defects in the project. It also defines the automated test cases to reduce the time spent in the testing activities. Due to this, the team can focus on more important tasks.

1. This iterative and collaborative approach ensures that software is not only functionally correct but also fulfills the expectations of the end-users.
2. QA Testing focuses more on finding the errors or bugs early before they become a severe risk for the project.

Role of QA Testing in Agile Project

1. Early Sprint Planning for Early Delivery

• Sprint, which lasts typically 2-4 weeks involves the iteration through which the project deliverable is developed. Thus, a sprint is a quick short development cycle. But the QA Testing makes it faster and shorter development cycle.
• The QA Testers participate in the stand-up sessions to identify the user stories, acceptance criteria, and potential testing scenarios. Thus, it does not happen that the testing is done after development. It starts right from the project development starts
• In other words, the Testers can pre-plan which user stories to work on. Due to this, the Agile Process becomes more focused throughout the entire project.

2. Cross-functional Operations for Collaborative Approach

• The cross-functional collaboration is a crucial part of the Agile Principles. Sometimes, we are required to get involved in a domain in which we are not familiar. Hence, QA Testing allows us to interact with people of different skills to execute the project tasks.
• In this QA Testing Process, the testers actively participate in cross-functional teams to collaborate with the developers, testers, and other project stakeholders. Generally, they use stand-up sessions, discussions, and planning meetings with the developers, product owners, and other stakeholders.
• This collaborative approach enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire development process. As a result, our project becomes more integrated.

3. Validating the Definition of Done

• The Definition of Done (DoD) is a set of criteria that must be fulfilled for a user story or a test scenario before the QA Tester marks them to be considered complete. Thus, QA Testing assures that each Agile task aligns with DoD throughout the lifecycle.
• The QA process allows us to review and assess each user story against the defined acceptance criteria, functional requirements, and quality standards. Once the acceptance criteria are fulfilled, the project archives completeness.
• The validation of various criteria is important for maintaining a consistent delivery pipeline of the project outcomes so that we can prevent technical issues from becoming a part of the project.

4. Acceptance Tests to Capture the Market

• QA testing includes the creation of the Acceptance Tests. These tests validate whether the developed features are in line with customer expectations and market requirements or not.
• Acceptance tests in the Agile QA Testing Plan are also capable of finding the bugs or errors that can impact the user experience in the product. Hence, the product can get approval from the stakeholders easily.
• For creating the Acceptance Tests, user feedback can be taken early in the development process. This proactive approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also eagles us for quick adjustments to the product based on market demands.

5. Ownership for Project Stability

• The Agile QA Testing process focuses on taking Ownership of the Project. It means that the team becomes liable for changes, updates, or new features. The QA Process ensures the code quality but ownership of the project makes the team more responsible for making the best efforts for project delivery.
• The feeling of ownership in the development team and stakeholders makes communication strong. Hence, Agile QA also helps us to maintain transparency in the project processes.
• Therefore, the overall stability of the project is increased and it is ensured that the changes or new features do not impact the existing functionality of the project.

Example of QA Testing in Agile

Till now, we have covered all the information about the Role of QA in Agile. Let us now understand this concept using a practical example. Consider the project of an e-commerce application development using Agile Methods. Once the project starts with the initial phase, the QA Process starts.

1. Firstly, QA Testers collaborate with the product owner and the development team to define acceptance criteria for user registration. This includes aspects like successful user creation, validation of input fields, and secure password handling. The QA team then creates test cases based on these criteria.
2. After this, they implement QA testing is applied iteratively to validate each user story against the acceptance criteria. This approach allows us to quickly identify and resolution of issues, preventing the Following image from highlighting the activities in this QA Process. The following image highlights

Sprint/Phase	Activities
Planning	Implement functionality Collaborate on criteria Define pep: user creation, validation, security
Implementation	Testing Phase Create test cases Execute automated tests Explore edge cases, scenarios Collaborate on defect resolution
Validation and Issue-fix	Iterative Testing Iterate on new features Validate against criteria Quick issue resolution

Conclusion

QA Testing checks and validates the usability and acceptance of the product in the market. It not only focuses on quality assurance but also the alignment and relevance of the project with the business goal. It includes various testing strategies under QA Testing that allow us to know the behavior, acceptance, and reliability of the product. After gaining useful insights on the QA Testing for the Agile Project, you can easily implement it. This is how the stakeholders and end-users get the deliverables of optimum quality.