Agile development is one of the fastest growing trends in software development today. It focuses on delivering working software frequently and the other way around. The Agile methodology plays a vital role in creating better, more flexible, and user-friendly applications. But it does not just focus on coding; it also requires strict planning and organizing to achieve maximum efficiency. This article will help a developer build their own automated testing framework that works perfectly with agile methods.

What is Agile Methodology?

Agile is an Iterative (Iterative means same process follow again and again like requirement analysis, design, develop, testing, release software) and Incremental Process (Incremental means we will adding new features/modules in existing software)

Agile development is aligned to deliver the changing business requirements. It takes a short time interval of 1 to 4 weeks to complete each iteration. The software is distributed with fewer changes and faster delivery.

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Agile Principles:

1. 1. Customer not need to wait for long time
   2. Plan, design, develop, test and release piece of software to the customer with number of features
   3. Accept requirements changes

What is In-Sprint Automation?

In-sprint test automation is a testing process that incorporates QA into the development process. This means that the testing team is working on the same thing that is being worked upon by the development team (i.e., same sprint).

When everyone is working on the same sprint, the process will be smooth and communication extremely efficient and software will be delivered to customer faster in a shorter period.

In-sprint automation depends on collaboration between all the roles within the team – Business Analyst, Scrum Master, Development team, and QA team. It puts software quality as a team’s goal, rather than just a QA’s goal.

Advantages of Agile Methodology

1. Requirement changes accept in any stage
2. Customer satisfaction is highest priority
3. Increased collaboration frequency and feedback
4. The customer is satisfied because after every Sprint small piece of software/feature is delivered to customer
5. Software is designed, developed, tested, and released fast and frequently delivered (weeks rather than months)
6. If the customers have any feedback or any change in the feature then it can be accommodated in the current release of the product

How to build an Agile Friendly Test Automation Framework?

Agile methodologies support different frameworks such as Scrum, Kanban etc. The Scrum Framework is very popular in the market. where in the development and testing activities are run parallelly within the same sprint.

A few features/small pieces of software are delivered in every sprint during the agile process and continuously developing and testing is performed to ensure faster releases. Below few points are mentioned that helpful for Build Agile Friendly Test Automation Framework.

1. Prepare an effective plan for test automation

   It is the initial step to prepare a testing plan that must cover the automation framework and ensure collaboration between development and testing teams.

2. Find out test cases for automation

   Identify the test cases that can be automated

3. Conduct parallel testing

   Testing teams can execute several tests at the same time. Parallel testing is helps to independent tests are run parallel to reduce test execution time. Each test can be run on multiple devices, browsers, and Operating Systems.

4. Adopt DevOps Integration

   DevOps ensure proper collaboration between development and operation teams. Also, testers can integrate the automation tool with CI/CD pipelines for effective testing.

5. Select right automation tool

   Testing team should select the right test automation tool. Test automation tools help to reduce regression testing time and ensure faster testing outcomes with quality of software.

Most Popular Automation testing tool:

The Agile project testing team may be using different testing tools to test various functionalities of application. They have different approaches to testing like Functional Testing, Automation Testing etc. In below we have mentioned most popular Agile Testing Tools which are used in our day-to-day testing activities:

1. Selenium for web application
2. Appium for mobile application
3. Jmeter for performance testing
4. Jira for defect tracking and project management
5. TestRail for managing test cases, test runs, tracks test results, and manages entire Testing efforts
6. SoapUI for functional testing of web services

Conclusion

As you move forward with test automation, remember to keep a few key things in mind. First, keep your tool choice flexible. If you’re using a tool that doesn’t allow certain test activities to be done easily, try switching it up for a tool that has more functionality. Second, don’t be afraid to customize your framework so that it works best for you and your team. And finally, make sure that you’re doing what’s best for your end users. The bottom line is this: automated testing can help streamline the testing process, but only if it’s implemented correctly. This is an important aspect to consider from the beginning on; otherwise, the resulting system will fail miserably when put into action.