According to PwC internal benchmarks, adopting agile methods in testing and throughout the SDLC have undeniable advantages. The main benefits include improved time to market by 18%-20%, reduced costs by 7%-29% and employee satisfaction increase by 20-40%.
As teams adopt agile for managing software development, tools like Jira and Xray provide the foundation for handling projects in an agile way by promoting collaboration, transparency, commitment and flexibility.
When it comes to testing, agile values testing as an integrated part of the SDLC, and testers are encouraged to work together alongside developers.
So what does agile testing look like and how can we increase agility in our testing and development teams?
Being agile requires transparency, continuous feedback, and ownership to make sure the team works effectively to produce high-quality products.
So how do you go about making your testing more agile?
Having an agile transformation as an executive-led initiative is an important start, but the agile mindset extends to everyone. Developers, testers, marketers and business intelligence, all need to embrace an agile mindset for it to truly work. Many times, there will be movement of agile within your organization that hasn't been noticed. When you find your agile champions, you should make it your priority to empower them. Ask them what challenges they're facing and what's stopping them from spreading agile in their team and across.
Traditional waterfall-based teams tend to perform testing only at the end, after coding/implementation. In order for agile to fully work, testers need to be involved in discussing/reviewing the requirements and other issues targeted for the release or sprint. By having ongoing continuous discussions with the team, testers increase the shared knowledge by providing valuable feedback. This feedback loop is exactly what agile is about, and what teams should be striving towards.
To save time and effort on testing, it’s important to implement test automation and continuous integration via a centralized agile platform. This is where a test management tool that supports test automation is highly important. A collaborative test management tool provides a single source of truth for both manual and test automation efforts. Furthermore, test automation will relieve the manual work associated with a lot of testing and allow room for exploratory testing which can catch unexpected bugs that can otherwise go unnoticed.
Agile teams need tools that support clear and constant collaboration. Jira Software is the leading software project management tool that allows teams to plan, track and release software with speed and agility. Jira supports Scrum and Kanban methods of planning and supports agile frameworks like sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives. To take your agile transformation one step further, you can unify your testing and development in Jira. Start by selecting a test management plugin native to Jira like Xray. Xray uses Jira issues to create test cases and link to requirements. Everyone on the team can have visibility over the testing and add comments or evidence. This collaboration between testers and developers makes quality an integrated part of the SDLC.
An agile transformation first and foremost starts with people. When your team embraces an agile mindset, is open to change, and values feedback, then you are on the right track.
Project and test management tools like Jira and Xray empower each member of your team, encourage communication, and promote cross-collaboration.
Together, Jira and Xray close the gap between testing and development by merging activities in one tool. This collaboration accelerates agile software development while testing early and often, significantly reducing the risk of software failure.
The result is a focus on quality from start to finish.
Making the move to agile doesn’t have to be intimidating. Start by embracing the principles of agile, encourage collaboration, and finally, trust tools like Xray and Jira to support you.