Agile Software Testing
Software Testing is still a grey area for so many people when it comes to Agile Software Development. Successful frameworks like Scrum advocates that development team is a cross-functional agile team and not just comprises only developers. Agile Testing concepts help testers to do software testing better and efficient in Agile Development.

Agile Testing Quadrants helps testers to understand the diverse types of testing used in Agile software development. It let the testers realize that there are business facing tests, technology facing tests, tests that critique the product and tests that supports the team. Each quadrant is named as Quadrant1, Quadrant2, Quadrant3 and Quadrant4. These quadrants were never placed in an order nor in a sequence. It’s nowhere mentioned that these quadrants should be followed in an order. Some blogs provide incorrect information on following the quadrants in the order of Q1, Q2, Q3 & Q4. These quadrants were designed to differentiate the types of testing but nor for the Agile Testers to follow them in an order.
Just like the Agile Test automation pyramid suggests, Quadrant1 tests need to be completely automated as they Technology facing tests that supports the team. All the automatable tests like Unit Tests (TDD), Integration Tests and API tests falls in Quadrant1.
Quadrant 2 or the Business facing tests that supports the team such as the Functional Tests, Example driven test (BDD) and other use case based testing is partially automated. Not all functional tests can be completely automated as it will have end to end flows. These tests help satisfy the business requirements of the product.
Quadrant 3 or the business facing tests that critiques the product is completely manual which includes exploratory tests, usability tests, user acceptance tests and alpha/bets test activities. Quadrant 3 suggests that these tests are manual because these tests are simulated based on real time scenarios. Automation done on Quadrant 1 & 2 can be utilized partly in Quadrant 3 tests to simulate data creation, reduce some manual effort and help ease complex data validation.
Quadrant 4 tests are technology facing tests that critiques the product and are achieved using various testing tools. For the non-functional tests such as performance testing, stress testing, load testing, security testing, compatibility testing etc… we need to rely on tools for benchmarking.
Certified Agile Tester training from ICAgile gives in depth knowledge on how to effectively use the testing practices as prescribed in Agile Testing Quadrants. For more details about the training, click here.
Originally published at leanpitch.com.
