Why Automation Testing Is Important In Agile Development?

Test automation is important in Agile development as it allows for faster feedback on the quality of the code, helps to reduce the risk of human error, and allows for more efficient use of resources.

By automating tests, QAs can focus on more complex and creative testing scenarios that cannot be automated, while automated tests can catch regressions and other common issues.

Additionally, automated testing helps to ensure that new code is integrated successfully with the existing codebase, reducing the risk of bugs and other issues later on in the development process.

This article will explore why automation testing is important in agile development.

What Was It Like Before Agile?

Waterfall development technology was the dominant software development approach before the rise of Agile software development.

Planning, designing, developing, and testing are the four main phases of the Waterfall development process.

However, the most notable aspect of this model was that it only moved on to the next step after the current one was finished. It implies that testing occurs extremely late in the process.

An application must be redeveloped if additional needs are introduced by the user at a later point. Alternatively, if testing reveals a flaw, the whole procedure must be repeated until the offending step is identified.

In addition, the product can only be released to the market when it has been fully developed, which might take a long period.

How Did Agile Fix The Issue?

Agile development introduces new strategies because of its adaptability. Using Agile principles, the developer would make a simple but fully functional version of the quest, test it, and release it to meet the needs of the users. Then he'd go back to the quest and keep making it better by adding new designs and parts to keep the users interested and happy.

Agile focuses on putting out software that works. To do this, developers and testers work together to finish and release applications that work. Part of the software, not the whole application, is developed and put into production at once. This includes the database, business logic, and user interface.

To do this quickly, you have to work with other people. Teams must talk to each other often so that everyone understands what is being built, who is responsible for what, and how the whole team fits together.

How Does Automation Testing Fit into Agile?

For a product to be released faster, it must be coded and tested more quickly. When a new version of an app or an update to an app comes out, it needs to work perfectly for every user. If you don't, users will switch to a competitor and leave many bad reviews, hurting the app's reputation.

Testing and updating every feature is the only way to ensure everything works perfectly. For complex software with many features, it is impossible to do this by hand in a short amount of time. The only way out is to use automation.

Automation testing in Agile lets QAs make test cases that run automatically whenever new code is pushed to the code repository for a specific application. Continuous Testing is what DevOps uses to make sure that new code is bug-free before it goes into the production environment.

Read: Agile vs. DevOps: What's the Difference? and Similarities?

In Agile, Continuous Testing is a step in a system for making things called CI/CD. CI/CD automates moving code from the Development to the Testing to the Deployment stages.

Several tools and frameworks, such as Selenium and Cypress, are used in Agile to automate Testing. CI/CD also needs a particular set of tools to be set up, such as Jenkins, Travis CI, TeamCity, Bamboo, CircleCI, Azure Pipelines, etc.

QAs can make test cases that fit the nature and needs of the application at hand by using these tools. Once created, these test cases are automatically run on each new code added to an application. The tests ensure that each line of code has no bugs and that new code doesn't hurt or mess up the existing features via regression testing.

Also, QAs need access to various real devices, browsers, and operating systems to run their tests. Users will access any software using multiple devices, browsers, and operating systems. It must work perfectly for the software to work perfectly on all of these or as many of them as possible.

Again, running cross-browser tests by hand on so many different devices is impossible. Automation is the only way to ensure a website works on all browsers and platforms. Real instruments are non-negotiable because emulators and simulators can't provide the real-world conditions needed to test software 100% accurately.

Where Does Test Automation Fit Into Agile Development?

For fast deployment to be possible, testing methods need to be faster. To see how this works, let's look at how an application is made. Imagine that someone is working on a game app. The game is put on the market in the first build. Now, every time an update is made, the app gets new features. So, the gaming app will always be available, and each new feature will be tested along with the ones that are already there. Because there are so many features, testing each one by hand is almost impossible. This is where testing that is done automatically comes in.

Automation testing can help you solve your problem quickly if you use the right tools in the right way. You can use tools like Selenium, TestNG, Appium, Cucumber, Test Studio, etc., for the automation testing process. For these tools to work, a test case must be made that fits the needs of the software or application being tested. Then, during continuous builds, these test cases can be run more than once. This ensures that every step is bug-free, and if a bug does get in, it's easy to see where it happened.

Benefits of Implementing Test Automation in an Agile Environment

Automation speeds up the development process and makes it more reliable and useful. It makes it possible for the team to make a better product in less time. Here are some benefits of test automation in Agile development.

benefits-of-implementing-test-automation-in-an-agile-environment

Reusability

One of the first benefits of test automation in agile development is its reusability. Because the tasks are repetitive and easy to set up, software developers have an easier time with things. Automated test cases are easy to reuse, which means that they can be run again and again in the same way or in different ways.

Also Read: How to Create Test Cases for Automated Tests? With Example

Also, the directory gets updated every time a new problem is found. This can cut costs for maintenance by as much as 70% in some cases. They are cost-effective because they can be used more than once, and they eliminate the chance of human error, which can happen when testers skip steps, which leads to bugs and flaws.

Increased Coverage

With automated testing, you can test more things and test them more deeply. Since testers don't have to run most tasks by hand, they can easily make a test suite for every part of their apps, like the memory contents, data tables, and internal programs.

Also, testers can run thousands of complex cases at the same time when they use automated testing. If tests aren't done automatically, full coverage would require a lot of testers to work in a short amount of time. The quality of an app or piece of software goes up when it has more tested features.

Increased Accuracy

The other benefit of test automation in agile is accuracy. Testing the same case over and over again can be so boring that even the best testers will make mistakes. They might forget some of the steps or skip some of them. But when a well-designed automation suite is put into action, it makes sure that all the steps are done every time, which improves the quality of the product.

When testing is done automatically, all of the results are also written down so that the team can look at them and make changes as needed. Also, automated tests make it possible to code factor, which means changing the code to make it run faster. With automation, it's easy for testers to make changes and run tests to see how they affect things.

Faster Execution

Automation makes the development process run more smoothly. One of the most known benefits of test automation in agile development is faster execution. Since testing is done at every step, any problems or bugs are found and fixed as soon as possible. This is sometimes called "fail fast." The easier and cheaper it is to fix a problem, the earlier it is found. This saves a lot of time, even for systems that are complicated and hard to understand.

For example, automated testing at the code unit level ensures that the code is only tested at the first stage and that no bugs are passed on. A software's time-to-market is also cut down by testing it all the time.

Instead of wasting time testing, developers and testers can spend more time making features that people will want to use.

More Effective

Automation can be very helpful, especially when it comes to apps. With manual testing, for instance, it's not possible to see if the app is working well.

To learn more about manual and automation testing, read Manual Testing vs. Automation Testing.

On the other hand, automated testing will only take a few seconds. Automated tests also let you see how an app will act in the future. All testers have to do to check how the system works is change the creation date in the database.

Reduces Cost

Before any investment is made, the first consideration is the cost. People often think that automated agile testing is expensive. But today, it doesn't cost much to use automation. At first, setting it up will cost you some money. You will need people, training, and a place to do things.

But once it's up and running, the price will go down because it's a long-lasting product that can run again and again without any extra costs. The return on investment is based on the number of automated tests. The more automated tests there are, the better the return.

At different points in the development process, automation can be used: Unit testing is when a test is done at the level of the code, while system and integration testing is when features are tested as they are built in an integrated environment. But developers and testers should know what they want to accomplish. The next step is to decide which tool to use. Before investing in a tool, it should be carefully looked at in terms of how much it costs and how well it works. Vendors often make their products sound better than they are, but it is up to the team to check if the product lives up to their expectations.

Automated testing can be very helpful if it is used in the right way. But developers should know which tasks are important enough to automate. For example, tasks that are done only once shouldn't be automated because the work needed to automate them usually doesn't pay off.

How to Implement Test Automation in Agile?

Agile development goes against the basic ideas behind automated testing. Read our article to learn more about Test Automation Strategy: Importance, Benefits & Example.

Before making an agile test automation strategy, it's important to think about a few key points. So let’s look at how to implement test automation in agile.