Extreme programming is basically software development procedures designed and created to improve software quality as well as the ability it has to adapt to the ever-changing needs of users of that particular software.
The first to develop the Extreme Programming Methodology was Ken Beck around the mid and even late nineties. At the time, software used to manage the payrolls in large organizations known as Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation Systems is what he was working on.
"Extreme Programming Explained" is a book he published in October 1999 and the book explains the entire methodology to others.
Extreme Programming and Agile processes of development have a few similar characteristics. One of them is that they both aim at producing frequent and iterative small releases during the course of the project.
This allows both the clients and team members to review and examine the software project's progress during the entire process.
This type of programming prescribes a set of daily practices that developers and managers should adhere to. The main objective of these practices is to encourage and embody some particular values.
Experts believe when you when you exercise these practices, they will inevitably lead to development procedures that are much more responsive to client needs while still creating and designing software that is of better or similar quality.
Here are the five core values:
Here are the advantages of Extreme Programming:
Here are the disadvantages of Extreme Programming:
External Programming has made a very big contribution to the software development world. Many teams involved in agile projects use very many different types of tactics and helpful methodologies.
This is one procedure that is highly useful for all the software developers and programmers in the agile realm. The fact that it focuses on practice excellence makes this procedure one of a kind and if you're involved in this type of software development then you should definitely try out this procedure, You won't regret it. And now you know.
What is the difference between the Waterfall Iron Triangle and the AgileTriangle? Let's start by defining what the traditional iron triangle really is. We all know that software projects in agile always have goals.
These goals include; what the project is expected to produce, the project's delivery deadline and the budget of the entire process. Managing these three components can prove to be quite difficult sometimes.
In 1969, Dr. Martin Barnes proposed the original iron triangle. In this approach product development is done using a waterfall approach which means that time and resources are variable while the scope is fixed.
Software teams using this approach will have to determine the project's scope by defining product requirements before they are able to start the project.
The schedule and resources are variable and are determined based on the fixed scope, The iron triangle's main objective is to provide software product teams with appropriate information in order to allow them to help the business by making effective trade-off decisions.
An example is when teams are halfway through the project and they come to the conclusion that they might not hit the release date while using a fixed scope, the only options they have available to them when in this scenario is;
The Agile Triangle is basically somewhat of an extension of what the traditional Iron Triangle is.
Jim Highsmith, the Agile luminary is originally the one that conceived this idea, where he claimed that the dilemma many agile teams are usually caught up with is that on one side they're being told to be adaptable, flexible and agile while on the other side they're being told to conform to Iron Triangle's pre-planned framework of cost, schedule and scope. Essentially they're advised to being as flexible as they can be.
Teams in the Agile realm are made to concentrate on the project's release rather than letting the Iron Triangle principles restrain them. So, using Jim Highsmith's school of thought, the Agile teams' main objective is to release the product. Everything else comes second to that, especially when it comes to Iron Triangle constraints.
The Agile Triangle collapses the Iron Triangle's three end points into one vertex The rest of the end points left such as value and quality will be the ultimate goals' definition, mainly because they need the most attention due to the fact that stakeholders usually feel that they're the most important. The Agile Triangle is trying to bring the traditional Iron Triangle way of thinking into the future.
The need and importance of the Agile Triangle are best described by Jim Highsmith when he stated that agility is all about being flexible when delivering customer value, which means that measuring performance using the traditional Iron Triangle principles of scope, schedule and scope can't possibly be effective if that's what you want to achieve.
If you want to be the most flexible you can be then focusing on quality, value and constraints, which is essentially the Agile Triangle, is what you'll need to conform to.
The difference when Agile Triangle methodology is practiced can be seen as follows:
As alluded in the previous sections of this article, the project requirement in traditional projects is determined upfront with a precise level of detail. Fixing a particular scope, time and cost help in setting your project up for failure.
This is due to the fact that when your timeline begins to approach its end or the budget looks to be running out you'll inevitably be forced to have to de-scope something which means leaving inventory behind and delivering less than what was originally specified upfront.
The principles that the Agile framework uses turns all this upside down, by avoiding to concentrate on specified upfront details which usually cause the unexpected end results or products that deliver less than what they were supposed to.
The main objectives here is producing a vision that is well defined, decomposition of that vision into themes and then elaborating more specific feature details based on those themes' priorities.
Finally, the features with the highest priorities turned into stories while the stories with the highest priority turned into technical designs which all this then helps in the production of properly working software.
This is the major reason why most IT professionals in Agile software development think that this technique is the better option.
When it comes down to it, Agile triangle edges out the Iron Triangle as being the better and more effective management and working approach in today's software development world. However, if you can fully understand both the approaches then the better for you for that will only help to make you a more efficient worker. Hopefully, this article has opened your eyes to something you may not have realized just yet.
In February 2001, a group of renegade software developers met in the mountains of Utah and came up with the Agile Manifesto, a set of rules and principles that would go on to revolutionise how software is developed at the world’s leading technology companies.
Today, Silicon Valley’s influence is pervasive, and a lot of the success is easily attributed to the wide-scale adoption of the Agile Manifesto.
Agile is no longer just for tech geeks, and we, lay people, can no longer afford to be ignorant about it. Agile principles are creeping into wider use in all other industries, for example they have recently been adopted at companies like Walmart and Verizon.
In the time before agile, software development was a very formulaic and step by step process.
When someone decided that they wanted a new software created, they developed a very clear specification of what they hoped to see. Developers then worked backwards from that list come up with the necessary steps in the development process.
They then set about the process of creating the software. This process was largely stifling and slowed the pace of innovation. Critically, it had a high failure rate!
Recognising that something needed to change, leading developers organised a three day retreat in 2001 to brainstorm ideas on how to improve the software development process.
The Agile Manifesto is what came out of that retreat. It was signed by everyone who attended and codified the four values and 12 principles that would inform the new way of developing software in the future.
The Agile Manifesto begins by outlining four value statements that indicate relative priorities for agile developer.
Each value is two sided statement, on the left of each statement are the things that are more valuable, on the right are the things that are regarded as less important to achieve.
These values are:
No one value statement is described as being more important than the other. All the statements are underlaid by the same aspiration, to prioritise output over process in developing software.
The values in the Agile-Manifesto are designed to create a software development process that optimises functionality for the end user rather than having a perfectly laid out and compliant development process.
For example, the fourth value makes it very clear that if there is a pre agreed plan and events outside of this plan happen, you have to ditch the plan and continue developing the software based on the unplanned events.
The most important part of the Agile Manifesto are the value statements. The twelve principles were written as logical conclusions that follow from those values.
They provide you as the agile developer, additional clarification on how the prioritisation defined in the value statements works in practice. Each of the 12 principles speaks to a different stage in the project-management cycle. You cannot help but be impressed by the precision and simplicity of the principles.
One principle is: Working software is the primary measure of progress.
All the other principles are equally brief and unambiguous. If you are working in an agile team, the principles give clear directives on how success is measured, the acceptable means and frequency of communication (in person and daily), and the pace of work. Crucially an agile, project is never done, and the pace of work should stay high.
One obvious limitation of Agile, is the principle we referenced at the end of the last section: Agile processes promote sustainable development.
The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
Working in indefinite high calibre process is a very tough ask. it would be impossible for any human team to work indefinitely and to a high standard without quitting or dying! It is for this reason that The Scaled Agile Framework or agile SAFe was developed.
You can think of agile SAFe as the version of Agile that people can actually do! It is a framework for delivering excellent outputs quickly and sustainably. It is agile, but with a reasonable bound on the time and effort expected.
It is the adaptation of the Agile Manifesto to creating agile SAFe that has enabled the increasing popularity of agile in mainstream business environments.
This is because agile SAFe is written in the language of business and can be time and budget bound. Crucial factors for evaluating the success of a commercial project.
There are four core SAFe agile values:
SAFe is more of a project manager’s interpretation of agile. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, while you can list the four values as four short words and phrases, the explanation behind each value runs into a few paragraphs in length.
The essence of the SAFe agile core values is that there must be alignment of strategy and operations for any SAFe project to succeed.
Everyone must be on the same page. Regarding quality, all inputs should be of high quality. This makes sense, you cannot design high calibre products with bad inputs, hence built in quality.
The third value of transparency is about having frank and open communication on the project team, and maintaining visibility.
Finally, the fourth value of program executions, means that SAFe teams should retain a focus on doing.
We hope you enjoyed learning more about the Agile Manifesto and the core elements driving the approach. Agile is increasingly the working method across several businesses, including in non-tech teams.
This means it was really important to write this as an entry point for the average reader who might soon be working in an agile environment, or studying Agile topics, like the Agile Triangle, and many others.
Let us know your thoughts on the Agile Manifesto in the comments section. Do you think agile is effective as a general project management tool, or do you think it works best when restricted to software development projects? If you enjoyed this article, we ask you to please share it widely.
Might this be a question you've been asking yourself lately? Well then, you're in luck, for you happen to be at just the right place.
This article will effectively answer that question and much more. The Certified Agile Tester Course is organized by the International Software Quality Institute (ISQI) of Germany.
Unlike most of the Testing Certifications such as ISTQB and the like whereby the course material is normally prepared by the training institutions involved, with the Certified Agile Tester, the material is prepared by the ISQI itself.
This, in turn, means that no matter where you're sitting the exam, the course material will be the same for all the course takers.
The course material the International Software Quality Institute will provide you with will have everything you need, from the Agile Methodology Manifesto introduction to sample questions.
However, if you are looking for more sample papers, than are provided on the course itself, the selection of sample papers are quite limited, when compared to other qualification like the ISTQB Agile Extension, however, you can contact exam providers, like SQS, and request some sample papers.
Agile Testing slightly deviates from the more traditional regimented tests. This is because it needs to be adaptive and flexible in order to effectively adapt to the frequent feedback iterations.
The Certified Agile Tester by ISQI, commonly known as "CAT", has come to be recognized, by the software test professionals looking to work in the Agile environment, as the primary international qualification.
This certification process is a very rigorous one which combines theory and practical exams as well soft skill assessment.
The Certified Agile Tester Exam is split into 3 different parts.
The paper-based exam mentioned above is separated into 3 phases. The exam's passing grade is sixty-five percent. Participants should at least score fifty percent in both the written and practical exam in order for them to pass.
Non-native speakers, upon request, will be awarded thirty minutes extension.
This book is highly recommended and should be read by every agile project tester, mostly because agile projects normally try to avoid specific roles.
The book begins by laying a little groundwork by attempting to effectively define what agile testing is all about.
In the second part of the book, the authors dwell on the organizational changes that will occur after testing while part three is undoubtedly the centerpiece of the entire book.
It is mainly designed around 4 testing quadrants initially conceived by Brian Marick, the co-author of Agile Manifesto.
Because of these quadrants, Gregory and Crispin are able to cover a wide range of topics which include API, UI, reliability testing, usability, stress, and performance.
The fourth part of the book mainly deals with automation and this happens to be a topic that all agile team members should have in their minds. One section is particularly quite interesting and that is the part of the barriers to automation discussion.
Overcoming the resistance brought forth by these barriers is made easier once you've understood the advice provided in this part. In the final part of the book, the authors end it with a critical success factors short list.
This quadrant covers tests such as API tests, Unit Tests, Component Test and Web Service Testing. Basically, this area concentrates on Automated testing. The main advantage of this quadrant is that it provides tests that improve the design without affecting functionality.
Its main objective is to use legitimate source code management skills as well as an integrated development environment to improve product quality.
This part dwells on Manual and Automated Testing. The tests it covers include Story tests, Functional Testing, Simulations and Prototypes. This quadrant provides you with a way to formulate the appropriate set of questions that drive tests which are aligned to your business.
This quadrant mainly deals with Manual Testing. The tests it covers include Scenario-Based Testing, Exploratory Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Usability Testing, Alpha/Beta testing and Acceptance Testing. It's basically all about effectively evaluating the product.
The final quadrant mainly deals with Automated testing and the tests it covers include Security Testing, Performance and Load testing and the like.
Most experts will agree that both manual and automated training play a big role in the agility environment and are both very important.
However, the type of testing you're doing is what will largely determine what the best choice will be. In the book by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory, they describe four quadrants of testing.
The first one deals with automated test efforts that include component and unit tests. These are usually done by the developer way before the initial code is written.
The second quadrant may be manual or automated testing and is done by the testers as well as developers. These are functional tests such as prototypes, simulations, and story tests.
In the third quadrant, they involve some manual testing which includes usability testing, exploratory testing, alpha/beta training and acceptance testing.
Automation, in most fields, brings forth the benefit of reduced costs and increased productivity. In the agile software development arena, it's actually pretty vital.
They basically go hand in hand. You can do without manual testing in agile, however, you can't do without automation which in turn makes automation much more important than manual testing.
While this certification builds its popularity, it is a challenge to find as much specific resources, however, hopefully this article has provided some ideas and preparation needed to help you.
This certification was meant for those test practitioners that are looking to enhance their abilities when performing tests involving agile projects The Scrum flavour is the main focus of the entire course of agile development.
It's a course you just can't afford to do without if your a software tester or developer looking to make your way in the agile environment. It's both world renowned and well respected in the agility software development industry.
Your CV must stand out! This is not negotiable. You only have a
limited amount of time to grab the recruiters attention- the way you fill out
the A4 to represent you can make or break your career.
Companies don’t just hire people just for the sake of having a
large number of people to add to their workforce anymore. Gone are the days
where applying for a job as a contractor was just a cellphone call, followed up
by an interview that determines your fate.
The curriculum vitae, or CV as it more commonly known, is a document that not only serves the purpose of signalling that you want a job, it is now the yard stick which your competence is measured with.
You can be a qualified and highly professional contractor, and still get it wrong when it comes to how you use your CV to represent your service to the employer.
With opportunities in IT becoming more accessible to everyone, the
competition for career positions in companies is getting harder by the day.
Recruiters have to deal with multitudes of CVs submitted to their inboxes or
physical address. You have to capture their attention with your application.
They literally go through heaps to find a perfect candidate. Here is a stress
reliever for every contractor on the hunt:
This is your name and your contact information, preferably your phone number, website, email address and other communication channels you use.
Adding social media is not really best practice. Your name must be used as a bolded headline at the top of the page. Highlighting the name by either bolding, italicising or underling is a very effective method of getting it noticed and remembered by the recruiter.
The font must be complementary to the size, this is a recommended to be set at
14 to 16 points on average. Capitalizing your name is just as effective as the
currently mentioned guides.
This is where most contractors fail to communicate their offer. Be as explicit as possible in detailing what you want to do for the client or company in a brief paragraph and what you have already done for other clients.
Highlighting your functional skills is very important to make an impression on your CV. The need to add a lot of information just for the sake of filling up the page must be avoided.
Employees and recruiters look through your resume for a very short amount of time, so you must make an impact.
The section that involves your work history, education, and your achievements must not be stuffed with irrelevant information. Adding very detailed and recent information helps the employer scanning through your CV understand exactly what it is that you can do for their establishment.
Job roles must be explained thoroughly by the candidate to show aptitude in the field of interest.
This is done by mentioning the daily tasks or recurring requirements of the work
environment that the subject has operated in. Using as many verbs as you can to detail the tasks as they were respectfully carried out.
There is no substitute for this, the recruiter needs to only see you in a positive light. You need to include not only your skills but how those skills are or were used in your project. For instance, mentioning your role in the IT company you worked for.
Including tasks, for example, like, how you were the web-based Test Lead for a large retail company, responsible for overseeing a team of 10 automated Test Analysts, using loadrunner... and so on.
The layout of your CV must be attractive to improve the chances of the recruiters scanning effectively over it. You must adopt a CV template that
is easily scannable and reader-friendly.
The format of your CV must be well organized in neat and orderly sections that embody their respective fields and must be labeled accordingly.
There are many fonts that are enlisted in typography that vary in degree of readability to each individual. The use of the font is paramount in increasing your visual appeal to allow for familiarity and "scan-ability" by the recruiter.
A font like The Times New Roman is the most frequently used format
in most CVs and does little to make your CV standout.
Using a traditional font style like Serif is an important factor in increasing the likelihood of your CV getting noticed by capturing the reader because of it’s stylish appeal. This font also has enough traditional implications attached to it to still deem it fit to adhere to a traditional format.
Serif format styles include Georgie, Old style and many more that you can easily find by using this reference.
Use visual aids like bullets and numbering to draw attention to key points about your expertise and other information that is relevant to the job you are applying for.
The need to outshine the competition is natural, but keeping your
information as brief and tactful as possible improves the chances of
communicating your value to the employer.
Include only information and details that is important to the give the company a clear picture of who they are reading about.
Literally, don’t use jargon on your CV. it paints a certain character to the reader that suggests that you are not ready for the workforce or that you have a way of not adhering to a civilized manner or lacking in professionalism
Creating a valuable CV is not rocket science, but it is very easy to get it wrong, use these simple tips to get the head start on your competition.
For any software development lifecycle to be effective, complete and accurate information is a very essential element. These two elements are what enable your test teams to work together cohesively in a systematic manner.
This, in turn, ensures that your end product matches the expectations of your customers as well as your business in general. The goal of a test design technique is the testing of features and functionalities using effective test case scenarios.
The process of analyzing your organizations requirements from a business point of view goes hand in hand with proper testing. Determining the accuracy of completed information can be done using ambiguity testing techniques, which happens to be one of the top testing design techniques.
Basically, a test design technique's main goal is to determine a proper series of tests from a pool of all the possible tests for a particular system. There are numerous types of software testing techniques.
Each one of them has their own weaknesses and strengths. Each technique has it's own way of identifying different types of defects.
So what are the Test Design Techniques covered in the ISTQB exam? Coincidentally, the two main categories covered by the ISTQB exam are the same categories we're going to cover in this article herein below:
Dynamic techniques are divided into another three major categories. These are:-
This technique is also referred to as specification based or behavioural techniques. This technique uses the software's external descriptions such as customer requirements, design, technical specifications and so on.
In this technique, when the tester doesn't fully understand the software's code or its internal structure they can perform tests using methods such as Boundary Value Analysis (input values are tested at the boundaries), Decision Table Testing, State Transition Testing, Equivalence Class Partitioning and Use Case Testing.
This type of technique is based on the software code as well as the program's internal structure, testing each of them individually, one after the other. In this type of technique, testers and developers usually have a proper understanding of the internal structure and the program's software code.
This test-design technique doesn't concentrate on external or internal structures. The testing is based on experience and the following test methods are usually adopted when it comes to scenarios such as; Fault attack (here errors are anticipated by testers) and Exploratory Testing (application testing without test case documentation).
This technique is all about manually testing your software product. This process is usually started in the early stages of the software development process. This means that it is most likely going to happen during the verification stage.
The fact that the testing is done without the need to execute the program means that you will not have any need for a computer. These testing techniques can be applied to several forms of documents. These include design documents, source code etc.
In the input values' extreme ends is where errors, for the most part , are observed. These extreme values like lower/upper or start/end values are known as Boundary Values.
Boundary Value Analysis is the analysing of these Boundary Values. It's sometimes also referred to as Range Checking. Boundary Value Analysis is based on black box testing technique principles and it's main objectives are to locate errors at input domain boundaries rather than finding the errors at the input's center.
Boundary value analysis and Equivalence partitioning are kind of intertwined and can both be used together at different levels of testing. Test cases are derived for the equivalence classes edges.
Each individual boundary contains invalid boundary values as well as valid boundary values. Normally, each boundary will contribute one test case each. Finding defects using this technique can be quite effective and it has the capability of functioning at most levels.
Your previous experiences or needs are what will determine your choice from the multiple test case applicable from invalid and valid input domains, however, you must remember that you will still be required, from each input domain, to select one test case.
This testing technique is quick, easy and a fantastic way to catch input anomalies that may play a major role in interrupting the programs functionality. So, to cut short testing procedures and save time, experts delivering quality management services as well as software testing heavily rely on this method.
Equivalence Partitioning is basically selecting single input values from every range from a range of values that is made up of divided test input data. It also happens to be a black box based testing technique and its main objective is the calculation of the effectiveness of certain test cases.
This technique also has the ability to function at all testing levels from integration, unit, system testing etc.
In this technique, input is split into several different classes. The equivalence class input criteria represented by each individual class. One input is then chosen from each class.
What this method does is it reduces the number of test cases from an infinite number to a finite one. All this while still securing the effectiveness of each selected test case that has been assigned to monitor all the possible scenarios.
A basic Equivalence Partitioning concept is if a range from one to hundred is being accepted by one application, then those inputs can be divided into classes using Equivalence Partitioning principles. Example, design, invalid as well as valid input all get each class to provide them with one test case each.
One of the most vital components in the testing phase is Test Case. These are basically the predefined variables and conditions that are used to check whether your application and software is working like it's supposed to.
For a testing process to be successful, then as a competent software developer you will have to learn and understand how to use some of these techniques. Understanding some of these testing methods will make your work so much easier.
Static testing involves the testing of documents and software without actually running the code. Static testing is the opposite to dynamic testing, which requires the code to be ran.
According to Guru99, this can be in the form of walkthroughs, peer reviews, informal reviews and inspections.
Testing the software in the initial phase leads to greater efficiency of the code. Static testing offers just that. During the early development phase, the code undergoes various tests and makes sure that the changes in the current part of the code do not affect the other parts.
The main uses of static testing is that it is tested keeping the work environment in mind. During a review process, the software tester engineer can debate whether a certain form of code is applicable in the real world environment or not.
Testing the software at the early stage before implementing it at a large scale saves a lot of time and more impotantly for any project, is the cost saving.
The outputs from this exercise are typically uncovering deviations from code standards, code that will be hard to maintain in the future, design issues and potentially missing requirements.
System testing requires the code to be ran, whereas static testing does not. It is effectively an offline method to uncover defects early on in the development process.
According to Guru99, there are five major roles in static testing:
The moderator coordinates the activities and tracks the progress of these tasks, to ensure a timely completion.
This person, for example a developer, takes the responsibility of fixing the error that has been identified. This does not have to be a developer, the defect could be a design document, for example. In this situation, an architect may be the author in this context.
This person will keep notes and minutes of meetings. They are typically members of the Project Management Office (PMO), but does not have to be.
As the name suggests, responsible for reviewing defects and providing feedback, to maintain quality.
Manages the process and each individual involved in the static testing activities.
The foremost step of static testing is the review. It is carried out in four stages depending upon its level of formality. The four types of reviews are
These four levels of reviews are inter-connected and intertwined, and work in liaison to collectively bring out an error free code.
All in all, static testing is the most important part of the software testing process which builds the foundation for a flawless software.
Its importance is based on the fact that it is done manually where there is a greater probability of spotting an error and before executing the code itself.
The early stage of the development of a software product lies heavily with the static testing where each bit of error code is identified and rectified making the software error free.
White Box Testing, which is also commonly referred to as Glass Box, Clear Box, Open Box or Structural Testing, is basically all about testing software solution's internal infrastructure and coding.
Its main objectives are to strengthen security, improving usability and design, as well as strengthening the flow of outputs and inputs. This type of testing examines outputs using a particular knowledge of programming code.
The "box testing" approach often used in software testing has two parts to it. One of them is what we're here to discuss, White Box Testing. It's counterpart is known as Black Box testing and this, unlike Clear Box testing, involves the testing of software from an end user type or external perspective.
In White Box testing, the process is concentrated on internal testing and is all about the inner workings of a certain applications.
The concept of a see through box was what was used when coming up with the term "white box". The white box, glass box or clear box name represents the ability to effectively see through the developed software's outer shell right through to its inner workings. Similarly, the "black box" terms used in Black Box testing represents the lack of ability to be able to see the software's inner workings. This approaches main goal is the testing of end user experiences.
So, is White Box testing also called Unit testing? Let's find out. First of all, Unit testing, in computer programming, is a process whereby source-code's individual units are tested to determine whether they are okay for use. An application's smallest testable part is known as a unit.
A unit, in procedural programming, may be an individual procedure or function. Unit tests are occasionally created by testers that use the white box approach or regular programmers.
Each individual test case is, ideally, independent from one another. Substitutes such as mock objects, method stubs, test harnesses and fakes can be used to help test modules in isolation. Software developers are the ones that typically write and run unit tests with the goal of ensuring the code meet the behaviour and design it was intended for.
In White Box testing, if you want to effectively design test cases, you will require adequate programming skills as well as an internal perspective of how the said system works.
For the tester to determine the appropriate output levels, they will need to choose exercise path inputs through the code. It is quite similar to the testing of nodes within a circuit as is experienced in the In-Circuit Testing process (ICT). Clear box testing is normally done at unit level.
It is used to test paths between as well as within units. Hopefully now you can see the difference between the two. The two testing approaches are somewhat different in the few ways explained above.
This type of testing approach can sometimes prove to be quite complex, however, the complexity levels will be determined by the particular application being put through testing.
Small applications, when put through this type of testing, can be completed in a matter of minutes. while larger applications may take several days, and sometimes even several weeks, to complete. White box testing works best during the course of the development of the application software. And with that, hopefully you now know a lot more about White box testing
So, what is Black Box testing also known as? Well, most programmers and developers in the IT realm also commonly refer to this method as "Behavioural Testing", or functional testing.
This testing strategy ignores the application or system's internal mechanisms and mainly concentrates on execution conditions and selected inputs responses.
The program's structure is not taken into consideration in this testing technique. It only takes into account the application's functionality. This testing method is also sometimes referred to as functional testing.
In this strategy, the software tester's main concern is how the application is validated and not how it was produced.
Implementation logic or knowledge of programming isn't required for the software testers that are using this technique. It usually applies at the high levels of testing; System Testing and Acceptance Testing. The software that houses inputs and where you expect the known outputs to be is what IT professionals refer to as a black box.
Transformation of known inputs to known outputs is done using the system and usually goes unchecked in this testing technique. The transformation process in this system is also referred to as a black box.
This technique is basically functional testing whereby development and program testers concentrate on providing the known inputs and checking whether those known inputs have been obtained.
This strategy is usually followed while acceptance testing is being carried out. Here the software developer is merely a user and not the end user.
Here are some benefits of Black Box Testing:
The main thing that makes this technique so different from white box testing is the fact that here the software tester does not really have to have programming knowledge and does not also have to understand the code being used in the application's test procedure, however, it's still effective in very many ways. As a modern-day IT professional you'll need to learn how to use this testing strategy if you want to be fully effective when it comes to modern-day software testing.
Many people ask the question, what is the V Model used for in software testing? Well, the V model is basically the classic waterfall model but in overdrive. Meaning it's an enhanced version.
In this model before a development life cycle can move on to the next level, they must be verified. This basically means that software testing starts as soon as written requirements have been produced, so testing explicitly commences at the very start of the procedure.
Here, the term testing translates to verification by way of inspections and reviews, which is static testing. What this does is it helps you identify errors early, during the life cycles early stages, and also reduces the potential for defects showing up in the software's code in future.
A corresponding test plan is assigned to each level of the development process, that is, each phase that is being worked on is assigned a test plan for the preparation of product testing in that particular phase. Expected results can be can be defined using these developed test plans.
Test and design activities, in the V model, are constructed with the same level of detail. The model's left hand or downhill part is where software is designed while on the model's right hand or uphill part is where it is all built and tested. Correspondences between the right and left-hand side are defined by the line that runs through the center of the V.
These two models approaches are quite similar in very many ways, however, the major difference that sets them apart is the testing emphasis in both situations as well as how they are presented.
The V shape representation flow chart helps point out the differences that come prior to coding such as architecture-design and requirements as well as everything else that follows coding which is testing.
While the waterfall model has testing at 1 out of its 5 steps, the V model methodology basically improves on that significantly.
What all this means is that what makes these two models differ is that for the V Model, for testing activities to fully commence, the development process has to have been completed.
The waterfall method technique seems to be continuously iterative while the V model seems to have a clear start as well as an end. The fact that the V model is a simultaneous process is what makes the approaches differ a little bit.
This happens to be a big reason why most IT professionals prefer to learn, understand and use this method rather than its waterfall counterpart.
All in all, the V Model method should generally be used when you as a programmer or developer are working on small or medium-sized projects, whereby requirements are clearly fixed and defined.
You need to have a high level of confidence in your client if you want the V Model technique to be completely effective. It's an approach than many people doing work in the IT realm should learn and understand for it is one of those things for the future.
Having this knowledge will prove to do more harm than good. Most experts around the globe will agree with this. And with that, now you're in the know. So if you haven't already, start reading up!
Simply put, a user story is the smallest unit of work in the agile framework that serves as a software system requirement.
Here is an in depth look into User stories and Agile characteristics:
Initial user stories are much smaller and basically define the interaction between the end user and the system in certain usages and scenarios.
Two types of Initial User stories exist: Formal and Informal.
Looking at the bigger picture after writing your user story lies an epic. This is a much broader chunk of work with a common objective.
A product owner can write a user story that seems really simple at first and puts it under a single sprint. In real sense, it becomes impossible to finish it in time and is then carried forward as an Iteration backlog.
The big user story now an epic, needs to be split into smaller user stories to obtain a better estimate of the sprint
Both the epic and user stories are used to classify the amount of work to be done. Epics differ from each organization.
Giant tech companies have bigger epics as compared to smaller companies whose epics could probably be done within a single sprint.
It’s also important to mention features under agile methodology. Features refer to the strategy layer that user stories try to accomplish.
An epic comprises of several features within which also comprise of a couple of user stories.
As a product owner, you may choose to diversify and change to other aspects to maximize on profits. A theme a large area of focus usually assigned to different teams.
A theme may or may not include epics of related proportions. The user stories in a particular team may be totally unrelated thus spanning the organization.
In the same way epics are made of different user stories, a theme is made of different epics. It is important to also mention Initiatives.
Just like features, initiatives lay the foundation of epics driving them towards a common goal.Initiatives take much longer to complete than epics. Initiatives have structural designs that clearly define the epics and their time frames.
One major characteristic of a theme is that its overly ambitious. It mostly defines the product owners’ dreams and goals in partnership with the stakeholders. They sometimes inspire the teams to create reasonable epics in regression to the original Agile idea.
The themes are used to organize the epics for better processing.
To fully understand what a user persona is, a background check into the world of marketing is in order. Remember a developer cannot create a program without actually knowing about the consumer base and their needs.
In software development, there is a team responsible for researching related topics on the project and give feedback to their teams. This data obtained which usually contains a list of pros, cons, goals and complications are arranged in a manner that reflects a data persona.
A user persona is that a character that is a representation of a user who will interact with the product you are passing. It may be a program, an app or another software entirely designed to target how best your product will perform in the market.
If your product is a web-based feature, it is expected that it will receive more than one user. Therefore, it is advisable to create more than one use persona to adapt with the increasing number of traffic inside your website.
As mentioned above, a user persona’s initial stages of development usually comprise of market research. These include the use of prototypes that are released to beta testers who have already subscribed into testing of the persona.
The beta testers give out their general feedback of the working of the program on interviews or focus groups where they share their opinion. Areas of improvements are shared and worked on in the tasks to come.
According to leadingagile, they are a group of conditions that need to be met to satisfy and accepted by a user or customer.
They are one of the most important things to get right, from the start, so you know when you have done enough testing to exit the process.
The incorporation of user stories into software development has made the task more human friendly as opposed to other impersonal methods. Its launching is more thrilling as it contains actual conversations of the user requirements that a client demands.
As part of the team, you may need to complete a user story diligently and fast since anyone in management including the stakeholders can write a user story and add to your collection.
If not properly handled, user stories can pile up to form company backlogs which are enemies of progress.
Before you go, lets delve into another buzz word in Agile, ATDD...
What is ATDD?
One framework that has been gradually rising is ATTD, which stands for Acceptance Test Driven Development.
ATTD is an Agile based developmental framework that involves communication between the business stakeholders, customers, developers and down to the beta testers.
At the same time, the user stories once executed are passed through several detailed acceptance tests that check on how the system will perform as per the user’s point of view.
The difference between this tool and Scrum is that the latter’s User story is scrutinized by the developer and the product owner and run against several Acceptance criteria to check on its overall functionality. In other words, the tests are done immediately the user stories are written prior to any development work.
In order to clearly define what an STDD is, it is fundamental to learn about the Test-Driven Development (TDD). This methodology involves a short development cycle that is usually repeated until it passes the required test criteria.
It can be very tiresome since the first test is usually targeted to fail and with the subsequent tests geared towards software improvements.
The Story Test Driven Development is subset of the TDD that focuses on higher level acceptance tests. So, in a way the collaborative framework is also sometimes referred to as a STDD though less commonly.
The STTD comprises of four major key components namely:
According to gaboesquivel, BDD is a subset of the TDD. It is totally different from the collaborative framework in that its software operates on principles like, designing and programming a unit test and ensure they fail before finally implementing and verifying the implementation of the unit.
BDD generally gives a consistent customer-based reception allowing for the inclusion of everybody involved in the process whether they are conversant with developer options or not.
What this means is that as a customer, your needs will be put first before anyone else. Another difference of the BDD is that it focusses on how the system operates whereas the framework in discussion drives at carefully meeting the acceptance tests needed for efficient software functionality.
The tool structures that support the BDD include the JBehave and RBehave developed by Dan North. In these structures, the framework specifies and executes the tests for each scenario bearing in mind the schematics of the scenario.
The long chain of activities involved in this framework finally pay off in the following ways.
Like every other software framework, the ATDD isn’t lacking in a few cons:
ATTD is becoming more popular for simple reasons like anyone being able to write and run the acceptance tests. In the ever-digital competitive world, it offers more dynamic and efficient improvements to your product throughout its automation features.
If you can use a method that will get you faster results, why not take the chance?
Risk Poker is an Agile method for risk based testing. Testing is a way of mitigating risk and in Agile Risk based Poker is a method to handle this.
Planning poker is a fun game based method that oversees user story points matched with related functional elements within an agile project.
Risk poker, on the other hand, is a risk based testing method, similar to planning poker, with the difference being, identifying key risks rather than estimation on user stories.
Software developers have it hard in their work. Their programs often undergo a lot of scrutiny before getting released into the market. Testing is a method used to identify product defects and software problems which are then returned to the developers. The criteria used in testing is solely based on the owner’s specifications.
Products are often at a risk of failing if they do not satisfy the consumers hence a product risk directly related to its failure. A risk based testing is an agile based approach that oversees tests conducted on a product based on the chances that it may not perform well on the market. This may be as a result of defects in its software coding or simply put as bugs or just shift and preferences in general consumerism.
Pressure from the market to deliver the finished product based on the fixed time frame as per the Iterations could also be another factor for product risk failures.
A risk based testing approach also determines the overall impact of failure and the importance of the consequences that may arise from the risk of failure.
Different methodologies exist in identifying the gross mismatch between the market expectations and the finished product. Product Risk Management tops the list as one of the most effective way of managing the set of failures that may arise.
Proper analysis of the influencing factors that may result to the negative output of a product constitute risk management.
It is sometimes referred to as Risk mitigation because management tends to control the severity of the outcomes. Risk management is a lengthy process and often comprises of 6 steps.
After identifying the most crucial risks to be tested and quantifying them, rough estimates are drawn and numerical values assigned to their impacts.
A product risk matrix is a mathematical representation of the numerical values expressed divided into 4 different regions each representing a different level and type of risk involved.
Other mathematical based methods of graphical representation such as the use of Histograms and tabular like drawing of often complicated values aren’t as appealing as a risk matrix.
One advantage it holds over the rest is that it is very simple and easy to decipher. The horizontal axis can represent the impact of the risk while the vertical axis can represent the chances of occurrence of the risk involved.
As a result stakeholders may not need to rack their brains trying to figure out exact figures as seen in graphs.
Planning poker specifically aims at gathering feedback from all the team members on which way to deal with the project backlogs.
Planning poker also eases the overall estimation process by resizing an already existing story before its implemented. For overall success, you need to have self- control in order to determine when best to quit even if you are winning. Setting a limit becomes a bother especially if you are losing with the hopes of performing better.
In Scrum poker, how hard a story is doesn’t have a definitive method of determination. A dynamic process exists with non-definitive methods like vagueness in level of risks and uncertainty involved.
Contrast exists when defined values like countable figures specify planning poker. The most common poker method used is the Fibonacci sequence of numbers which each team member picks to represent a story value. Other examples include
The internet world is prone to security risks and unauthorized entry into organizations encrypted files. A method to counteract these illegal activities by malicious hackers is an agile based security risk game called Protection Poker.
The security based game is interactive, collaborative and comprises of a collection of ideas sharing past experiences that offer a better exposure for software security.
Brainstorming for solutions to patch up bugs and defective software coding as an overall risk is also included in the game experience. Team members are required to think like a software attacker and close up any breaches within the product’s network.
Quality service delivery is key in the final product, hence the reason we have the Agile Manifesto, for example. A substantial amount of funding should be set aside to assess and analyze the level of risks involved. It may not be possible to completely analyze every risk and test every aspect of a system as per the orders of the stakeholders.
Methods like Risk Poker, a light weight approach crucially takes care of this problem and gives you a more in depth analysis of the impacts of failures, should they arise. All in all, not infringing on your limited budget.
Before you go, lets look at some key Agile Sprint activities...
The mobile and web applications development sector has never seen a better platform than the Agile based methods of software development. If you are new to this technological advancement, here is an in-depth analysis of one the methods and terminologies used: Sprint testing.
A sprint goes hand in hand with Scrum as an agile approach to development which is extremely difficult to master. It’s a form of Iteration that involves quite a number of activities and if you aren’t careful to its approach, the overall structure may collapse. Here are what agile testers need to do in a sprint before the project can be termed as 'done’.
Agile may have fully changed software development but testing software proves quite a challenge. The first step usually entails making a rough estimation for each user story created.
This involves a detailed time account for all the steps involved that provide an overall scope for the entire project. This may include:
A sprint is usually a development cycle. The scope of the estimate should cater for all challenges that may be encountered within the process. Many agile developers often complain about the possibility completing all the testing in one sprint especially if the sprint also includes backlogs from previous designs.
If you are a product owner, you would definitely employ the best team to meet your conditions and specifications. Test cases simply outline whether the system being tested meets the variables and requirements of the stakeholders.
A common misconception during the design of a test case is that a user story is a requirement. A test case is created manually with regards to the accepted criteria. Each and every product backlog goes into the sprint backlog where it is analyzed. This includes items like epics, features and user stories.
Agile methodology is not to be confused with the traditional waterfall approach that run test checks at the final stages of the software development. Instead testing is done through each development stage.
This may increase product backlog as coding may be prone to bugs which may require technical support and knowledge acquisition.
High level descriptive functionalities are often specified under the user stories. Its complexity may prove quite challenging and its therefore important to grace the team with your presence to offer technical support and smoothen the whole process.
You may need to outline the user stories as the simplest increments that need to be built upon. Once the team understands this, you may need to reiterate the features which are usually too general to build. Using this knowledge, high level features need to be refined greatly to be done under a single sprint if possible.
Sprint testing often aims at ensuring the final program is devoid of any glitches and runs as smoothly as intended. This may be achieved through defect management which is the ultimate software debugging process.
Simply put, it’s a process that pin points to the exact bug and its location in a program and developing ways to fix it
Defect management involves four easy steps
Don’t always be the member of the team who is always absent in important group gatherings. It is important to always show up punctual to daily stand-up meetings to review the overall progress report.
In Agile, silence Is never golden. Share your thought and ideas on how to tackle the most troublesome processes encountered. Your focus should be purely on ways to complete backlogs and new challenging projects.
For instance, do not focus on what you have already achieved or what you are intending to achieve as this will come off as a bit of a show off. Instead, psych up the team and provide solutions to general problems they may encounter.
Even before you start testing, it is important to have a clear, and agreed exit criteria. The "agreed" part is probably the most important. This means you know when you can exit the process, without going round in circles, continuously raising defects, and re-testing.
An example may be, maximum of five sev 3 defects open, after test completion.
One of Agile’s tenets is its dynamic ability to welcome change. You may need to learn a few details of the task at hand through working closely with the responsible authoritative figureheads.
These may include additional funding in cases of limited resources. Coming from a traditional based developer methodology, you may need to learn about the agile based software. There isn’t anyone more knowledgeable regarding your line of work as the stakeholders.
As an agile tester, negative afterthoughts like the sprint being too short should be discouraged. Planning and collaborative effort is usually key to these kinds of problems.
Trying to mitigate problems during a sprint test is usually a bad idea as the problem will keep on recurring. To ensure you reap the benefits of your work, you may need to simply create test automations that will check on regression and performance during each sprint.