Setting up the QA Process in an Agile Environment? Check Out QA Roles

Agile software development evolved as a practice to establish an approach that fosters flexibility, speed, and collaborative effort. With Agile, solutions evolve with an inclusive approach and cross-functional team efforts. New-age organizations with changing needs are realizing the benefits of faster application development cycles and quicker turnaround during demanding situations. However, shorter and faster development cycles are generally questioned for quality, and that’s where Quality Assurance (QA) comes in. 

While quality brings validation, it cannot impair the software development process and its pace. Nevertheless, QA becomes an integral component of the equation, especially in bringing validation and ensuring stability for the application. It helps build an application that is robust, reliable, and accessible even during unforeseen circumstances. Hence, testing cannot run in phases, as it has to be planned as a process—the QA process in agile. 

QA Roles and Responsibilities in Agile 

According to Gartner, “Agile adoption has traditionally been driven primarily from the bottom up, and enterprise-class agile development is a natural evolution of project-level agile to support the needs of large-scale software management … Top-down strategic adoption of agile is now growing, driven by digital business initiatives that demand the quick delivery of solutions to new types of problem.” 

With Agile development, testers and developers must work together, and the roles could be interchangeable. Hence, it is important that the requirements are frozen, and the team is well informed. Testing will come into play right from the time when the user stories get written. Both the development and testing team needs to have a clear understanding of the expected scope of work. Transparency is the ground rule of Agile development. 

The agile way of development is much more experimental and exploratory in nature. The QA roles and responsibilities in agile can interchange, and even the project scope can evolve over time. The testing team must sync effectively within the development cycle to deliver the application with tested codes. The role of Agile can involve both testing and development. The idea is that developers and testers must actively engage to deliver the code and complete the project as per the client’s brief. QA responsibilities in agile involve maintaining the quality of deliverables through continuous testing and validation. 

QA process in agile helps to proactively address issues and potential bugs within an application during the development cycles. It can also help address functionality, performance, or security issues. This will ensure the application’s stability and reduce testing efforts once the application lands in the hands of the users. This way, developers can move ahead without relentlessly dealing with pending issues or rework. 

While dealing with pending issues, the QA team would be better equipped to provide quick feedback with effective collaboration with the development folks. This enables developers to respond efficiently to changes and go back and forth while the application development process is in progress. It even helps to bring down the efforts along with time and costs. Ultimately, it supports faster turnaround and cost-effectiveness, which is indispensable in the Digital Transformation era. 

Some experts have stated that Agile practices provide teams and individuals with the required ownership while operating on projects. But QA enables teams to bring relevance and stability while churning codes and deciphering client briefs. In this way, with constant collaboration and flexibility, teams can deliver innovative applications. 

What does building a good QA plan for your Agile set-up take? 

QA must fit into every development approach to make the process reliable and validate every step. At the same time, it cannot obstruct the speed at which the development process is running. So, what does a relevant and best-fitting QA plan look like? 

Keep QA result-oriented 

Agile development works with shorter goals and with smaller targets. This implies that QA needs to fit into the Agile equation that is much faster and more dynamic. A result-oriented approach can make all the possible difference for teams to deliver results that drive faster towards the end objective. Testers and developers work together, but having specific results makes them work more cohesively. 

Maintain transparency in objectives 

Agile or any new software development approach works effectively when transparency is maintained. Whether with clarity of goals or clarity through the process, it is important to keep things in the bright light while working in an Agile environment. This will help teams to collaborate well and deliver within time constraints. 

Make Testing an ongoing activity 

Testing cannot be saved up till the end of the cycle. It is important to integrate it within the development cycle. It must happen throughout the sprint, where the QA workload gets distributed, enabling teams to identify issues during the cycle rather than at the end. When testing and development are integrated, it enables both teams to resolve issues at speed and by ensuring better quality. 

Arrange for demonstrations from developers 

The value of in-person demonstrations and meetings is incredible. Hence, whenever an opportunity comes, it is good to organize face-to-face demonstrations for various application features from the development team. This will result in further involvement from the QA team and help clarify issues in person. Moreover, in-person interactions will reduce the feedback loop between development and QA, resulting in more collaboration and faster turnaround. 

Conclusion 

Business enterprises worldwide are experiencing a common trend of increased client expectations, technology upgrades, and unpredictability in their business environment. The magnitude of these changes and accompanying uncertainty is compelling most enterprises to adopt/follow “Agile” – a flexible and progressive software development process/model. 

Cigniti has been a trusted testing partner for many organizations in various stages of adopting Agile. We have helped organizations new to Agile build in QA planning, estimation, and metrics into their sprints. 

Connect with our Agile experts and start with confidence in your Agile plans.