AgileTesting

Q. What is Agile Testing and how is it different to traditional waterfall or the V model?

Agile Testing is testing practice that follows the principles of agile software development. Agile testing involves all members of an agile team with special skills and expertise to ensure business value is delivered at frequent intervals.

The big difference is that in Agile environment, testing is not a phase, it is an activity parallel to development.

In agile environment, small features of software are delivered frequently, so testing activity should be parallel to development activity. Testing time is short as we are only testing small features.

In the waterfall model, there is a testing phase at the end of the development so, testing is a big effort done after the whole application is developed. Testing time is long as we have to test the whole application.

Q: What is your approach when requirements change continuously?

This question can be asked if you are interviewed for an agile QA position where requirements are likely to change frequently during development. Although a complete change in requirement is possible, most of the time, it is the technical details that are subject to change. e.g. the intent of the requirement or behaviour of the feature is the same but implementation details can change

A: Some possible answers can be:

Write generic test plans and test cases which focus on the intent of the requirement rather than its exact details
Work very closely with the product owners or business analysts to understand the scope of change so testing can be updated
Make sure the team understands the risks involved in changing requirements especially towards the end of sprint
If you’re going to automate this feature, it is best to wait until the feature is stable and requirements are finalized
Negotiate to see if the changes can be kept to a minimum and/or implement the changes in next sprint