Agile Testing - Things to know about

What is Agile? The software development lifecycle has got a new shape in past decade. Experts have experiments many new ways to increase the productivity of the process. They implemented many changes to the development process for better output. One of those changes was agile methodology. Agile means to do together. We know the importance of team i.e., together everyone achieves more. In agile methodology this concept has adopted for better performance. Fortunately this method work like a charm in IT industry and received tremendous support from the IT farms. Now almost all projects are implementing this methodology in the development process for better result. Let us see how it works.

Build or Buy a Software Testing Tool - How to Decide?

An organization can reap several benefits by using the right tool to support its software testing efforts. Along with reducing repetitive tasks, increasing test coverage, and achieving greater consistency, the tool will further help the enterprise in reducing the software testing time and cost significantly. Based on its requirements and goals, a business has option to choose from a wide range of open source and commercial software testing tools. At the same time, it can also consider build customized test suites. However, it is important for the business to focus on some key points while deciding about buying or building the software testing tools.

Steps You Need to Follow while Testing an Application

Each business wants to get higher ROI by launching a software application that delivers flawless user experience. That is why; most IT companies, nowadays, adopt test-driven development approach. Likewise, many companies automate their testing efforts to ensure that the software meets the requirements of end users. Based on the enterprise’s objectives, the software testing strategies and process vary. However, it is always important for the testers to understand and follow some essential steps of software testing.

Implementing Agile QA Process on Scrum Projects - 6 Best Practices

Before discussing the 6 best practices of implementing Agile QA process on Scrum Projects, let us discuss at first what Scrum is. Scrum can be defined as an Agile approach of software development that puts primary emphasis on delivery of valuable features of business in short developmental iterations that vary from two to four weeks. The teams generally have two specific characteristics that define their skills – they are cross functional and self organizing. Cross functionality of the teams makes sure that they have the skill as well as the expertise of doing the necessary jobs and the fact that they are self-organizing means that they figure out the process that will be the best to do the job.

Now going back to the iterations, as and when they start to flow for a particular team, the team is subject to a new kind of pressure. They are required to maintain a strict deadline (that varies from 2 to 4 weeks as mentioned previously) while testing as well as delivery of the software.

Under such pressure of production along with delivery, the teams cannot rely merely on their old practices of programming, but have to innovate newer practices. The coding practices need to become more agile, as well as capable of changing things faster, and sooner. This is where the Agile teams make a difference. The Agile teams have discovered that the code is more extensible and with low defect, with the simplest of robust designs working for the features that are currently being implemented. Hence, it has become almost a daily routine to find an agile team that has come up with several non-XP customer practices that make things easier. Let us discuss 6 best of them as per the priority list.

1. Ensuring that the SMEs and the members of business team have the knowledge that is needed

This particular practice categorically makes sure that the staff who are involved in quick iterations are experienced and experts in the practice, so as to quicken the iteration and reduce the customary delays. For instance, a member who is representing financial customers needs to be absolutely familiar with the requirements of those customers.

2. Enhance migration to Agile concepts by using various Agile terms as well as examples

Specific Agile terms and examples need to be used for enhancing migration to the Agile concepts. For instance, terms like requirements need to be replaced by user stories, while the ones like Project Management Office need to be replaced by terms like Agile Center of Excellence.

3. Creation of a physical environment or ambience that is conducive to the concept of collaboration

There should be a common practice of co-locating the team in a room where the members can meet and can interact with each other unabatedly. There are, however, other ways of enhancing the collaboration and that include reorganizing office spaces and using tools for connecting remote staffs.

4. Identification of measurable outcomes of what one needs to accomplish by using Agile

This is another very effective practice that yields the best results. A very pertinent example of this practice is the creation of a vision statement of project outcomes instead of outputs. Vision statements may include decrease in the amount of processing time by a specific amount during a set time and outputs may include the total amount of code that is produced.

5. Negotiation for adjusting the oversight requirements for a more Agile approach

This is another practice that helps the team in adjusting the oversight requirements with the use of frequent as well as tangible demonstrations for gaining the trust of the investors as well as the reviewers, thereby potentially reducing the requirements of the more official oversight database as well as documents.

6. Accelerating the delivery with the use of the latest automated tools

This is another practice that is one of the best, especially when it comes to tracking various software modifications along with the compliant development sites that help customers to conceptualize the software in a domain that meets the required security as well as the architectural benchmarks.

You can hire testers from top offshore software testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide qa and testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

How Important Is Manual Testing These Days?

Before we discuss the importance of Manual Testing, at first let us know what actually it is. It is actually a process that is followed to detect and pick up errors as well as flaws within a particular software application. Since the detection is done manually, the individual who tests the application plays the most important role as an end user when it comes to verifying as well as evaluating the features or the behavior of the application in question under various circumstances. Though it is the preliminary stage of assessment, it is needed to be executed in a seamless way before switching over to automated testing.

The principal objective of non-automatic evaluation is guaranteeing that the application that is subjected to test is free of glitches as well as defects and is working perfectly as per the specification of the requirements. Now let us see how important this type of software evaluation these days really is.

At present, even as the concept of automatic testing is fast gaining momentum in terms of popularity, this has not rendered the concept of manual evaluation totally useless. In fact, prior to starting the automatic assessment of a software application, there is an ardent need of setting up a base that will decide when and how to start the automatic evaluation. It is manual testing that forms that base and here lies its importance. This form of software evaluation helps to understand the reason behind testing, the role of quality as well as its reliability and the risks that are involved in the evaluation. Besides, it also helps in a better understanding of the risks that are associated. It also helps improving the testability through evaluation of the risk factors.

Although, there are a lot advantages that are associated with automated evaluation of software applications, the manual version has still not lost its importance and relevance whatsoever. In fact, there are certain instances where the manual variety is more important than the automatic variety. There are a number of software packages in the market, which are released successfully after solely depending upon manual testing without any type of automatic assessment whatsoever.

However, experts are of the opinion that the best way to evaluate a software application is by setting up a perfect combination of manual and automated testing and this makes manual evaluation so important in today’s context. Though you will find a lot of discussions regarding the efficacy or importance of automated discussion, there are certain cases where the manual version is more effective as well as more important than the automatic one. A perfect combination of the two varieties would provide you an error free software application with no regression bugs and this will allow you to give more thrust towards further development and enhancement of the application in question. In fact, there are certain bugs that can be detected only with the successful manual software testing.

The basic issue of non-automated testing is to know how to use each and every technique for solving various problems. Frankly speaking, when it comes to assessing whether a particular application can be used by human, the best answer is non-automated evaluation. This is because in most of the cases, automatic assessment is not able to decide whether the text or the information provided can be apprehended by the end user and here is where the importance of manual assessment comes into play. Even if there is an automatic process to do so that will be expensive. Hence, the popular notion is that, though it can well be automated, it is more feasible to manually test those effects, as this will very much provide more confidence to the users as well as much cheaper in terms of time that is taken.

You can hire testers from top offshore software testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide qa testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Top 6 solutions to avoid software testing failures

During the application of some product under some environment, if there are certain defects then wrong results will be produced by the system which leads to testing failures. While the software is being designed and built, a programer makes some mistakes. There are some defects which may not lead to failures as they stay inactive and are hardly noticed. However, problems will be bound to crop up at some point or the other which makes it extremely essential to ensure that the testing procedure is carried out with utmost care and precision. While embarking on the evaluation procedure there can be many problems to be overcome- whether or not the budget will be overrun, etc. To avoid software testing failures as much as is possible, you can adopt some preventive measures. Here are the top 6 measures that you can follow.

Defining project success as well as the method to measure it- It is very essential to keep in focus the clear objectives and goals of the project or software. While doing that, you should be taking some basic factors into consideration-

• Time- Some or rather most of the projects run on a tight schedule with fast and hard deadlines; this fact should be made very specifically clear to everybody involved with the process in the first place. Interim deadlines should be set up; rewards may be given for meeting them.
• Cost- The planned as well as actual cost should be tracked properly. You should also decide that in case there is some work outside the original planned scope, there should be some means to reject or approve the cost.

Defining functionality- To determine the kind of testing needs to be carried out the kind of work that must be accomplished by the system needs to be described. For that read all text requirements, review the screen mockups as well as provide feedback along with clarification. This may be time-consuming and iterative but cutting it short is not a very good solution as that will also mean cutting short or decreasing the probability of success of the project.

Identifying correct team members- There are various roles in each phase of any project, so when choosing your team members for the testing process make sure that they are fully qualified for a particular step and that they know which segment of the process they are in charge of. Assign individual roles for each and make sure that they stick to it.

Testing- Whether a system is working or not according to the design is the main objective for determination in evaluation processes. The evaluation method should be such that it gives you quantifiable results; so choose accordingly. Some test plans created define all “use case” while some other test plans created by companies just test against some particular required document.

Deciding on the method of communication- This process is such that there is need for perfect communication with the team members at all stages so that maximum positive result is yielded without the wasting of time as well as money. So it is essential to be on the same page and be up to date. Decide on the method for communication as well as the frequency.

Putting off pressures and celebrating interim successes- Testers often face inappropriate external pressures from stakeholders and managers which force them to cut corners and ultimately compromise on the quality of the product that reaches to the consumer. However, this might lead to bad reputation as well as harm of goodwill of the company in the market. It is not harmful to remind of the pressing deadlines but sometimes it would be beneficial if few pressures are taken off the shoulders of the testers. It would not be harmful to encourage by celebrating interim successes; rather it would boost the morale and make them work better, faster as well as more efficiently.

So try to identify, understand as well as avoid a few common testing problems so that the process becomes smooth-flowing. Not only will it make everything easy, but it will eliminate chances of cost escalating as well as delay in project delivery.

You can hire testers from top web application testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software application testing services. If you would like to hire software testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Why should you consider 8 Types of Testing?

Software testing methodologies are in fact different approaches to testing, including procedures like unit testing, system testing and much more. So far as the methods of software evaluation are concerned, there is no formally recognized body present, and there is hardly any uniform set of definitions. However, there are certain common categories of testing. Before we learn about them, it is good to take a look at the five elements that are essential for software testing.

The five necessary things for software evaluation

• Test strategy: This is important for guiding you on the categories of evaluation that should be conducted, the sequence for performing as well as executing them, along with the optimal effort that needs to be put into every evaluation for deriving maximum effectiveness. An ideal strategy is usually based on the major requirements or information regarding what is significant to the clients.
• Evaluation plan: It involves the testing tasks, dealing with who will be conducting which tasks, along with the starting and ending time as well as the effort required. The plan provides a comprehensive list of the evaluation requisites, including the preparation done during each testing phase.
• Test cases: These are designed depending upon the strategy which confirms the amount of each evaluation that should be done. The development of the cases is based on the prioritized requirements along with the software's acceptance criteria. The quality and risk assessment parameters are also kept in mind.
• Test data: Along with the steps for test case execution, you are also required to systematically arrive at the test data to be used. This might often incorporate sets of product orders, addresses or names, or any other information the system leverages. Development of valuation data is usually carried out along with development of test case.
• Test Environment: The evaluation process definitely calls for the right place and the right equipment. Evaluation environments might be scaled down editions of the real scenario, but every part is required to be present so that the system can run efficiently.

Kinds of software testing to be considered

Considering the five essentials of software testing, let us now take a look at the different kinds of evaluation that can be taken into account. Broadly the process can be divided into two categories: Manual Testing and Automation Testing.

Manual testing involves evaluating the software without any kind of automated tool or script. The tester assumes the role of the end-user and evaluates the software for identification of any unanticipated bug or behavior. On the other hand, in automation testing, the evaluator composes script and makes use of another software to test the software in question. This procedure is often utilized to re-run the evaluation scenarios that were done manually, repeatedly as well as quickly.

Apart from these broad types, the process of software evaluation may also be categorized into the following major types:

• Black Box Testing: These evaluation procedures are based on functionality as well as requirements and not on the knowledge of coding or internal design.
• White Box Testing: This depends on the knowledge of internal logic pertaining to an application's code. The evaluations revolve around coverage of code statements, conditions, paths as well as branches.
• Unit Testing: This is in fact 'micro' scale of evaluation involving particular code modules or functions. The programmer and not the tester usually does this, as it calls for extensive knowledge regarding the internal program, code and design.
• Functional Testing: This category revolves around functional essentials of an application, and should be carried out by certified software testers.
• Integration Testing: Herein the combined components of an application are evaluated to determine whether they are functioning in unison appropriately. The components may be individual applications, code modules, server and client applications across a network, and so on.
• System Testing: Based on the requirement specifications as a whole, this procedure takes into account all of a system's combined components.
• Load Testing: This involves evaluating an application by subjecting it to heavy load, for instance, checking a website against load ranges for finding out under what condition the response time of the system fails or degrades.
• Usability Testing: Carried out to determine the 'user-friendliness', this subjective procedure depends on the client or end-user.

All these categories have one common aim- to ensure that the software runs effectively and renders the desired output. When all the five testing essentials are in place, the different evaluation types can be leveraged appropriately leading to organizational success.

We provide independent software testing services. If you would like to hire software test professionals from us or would just like to speak to one of our expert software testers, please reach out to us at Mindfire Solutions.