Software Testing

One often hears an opinion that role of the tester in the IT project is undervalued or marginalised. That developers treat him as the person who at all costs wants to criticise the code. Some projects managers complain on the delays connected with the amount of time that testing requires. These are – to a large extent – damaging stereotypes, which come from the times when role of the tester only started to develop. How does it look in the mature IT team?

## Role of the tester in the project

Phrase “in the project” is key here. Tester is not an island in the most distant part of the office. It is a person who actively participates in the meetings of the whole team, which consist of developers, analytics, project manager and product owner. Depending on the specifics of the work that needs to be done, in the same group you can also find graphic designer, ux designer and other roles that are in demand. Tester stays in contact with all these people and communicates with them on the daily basis; he also takes part in most of the meetings. An exception is so-called independent tester, hired to test application that has already been created. He is purposely “protected” from contacting the business team so that he can keep fresh perspective. In that way the team can obtain suggestions concerning the way the product works from the person who doesn’t know the requirements according to which it was created. Sometimes such a job is done by the whole team of independent testers. In this article we will focus on the work of the tester in the IT project employed in the software development company, who from the very beginning participates in the creation of the software. In this case very significant for the way the tester’s role is structured is methodology of the work that particular IT team embraced.

## Role of the tester in the scrum

[Scrum](https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-scrum), i.e. the so-called Agile approach to project management, is currently one of the most popular and frequently used methodologies in the modern IT teams. Its opposite is so-called waterfall. Simplistically, it aims at planning the work of IT team (which should effect in the product ready to use by the customer) so that from the very beginning each phase of work is clearly defined, without possibility of implementing major changes. In effect tester obtains product ready to go, already after the implementation phase. Scrum in the Agile approach divides work in the project into smaller phases (so called sprints), so that a product is created “in parts”. It enables i.e. for modification of requirements formulated in the beginning, when work on the product just started, and quick reaction to mistakes/bugs can be identified later. For tester the most obvious consequence of this approach is that he starts working not on the already created product, but on its part – i.e. specific functionality, which developers commited in sprint.

![bb-blog-3-1.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_3_1_42ba0a462d.png)

## Role of the tester in the IT project – what are his tasks?

What are the specific tasks assigned to tester? These are the very basic ones:

- writing the test scenarios,
- performing the tests according to the scenarios designed earlier,
- creating bug reports (and adding them to the backlog),
- preparation of the testing documentation,
- if automated tests are the case – writing them.

It would appear that these tasks could be easily performed by one person alone and our previous claim, that the teamwork is crucial for the tester, was highly exaggerated. Nothing could be more wrong. Of course, each company sets its own rules and has different approach as to how tester’s work should be organised. Although our long-term experience shows that the more testers are included in the work of the whole team, the better for the product that is created in this way. In the scrum testers get acquainted with the product documentation and closely cooperate with analysts, who gather requirements for the application from the client and present the way it should work. Sometimes already at this stage tester discovers a mistake or lack of precision in the documentation, which could later affect the way product is created.

## Tester in the project – renaissance man?

A little bit. A good tester will not only study diligently the technical documentation, but also conduct thorough market research (if he is not a specialist in his branch). Thanks to that he has wide knowledge about state-of-the art technological solutions and he can suggest viable changes concerning product design or broadly understood UI/UX design. It can happen during direct talks with developers and UX designers or 15-minute meetings of the whole team (characteristic to scrum), when each member of the team gives update on his work.

Based on his professional knowledge or bugs identified in the particular phase tester can inspire the product owner as well as developers to act. Contrary to prevailing stereotypes, developers often appreciate testers’ suggestions, because they enable them to objectively assess the work already done and take on a new perspective on solving the problem. These remarks are different than standard code review, which focuses more on the technical issues and is performed by another developer. Offered by tester approach: “how should it work” and “in this part this functionality can perform better, because later it generates errors such as…”, is also very important in programmer’s work. Such proactive, focused on finding new solutions attitude is required in projects conducted in scrum.

## Role of the tester in the project – why his time is so valuable?

In the Agile approach there is a popular saying: „Fail quickly. Fail often. Fail cheap”. This methodology aims at quick bug identification, what in a broader perspective enables for delivering a high class product. Its maintenance would not generate additional costs because all potential risks had been identified and addressed when product was created. That is why role of the tester is crucial here. The most frequently used types of tests in this job are:

## exploratory tests

Exploratory tests mean testing on “living organism”, without sufficient documentation. In this phase you get acquainted with the application in the testing environment. It is rather starting point for creation of the suitable testing scenarios, in which your knowledge and experience play very important role. That is why novices are almost never engaged in these tasks. The undoubted advantage of exploratory tests is that they offer plenty of potential for detecting bugs that were overseen while creating requirements for the product and new user stories.

## regression tests

They are performed after each deployment. They shall check whether after the implementation of the new functionality the whole application (including solutions added earlier) works properly. This group of tests also includes smoke testing (assessment if main functionalities of the application work seamlessly after the implementation) and sanity testing (tests performed after the application had been debugged). This type of tests has plenty of potential for wasting testers’ time, therefore it can be easily replaced with automated tests. Thanks to them tester in the IT project can focus on creating new user stories and searching for yet undiscovered bugs instead of rather tiring research of the “old” parts of the code. Check out first Polish tool for automated tests – BugBug

## system acceptance tests (SAT)

System acceptance tests it is a real cherry on the cake in tester’s work. Its aim is not discovering the bugs, but confirmation that product that has been created functions perfectly and in accordance with client’s requirements.

As you can see, in a well-planned project work tester cannot be absent. His role is very important – there is a saying in the scrum that every member of the team is a developer, and it is not without a reason! It means that each person from the team shares equal responsibility for delivering the product perfectly adapted to the assumptions. And without the tester it is simply unattainable!

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Role of the tester in the IT project – what does it entail?

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Software testing industry has no choice – a new era is coming and it will determine development of the whole branch and its products such as web applications testing software. This new trend will also positively impact the management of IT departments. 2021 can be a breakout year in this respect.

For several years we have been witnessing a growing disproportion between development of project management (including programming) and the situation of testers in the IT industry. The latter are often excluded from the benefits that Agile, DevOps and CI/CD entail. It does not mean that testers do not work in these methodologies or that they are not part of the teams that implement them. According to the report „State of the Agile”, published in 2019, testing and web applications testing was placed at the top of the activities which are managed this way:

![bb-blog-2-1.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_2_1_5f1b995952.png)

Within 13 years Agile from enthusiastically received novelty has become a dominating style of IT project management. In 2019 it was used in 97% of the surveyed businesses. DevOps technology was combined with Agile (or it was intended in the next 12 months) in 73% companies. Among benefits that Agile implementation brought they mentioned, among others, acceleration of software delivery, enhanced ability to manage changing priorities and increased productivity:

![bb-blog-2-2.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_2_2_6630bd8462.png)

If you ask testers about the consequences of Agile implementation, they would probably agree with the above mentioned benefits concerning management of the workflow. However, in terms of their responsibilities, conclusions would not be so encouraging. And it is not the fault of Agile itself – it is a systemic problem, which was only exposed by this particular methodology.

## How changes in the IT industry influenced the situation of testers?

They caused them to have much more work with the limited resources. Increased productivity of programmers provided testers with much more code to check, which makes web applications testing longer. Concurrently, their staff as well as software tools resources have not changed. It is also widely known that tester/QA’s positions are significantly less occupied than developers’, what was confirmed by StackOverflow survey from 2019, illustrating employment in the IT sector:

![bb-blog-2-3.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_2_3_fa7dae83da.png)

Year by year the number of employed as testers/QA increased by 1,1%. It is not much in comparison with robust growth of the programmers job market. Unfortunately, this situation has a negative impact on the whole IT sector, which suffers from the lack of adequate test coverage known as “testing gap”. It was first described by Jason Arbon in 2017 in the article AI for software testing”. He pointed out that the complexity of code and new products grows exponentially, but the increase of test coverage grows linearly.

![bb-blog-2-4.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_2_4_02c5d2ecb0.png)

Source: Jason Arbon

In practice it means lack of adequate test coverage of newly implemented products or their selective testing (often with the use of exploratory tests). For some of the services/applications it could result in disappearance from the market or at least cause severe image losses. That was in the case of Uber company, which created an app for automatic car driving. Undetected bug cost the life of an USA citizen, what sparked a huge media storm.

Web application testing is starting to be set aside. According to the research conducted in the United Kingdom by Diffblue, as much as 42% developers resign from writing tests for the sake of faster product implementation. Experts from Softwaretestinggenius calculated that direct costs of testing constitute as much as 25% of the whole project budget. Indirect costs, including consequences of undetected bugs, double this figure!

## Better web application testing = better quality products. How to do it?

Invest in appropriate tools, which will take the burden off the testers and enable them to optimise their work. The good news is that internationally things are quite busy. In Techavio report “Software Testing Services Market by Product, Geography, and End-user – Forecast and Analysis 2020-2024” experts anticipate that testing industry will grow 12,62% per year. The lead in terms of pace of development should take Asian countries, South America and Australia:

![bb-blog-2-5.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_2_5_35f6065999.png)

Source: Techavio.com

Interestingly enough, North America should be responsible for 41% of growth in the whole sector. Its main driver would be the mobile app market, which for the sake of constant introduction of the new features and rapidly changing user requirements undergo continuous changes. This phenomenon is also visible in Poland, where the scale of mobile devices use is constantly increasing:

![bb-blog-2-6.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_2_6_4ecc0a5f6d.png)

## New trends in the testing industry – what quality would they bring?

We observe an increase in the amount of code provided for testing, as well as in demand for mobile products (not only – websites and e-commerce services are also thriving). Till now the common response to these challenges were automated tests. Although the tools that provide them are indispensable in the tester’s work, unfortunately many of them do not always correspond to rapidly changing customers’ expectations. Some of them were created several years ago and were a huge help in less dynamic circumstances – good examples could be commonly available in such software functions of recording tests. In a dynamically changing Agile environment, where new functions are often added with each sprint (or once established ones are modified), older tools do not enable for easy change of testing parameters. In practice it comes down to the necessity of recording each step from scratch, what loses the purpose of automation, that is diminishing the amount of work that has to be done manually…

## New trend no. 1: Page Object Pattern without programming

Page Object Pattern is a notion well known by test programmers. Very briefly, it allows to group elements in separate classes so that the change in one of them does not impact remaining parts of the website. An example can be a log-in page, where particular fields (e.g login, password, “log-in” button) constitute distinct components. Thanks to that in the case of the malfunction in any of them it is possible to quickly implement necessary adjustments without interference in the whole code of the website.

New tools for test automation would enable the implementation of solutions such as Page Object Pattern without necessity of programming. Each element of the website (e.g already mentioned “log-in” button) would be available as a separate graphic element, which can be freely utilized according to the needs of different tests. Referring to the log-in website: if the test scenario includes it, it could be quickly added using drag-and-drop function from the main panel. Such a solution has one big advantage: if any of the elements breaks down, it could be easily fixed in all scenarios at once just by implementing changes in one place, because update is made in all tests that this particular element was used. Hence we can officially announce the end of an era when tests had to be recorded from scratch each time errors occurred in any of their elements.

## New trend no.2: possibility of editing once recorded tests

Complete freedom and maximum speed are the wave of the future in creation and editing of tests. Till now modification of the already created scenario of automated tests was possible only after the test was recorded once again from the beginning after the end. New generation tools would enable not only for editing particular elements of the test that has already been recorded, but also for adding new parts to it at any time.

## New trend no.3: great UX/UI design

It is only a matter of time when we will reminisce about interfaces of the “old” programmes for test automation with the same tenderness as one that accompanied transition from Pegasus to Playstation. UX and UI design should not be overlooked in tools for people, whose task is to ensure the best experience for the end-user! This paradox is indeed an old reality: for several years testers have been working on programmes, which graphic design epitomises trends from the last decade… It also influences the quality of their work and it is great news that there are tools on the market that aim at changing this situation.

## New trend no.4: launching highly-specialised tests from the web browser

Cloud solution does not exclude fast access to the tool from the web browser – this motto would guide authors of state-of-the art programs for test automation. Tester does not have to acquire advanced knowledge about programming nor technical skills of administrators: installation of the web browser plugin should suffice for effective work. The same applies to test launching: new generation tools would enable its start, test recording and its instant modification exclusively from the web browser. Testers no longer have to wait for test launch and reports from the cloud – they can act immediately at the minimum technical requirements.

## New trend no. 5: real, not fake, reliability and stability

There are many tools that promise a lot, but in practice are disappointing and give testers a feeling of wasted time. Users that felt let down wrote several articles about such tools – here is an example». The future belongs to these test automation tools, which will give testers feeling of control and freedom in terms of taking action, concurrently delivering what they have promised in specification and marketing materials.

![bb-blog-2-7.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_2_7_6bd4ef461b.png)


Our app is a [modern software tool for testers and software developers](https://bugbug.io/) that allows recording, editinng and running reliable end-to-end tests for web applications.





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New era in testing industry – which trends will dominate in 2021?

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At the first glance the IT industry may seem to be the main winner in coronavirus pandemic: it fully embraced remote work long ago, easily adapts to changes in accordance with Agile methodology and in the age of digitisation programmers are still in demand. But there is a “but”.

Demand for the IT services in Poland was growing before the outbreak of a pandemic – according to the S[tepStone report for Business Insider Polska](https://businessinsider.com.pl/rozwoj-osobisty/kariera/pracownicy-poszukiwani-w-2020-r/hsjbb7f) published in December 2019, the most sought-for profession in 2020 were predicted to be an IT specialist/programmer/developer. IT industry dominated the whole ranking, because the second place took  an IT project management leader/project manager and the fourth – an analyst. Demand for such qualifications can be considered to be global, because “technological” positions also dominated the annual LinkedIn report with projections for 2020. First came an artificial intelligence specialist, followed by (amongst others) the full stack developers, IT security specialists and developers.

## IT industry and coronavirus pandemic – additional incentive for growth?

The coronavirus pandemic negatively impacted the labour market in each country that was affected by it. However, the IT industry belongs to those which emerged from it unscathed. You can even say that it won. Tyler Cowen, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, who regularly publishes his opinions on the Bloomberg website, has written in April 2020 that “Technology is indispensable to lead a normal life”. Nowadays (which means in the era of the coronavirus pandemic), according to Cowen United States of America would be forced to introduce „track and trace” system. One of the conceptions describing its implementation is the smartphone application making use of geolocalisation, which would send information that its user is nearby the person infected with COVID-19. Such ideas, backed up by real needs, would be more and more prevalent, because the pandemic almost overnight changed the way we live:

- The necessity to introduce remote work forces to do so even those companies, which so far have been sceptical towards this solution.

The global giants were prepared for such a scenario: Twitter, Google or JPMorgan, as reported by CNBC, have been testing the possibility of implementing the remote work in advance. Atlassian and Slack obliged all their employees to work remotely. In this context the title of the GitLab report from March 2020: “The future of the work is remote” does not seem accidental. In the study took part more than three thousand workers representing different branches. Here is the portrait of the remote worker that came out of it:

![bb-blog-1-1.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_1_1_1859ebbe4a.png)

Source: GitLab.com
Advantages of the remote were also emphasised in the analysis prepared by FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics. It shows that in the last ten years popularity of the remote work in the United States has increased by 91%. Moreover, 85% of the surveyed companies claimed that introduction of the remote work boosted efficiency of theirs employees. As many as 57% respondents working remotely reported increased job satisfaction.

The landscape of the Polish labour market is slightly different: in the Homejob survey, conducted before the pandemic outbreak, only 36% workers declared that they have possibility to work remotely. The changes that we witness now have already modified this statistics. According to the respondents of Devire survey, in the situation of pandemic 7 from 10 companies which earlier had not wanted to enable remote work, changed their mind. The IT industry would play a big role in this transformation: the main task would be creating and implementing appropriate systems for remote work and ensuring security of the companies’ data.

- E-learning would be developing alongside the telemedicine; events industry would see the chance to bounce back from coronavirus crisis in the videoconference tools.

IT supports and for sure would be supporting transfer of the medicine and education to the internet. Here also the boundary between the giants, excellently prepared for such a transition (i.e. Harvard), and “others”, which would have to take accelerated lesson about new technologies, is visible. The events industry, which worth is estimated for trillions of dollars, is also looking for an ideal way to tackle a decline. Many high profile events moved to the internet – i.e. Adobe Summit, SAS Global Forum or Google Cloud Next’20, which is also called Digital Connect and would be free of charge. The organisers of these events want to make the digital experience to feel as close as possible to the “real” one. It could be done only with an appropriate technical support. Online streaming or teleconferences which shall substitute for traditional networking would be a challenging task for not only for the developers responsible for building proper infrastructure (and its maintenance), but also for the organisers and participants of the events.

- „Pandemic is the mother of invention” – in this unprecedented situation IT industry is asked to create new systems and applications, as well as to increase efficiency and capacity of the ones that are already in use.

[The machine learning model helps to develop efficient therapy for COVID-19 infection](https://www.bbva.com/en/technology-against-coronavirus/). New programmes, which enable for providing medical services from a distance, are created. In Israel there is ongoing work on the Diagnostics.ai – the tool for automatization of the coronavirus tests, which can double their daily number. In Madrid special application named „Corona Madrid” was implemented. It was designed for the people who suspect that they could be infected – it helps to identify the symptoms and suggests the places where person can get help. WHO launched the chatbot which provide the information about coronavirus and special module in social media named „Coronavirus information center”. There is no doubt that we are witnessing the beginning of the new era.

- In the face of economic crisis many companies close stationary shops and invest in online services.

As a consequence new websites, CRM-s and databases are in a great demand. According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2020 growth in the world economy will fall by 3%. It is expected to be the worst economic crisis since the 30s of the XX century. Projections for Poland also are not optimistic – according to the IMF our PKB this year will shrink by 4,6%. This means wave of redundancies, but also transfer of the battle for consumers into the Internet.

## Threats for the IT industry in the coronavirus era

Theoretically, all signs in heaven and on earth indicate growing demand for this type of services, what should result in increasing returns. In my opinion external factors are not the ones that can pose potential threats for the IT industry – we should take a closer look at the internal risks. Paradoxically, they are the effect of the rapid development of the branch –increase of productivity in the teams that implemented scrum methodology (according to McKinsey it was 27% growth in comparison to the projects managed in waterfall) and the fast pace of software development. The phenomenon that can cause deterioration of the quality of the software that is produced as well as prolongation of the delivery period is so called testing gap, which means lack of the appropriate test coverage.

These risks were already pointed out in 2018, in the article „Situation of the testers on the market”. Unfortunately, there has been relatively little change in this area:

„Complexity of the tests increases exponentially with the appearance of the new functions, and test coverage grows linearly, because the tests can be added only individually. In effect the amount of code produced is bigger than testers’ capacity, what leads to the gap in testing coverage (so called testing gap).”

There is also serious labour shortage, as the results of the „Developer Survey 2019” indicate. It was conducted among more than 80 thousands IT workers from all over the world. In testing specialised only… 7,8% of the respondents – developers are the overwhelming majority here:

![bb-blog-1-2.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_blog_1_2_0da6894e8f.png)

Source: Stackoverflow.com

Additionally, the complexity of the applications created by developers, as well as the amount of data that should be processed, is constantly growing. Because [software testing professions](https://bugbug.io/blog/end-to-end-tests/role-of-the-tester-in-the-it-project-what-does-it-entail/) do not enjoy the same level of popularity as the positions of the developers, recruitment and training of the new employees do not seem to be enough to address it. The solution to this problem could be freeing resources and making the best use of the knowledge and competencies that are already available on the market. How can you do that?

## Implement the appropriate software testing automation tool

“Appropriate” means one that can not only enable you to speed up testing process, but also would be a solution that offers higher quality than the others advertised on the market. What requirements it should meet?

- Availability to all testers, including those who do not know a thing about programming.
- Reliability and effectiveness, which exclude non-deterministic tests (so called flaky tests).
- Support for the tester in terms of bug analysis and identification of the causes of their appearance.
- Easy configuration and handling thanks to appropriate interface design (in accordance with the newest UI/UX recommendations).
- Recording of the tests.
- Ability for auto-recovery of the tests.
- Ready-to-use templates of the single steps in test scenarios, which you can group and configure in any way.
- Tests modelling displayed on the graph, what enables you to quickly estimate the phase that the particular test scenario is in.
- Easy creation of even the most complicated test scenarios thanks to the fact that your programme operates on many different tabs, browser windows and frames.


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IT industry in the coronavirus era not always wins. What risks should you be aware of?

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Test Automation Expert and Test Architect. He is a seasoned tester who can’t stay long in one place. He is looking for perfection and a place to challenge his skills.  He gathered experience working for different companies with different working models, From small to big corporations, From Products via In-house development to software house. Thanks to that he has a wide perspective on testing quality and delivering value.\

[linkedin.com/in/wyrodek/](https://linkedin.com/in/wyrodek/){ref="nofollow"}

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Maciej Wyrodek

Testing can be difficult, it is hard to master, there are many questions and many issues we can face with each new feature, each new story. Every day, testers need to decide what to test, how to test, what to automate, and what risks to accept. These decisions are hard and require a lot of experience. Fortunately, there are techniques, heuristics, and models which can help with planning tests. One of the oldest and still very useful techniques is **Agile Testing Quadrants** (**ATQ**). it is a simple table that helps us select the tools we need to use, depending on the required outcome. In this article, we will look into the history of Agile Testing Quadrants, their uses, and limitations. We will also discuss the attempts at modernizing it.

![Agile-Testing-Quadrants](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Agile_Testing_Quadrants_4b2d044860.png)

[TABLE_OF_CONTENTS]


## Agile Testing Quadrants or Agile Testing Matrix?

First, we need to clear one thing: as with everything in IT, even this simple table needs to have many names! Chances are that you will come across it as an Agile Matrix, Testing Matrix, Testing Quadrants, or Agile quadrants. All of them refer to the same thing. The only exception is the Agile Testing Matrix which may refer to both Agile Testing Quadrants and its precursor the Named Agile Testing Matrix. 

![Testing matrix](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/test_matrix_00ac277513.jpg)


## The Story of Matrix

When speaking about **Testing in Agile**, there is probably not a single more important person to its development than [Lisa Crispin](https://lisacrispin.com/) and [Janet Gregory](https://janetgregory.ca/). Their book, [Agile Testing](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5341009-agile-testing), has helped many testers. [Testing Pyramid ](https://bugbug.io/blog/software-testing/testing-pyramid-a-successful-approach-to-test-automation/) was born while [Mike Cohn](https://twitter.com/mikewcohn) tried to explain the nuances of automation to Lisa’s team (*Experience of Test Automation - chapter 1 Section 1.3.*) Agile Testing Book played a key role in the popularization of Agile Testing Quadrants, where the creation of ATQ is often misattributed to this wonderful duo. As Lisa Crispin explained in [her blog](https://lisacrispin.com/2011/11/08/using-the-agile-testing-quadrants/) - they improved on the older concept by [Brian Marick](http://www.exampler.com/old-blog/2003/08/22/#agile-testing-project-2) - an Agile Testing Matrix created as part of his blog series presenting his vision of testing in Agile. So Agile Testing Quadrants have almost 20- year-long history and they are still one of the best models used for testing.

## The Usefulness of Agile Testing Quadrants

Agile Testing Quadrants have two axes which split the matrix into 4 quadrants. Both axes pose the same questions, namely **What is the goal of your testing?** The major difference between the two axes is the flavor of the question: the horizontal axis asks what is currently more important: helping the team to deliver faster or ensuring that the product is as good as possible? the vertical axis asks if we are concentrating on the aspects of technology, ensuring that everything is working well, or are we looking from the perspective of business and customers, making sure that our program is worth using? Obtaining both answers points to one of the Quadrants with a list of useful examples. This can be a little confusing, so let’s look at some of the examples.

### Example 1: E-commerce shop

Let’s say we have e-commerce shop development that is going nicely. However, there is one enormous risk on the horizon, namely quite a lot of features, each tested separately so no one is sure how they will work in the real world. The team believes that the standard paths will work. However, no one is sure what kind of edge cases will come from the real world.

Looking at our matrix we can see that problem is definitely business-facing - we don’t know what the user will do. We also need to make sure that our product will handle it, ergo - Critique Product.
Looking at it we land in Q3  where we have propositions of the following techniques:
 - Exploratory Testing
 - Scenarios
 - Usability Testing
 - User Acceptance Testing (UAT)
 - Alpha/Beta Testing.

So our goal is to find edge cases. Looking at the list, all the techniques could prove helpful. But some may require too much investment so late in the developments (Scenarios). Some are a poor fit for an e-commerce shop (alpha/beta testing, UAT). Which leaves us with Usability Testing and Exploratory testing.
ATQ is not an extensive matrix, it contains only examples of techniques rather than a complete list. For example, a different technique that could help is [Dogfooding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food) where company employees themselves use a product to satisfy their everyday needs.

### Example 2: Messaging App

A company has made a very successful messaging app, but now they are facing the problem of success. Their small app, designed for a small community, is gaining popularity fast. The team feels that the app is not ready for all this attention. The situation is clear - from a business perspective, everything works well enough. The risk is technology, and again the problem lies in the critique of a product. This leads us to Q4 where we have, among others, *Performance* and *Security* testing. There is no doubt that we will need both. Lots of users mean a load on an application and nothing will kill its momentum like failing servers. Security is also important. Attention also attracts bad actors who will try to exploit the system.

### Example 3: Early Development.

The team suffers a problem of poor quality code. In the case of some features, developers are reluctant to fix a familiar bug because of the high risk of breaking something else. One glance at the ATQ shows that we need something to support the development and its technology which leads us straight to Q1. Both Unit Test and Component Test would improve team productivity and code quality.

The above example may give a wrong impression that Agile Testing Quadrants are used to select one and only one tool. **THIS IS NOT TRUE**: we can use ATQ for each goal of our testing, for each need, for each problem we are trying to address. However, trying to improve too much at once may lead to too much-wasted effort and no result. Concentrate on one subject at a time.

## Evolution

While the concept of AQT has changed little over the years, the techniques in each quadrant have evolved, for example: 

![Updated Agile Testing Quadrants](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/updated_atq_06346e83b7.jpg)

In [More Agile Testing](https://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2253544), the author presented a new version with Micheal Hüttermann changes, with a circle of *Outside-in, Barrier-free, Collaborative in the middle of the quadrants*. The author believes that it will stretch beyond any quadrants. The main issue with this update is that it is a catchphrase and provides no information about the tools and techniques that may help.

![Agile Testing Quadrants next iteration](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/Agile_Testing_Quadrants_next_d74569f53c.jpg)

A few years back, [Lisa and Janet](https://agiletester.ca/applying-the-agile-testing-quadrants-to-continuous-delivery-and-devops-culture-part-1-working-towards-continuous-delivery/) also presented a version more in line with DevOps. This version adds a lot more techniques to each of the quadrants but also changes one side, from *Supporting Team to Guide Development*. While it may seem like a single name change, fortunately, the original name leads to many misunderstandings and the new label is much more descriptive. 

![RST Agile Testing Ecosystem 1.1](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bb_ATQ_1fb44a3b67.png)


Michael Bolton and James Bach have also made the [above version](https://www.slideshare.net/HcmcStc/the-new-agile-testing-quadrants-bringing-skilled-testers-and-developers-together-james-bach) which is compatible with Rapide Software Testing. Most of these updates are only fine-tuning, adding elements that their author thinks are better in this context. So which one to choose? It is the author’s opinion that the original version holds well? It is still relevant, because:

## It is just a model.

“All models are wrong, but some are useful” is an old aphorism attributed to George Box. And it is important to bear it in mind in the case of Test Pyramid, Agile Testing Quadrants, etc. Models are what they are: models which need to help us think about a problem. **They are not the golden rules that should be followed in the letter**. They provide us with a good way of tackling the problem. But it is up to the user to decide if a specific model will work for a specific problem.

## Summary

The **Agile Testing Quadrant** is a model which is nearly 20 years old. Owing to its simplicity, it is still relevant. It is a great tool for teams and testers who have a problem with choosing the right testing method. For junior testers, it is a great place to look into different tools and approaches, and for more advanced testers it will be an excellent aid in building or improving the testing process.

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A self-taught software QA Engineer working at an IT start-up, Dominika has experience in
web testing. Currently, she is focusing on developing her test automation skills with Python.
Apart from programming, she likes to make pottery and cook vegetarian delicacies.\

[linkedin.com/in/dominika-nykiel](https://linkedin.com/in/dominika-nykiel){rel="nofollow"}

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Dominika Nykiel

An aspiring technical writer with an interest in testing and a knack for learning languages.
Former journalist, translator, and editor, whose work was published in several magazines. She
speaks French and Norwegian and is looking forward to learning Spanish.\

[linkedin.com/in/aleksandra-spilkowska](https://linkedin.com/in/aleksandra-spilkowska){rel="nofollow"}

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Aleksandra Spilkowska

Ask any QA Engineer worth their salt about their Chrome extensions - they probably have a bunch of them ready to go at all times. And for a good reason! They can come in handy when you need to edit a screenshot, clear a browser cache, or test a website’s performance. Saving some clicks and double-checking for hidden issues means that a QA’s everyday life is much easier, and it leaves more time to focus on spotting all the bugs before the final product is released. Get ready to pimp your browser with some of the most useful Chrome extensions for testers!

[TABLE_OF_CONTENTS]

## [Monosnap](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/monosnap/lhgadannddhdpkfhfjjgcpdjhpmjhkfm){rel="nofollow"}

![Monosnap](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/monosnap_a19cbb03a1.png)

A reliable recorder is a must-have in your virtual toolbelt. While most recorders are programs, Monosnap is an extension so there are extra advantages, especially if you tend to switch between devices a lot. You can capture a GIF or a video, a selected area of the screen, and of course a fullscreen. There is also a set of basic editing features such as drawing, creating marks, highlighting details, or hiding sensitive data. No watermark in sight! Monosnap works with both Windows and iOS.

## [Clear cache](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clear-cache/cppjkneekbjaeellbfkmgnhonkkjfpdn?hl=en){rel="nofollow"}

![Clear Cache](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/clearcache_ec20bd645f.png)

It does just what the name promises: clears your cache and browsing data. What's the catch? There isn't any! You can do it all with a single click. This extension allows you to choose how much data you want to clear and from which domains you want the cookies removed. Neat!

## [Bug Magnet](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bug-magnet/efhedldbjahpgjcneebmbolkalbhckfi){rel="nofollow"}

![Bug Magnet](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/bugmagnet_115b949485.png)

For many, this is a go-to extension for exploratory testing. Will it do all the work for you? Unfortunately, the answer is no, but it sure helps a lot. This exploratory testing assistant will offer you access to common boundaries and edge cases. It works on input fields, text areas, content editable DIVs, and more. This means that you don’t need to rack your brain to think of an email, postcode, or address anymore, Following selection of the value, Bug Magnet fills in the field you need. It’s an open-source solution and you can customize it to your liking.

## [PerfectPixel](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/perfectpixel-by-welldonec/dkaagdgjmgdmbnecmcefdhjekcoceebi){rel="nofollow"}

![Perfect Pixel](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/perfectpixel_6d7ba283bd.png)

This extension is very convenient for frontend testing, especially when there is a need to compare a website design with frontend changes. It adds a semi-transparent overlay over the top of the developed HTML to make it perfect - down to the last pixel. The position, size, and opacity level are no longer your enemies with this handy extension.

## [Web Developer](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/web-developer/bfbameneiokkgbdmiekhjnmfkcnldhhm){rel="nofollow"}

![WebDeveloper](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/webdeveloper_827b9ef3f7.png)

The Swiss Army knife of web developing tools, this extension will equip your browser with a toolbar full of functional items. Cookies? Managed. Information? Anchored. Web elements? Highlighted. CSS? Edited. Forms? Populated. Of course, some tools work better than others, and you aren’t going to use all of them equally, just like with a real Swiss Army knife (fish scaler, anyone?) but it’s still a quite useful quality multitool.

## [Lighthouse](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lighthouse/blipmdconlkpinefehnmjammfjpmpbjk?hl=en){rel="nofollow"}

![LightHouse](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/lighthouse_f51d97d7ce.png)

Yet another multi-use extension, it runs overall non-functional tests on websites. The metrics you can audit are performance, SEO, best practices, accessibility, PWA (Progressive Web Application). Lighthouse auto-generates a clear, simple report which lets you know how well your website performs for an average user. The audit will instantly highlight the areas that need improvement and will give you a general overview of the website’s functionality.  

## [Postman Interceptor](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/postman-interceptor/aicmkgpgakddgnaphhhpliifpcfhicfo?hl=en){rel="nofollow"}

![Postman Interceptor](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/postman_interceptor_a0d0b62ce1.png)

Assuming you have heard of Postman (if you haven’t, [go check it out now](https://www.postman.com/){rel="nofollow"}!), you might be interested in further improving the workload with this practical extension. The Interceptor sends requests which use browser cookies to the Postman app without using a proxy. This is an advantage for testing APIs, as Interceptor makes it possible to send headers (typically restricted by Chrome).

## [SelectorsHub](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/selectorshub-xpath-plugin/ndgimibanhlabgdgjcpbbndiehljcpfh){rel="nofollow"}

![SelectorsHub](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/selectors_hub_624439475b.png)

Whether you’re a seasoned tester or just starting your journey, this extension can be a worthy addition to your collection. SelectorsHub is easily the top-rated XPath & cssSelector plugin available now, and it lives up to the hype. It helps write and verify XPath and cssSelector in less than 5 seconds, auto-suggests attributes, text, etc. SelectorsHub not only supports the iframe and the SVG elements, it is also the only extension supporting shadowDOM (at least for now). And if you value a proper error message, you’ll get one for missing elements in the selectors. This impressive extension is indispensable not just in test automation but also to users of codeless, smart testing tools.

## Summary

That’s it! We hope you have enjoyed our pick. Of course, this list is in no way comprehensive, as new extensions are added to the Chrome web store all the time. While the choice might initially seem overwhelming, it is highly recommended to checkout various extensions and find the ones that suit your needs best. Hopefully, this article will be a good starting point for these explorations!


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Best Chrome Extensions for Software Testers

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Professional Quality Evangelist, experienced in testing web and mobile applications.\

[linkedin.com/in/kinga-witko-b5bba659/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kinga-witko-b5bba659/){ref="nofollow"}

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Kinga Witko

As recent data show (https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share), Chrome is the most used browser in the world, representing over 64% of the browser market.

The Chrome Developer Tools (DevTools for short) are a set of web authoring and debugging tools built into Google Chrome. The DevTools provide web developers with improved access to the internals of the browser and their web application. Did you know that they are quite useful for the Testers as well?

[TABLE_OF_CONTENTS]

## Give it a try in testing the web

There are multiple functions in which Dev Tools may support your testing, not only limited to:
- resizing (change user agents)
- screen rotation
- using Console: Debug JS – CSS, Logs
- network manipulation: Throttling, Performance
- security testing
- location change
- looking for elements (id)
- taking screenshots
- clearing cache
- test recording
- database checking (IndexedDB  - a transactional database system, like the SQL-based RDBMS)

## How to enter?
To open the developer console in Google Chrome, open the Chrome Menu in the upper-right-hand corner of the browser window and select **More Tools > Developer Tools**. 

![https://i.imgur.com/fIMFZgz.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/f_IMF_Zgz_bea99d61c0.png)

You can also take shortcuts:

**On Mac:** \
Command+Option+I 

**On Windows/Linux:** \
F12 or Control+Shift+ I


You can dock your DevTools window to the right of your viewport or at the bottom of the screen, depending on your preferences. By default, DevTools are docked to the right of your viewport. You can also dock to bottom, dock to left, or undock to DevTools to a separate bottom.

![https://i.imgur.com/13JgWaO.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/13_Jg_Wa_O_2e4ec2b59e.png)

It is possible to reorder the panels so they suit your needs best. Click and drag a panel tab to change its ordering. Your custom tab order persists across the DevTools sessions.


## How to start
Chrome DevTools can be used in web and mobile testing. Every Tester should take advantage of it because these tools are free and easily accessible. 
Here is a list of the most useful ideas for testing purposes. Maybe you'll come up with new ones?

### Resizing and Rotating
It is important to check the UI of your website on mobile browsers and multiple screen resolutions. For some people, it’s “Just the UI” testing but do remember that nowadays a lion’s share of the market (54.37%) belongs to mobile browsers ([stats here](https://gs.statcounter.com/platform-market-share/desktop-mobile-tablet)).

![Browser market stats](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image7_6614995465.png)

Use the **Responsive** option in Chrome DevTools to make sure that a majority of different screen resolutions is covered.

You can select the desired resolution from the dropdown list of many different mobile devices to test against different screen sizes. DevTools tell us the screen dimensions of the device in the top menu as well. What is more, you are also able to rotate the screen. Screen rotation is a common cause of mobile bugs, as the mobile website layout changes when the screen is rotated, and page elements may need to reload. While it won't pretend to be the real device, it will give you a lot of hints on what other tests should be performed on your application.

![DevTools resizing and rotating](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image6_02544f7f6a.png)

### Console - debug

Either a developer or a tester can debug a website on a mobile device.
In the JavaScript **Console** you can find all ranges of errors in the application.
As the complexity of JavaScript applications increases, developers need powerful debugging tools to help quickly discover the cause of an issue and fix it efficiently. The Chrome DevTools include several useful tools to make debugging JavaScript less painful.

![DevTools console](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image9_aee0e7d98e.png)

### Network and Throttling
The **Network** option allows you to observe the order and time of loading elements. You are provided with insights into resources that are requested and downloaded over the network in real-time. It is of special importance in mobile testing as users expect mobile apps to work smoothly and fast.
1. Open DevTools (F12)
2. Click the ‘Network’ tab
3. Click the No Throttling dropdown
4. Select the type of connection you want to imitate
5. Reload the page to see the assets downloading at that connection speed.

The Network tab in Chrome DevTools has an option to faux throttle your network, so you can experience what your users might see visiting your website on 3G, Offline, or with your real speed connection. The **Throttling** option is also useful for visualizing how fonts are loaded. The lower the speed, the more end-user frustration on your website.

In this section, in the left upper corner, there is also a record button that allows you to preserve all the activities (logs) and compare them with other test results.

![DevTools network throttling](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image8_9e4f1f589f.png)

### Elements
The Elements panel allows you to see everything in one DOM tree and fosters inspection and on-the-fly editing of DOM elements. It is also a useful option for automating tests.
You can always access this option for a specific element on the website:
1. Mouse-over the element (word, button, etc.)
2. Right-click on the mouse
3. Click Inspect

![DevTools Elements](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image12_3c7cc49608.png)

In the Chrome DevTools panel, you’ll be directed to the very element in the DOM structure.
The **Elements** tab is extremely useful if you need to play around with CSS in your application. Sometimes you need to switch on and off some buttons/lists/checkboxes. It is possible in this section to select the desired elements in the DOM structure and edit them in the Styles sub-section. 

There is also a handy way of locating a node element in the DOM using a CSS selector. From the elements panel, use a keyboard shortcut (win: Ctrl+f, mac: Cmd+f) to open up the search input UI. Enter a CSS selector into the search input UI.

### Clear Site Data
Cache clearing is one of the activities that might be used daily in the testing exercise. Chrome DevTools can successfully help you out.
Press Control+Shift+P or Command+Shift+P (Mac) to open the Command Menu and then run the Clear Site Data command to clear all data related to the page, including Service workers, localStorage, sessionStorage, IndexedDB, Web SQL, Cookies, Cache, and Application Cache.
If you don't want to delete all site data, you can control what data are deleted from **Application >  Storage**.

![DevTools application storage](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image10_3278490be8.png)

### Location
This is a fantastic functionality! It shows how to test an app that must work in different locations and presents a map for you - teleportation has not been invented yet! There is an option in DevTools that allows you to mimic location. The option is slightly hidden:
1. Open Dev Tools
2. Click the action bar in the top right corner of the screen
3. Select More Tools
4. Click Sensors

Now you can provide a website/application with your desired geo-coordinates and pretend you are there. Remember about reloading the page with every change to the coordinates.

![DevTools location](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image11_d0b495da83.png)

### Performance monitor

In the same **More Tools** panel you can find the Performance Monitor. Use it to get a real-time view of various aspects of a page's load or runtime performance, including:
- CPU usage.
- JavaScript heap size.
- The total number of DOM nodes, JavaScript event listeners, documents, and frames on the page.
- Layouts and style recalculations per second.

There is also a separated **Performance** tab in the upper menu, which shows the Compute Intersections in the flame chart. These options can help you to identify the events and debug on its potential performance overheads.

![DevTools Performance](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/image13_7323c216c2.png)

### Screenshots
There are two ways of taking screenshots when working with DevTools:

**Screenshots of a portion of the viewport**

1. Click **Inspect** or press Command+Shift+C (Mac) or Control+Shift+C (Windows, Linux) to enter Inspect Element Mode.
2. Hold Command (Mac) or Control (Windows, Linux) and select the portion of the viewport if which you want to take a screenshot.
3. Release the mouse. DevTools downloads a screenshot of the selected portion.

**Screenshots of specific HTML nodes**

1. Select an element in the Elements tab
2. Open the Command menu
3. Start typing node and select Capture node screenshot. DevTools downloads a screenshot of the selected node.

## How to operate on mobile devices?
Last but not least, if you want to test the mobile option, it might be useful to know how to attach your device to Chrome DevTools.

1. Install the Chrome browser on your PC
2. Get hold of an Android smartphone
3. Find a USB cable to connect them
4. Plug your device in.
5. Type chrome://inspect in the Chrome browser.

On mobile devices, you can take advantage of Chrome Developer Tools in a very similar way to web testing. You can perform throttling, look for elements, or check the network connection. What is more, you are also able to check things in a database through Stetho (*debug bridge for Android applications*). 

If it doesn’t work right away - all you need to do is enable the developer options:
1. Open settings
2. Go to System> About phone>Version number
3. Tap on it 7 times (that’s right)

And there you go.
1. Open the developer options
2. Switch them on
3. Allow USB debugging

From now on the device should be visible in Chrome/inspect.
 
There is much more to Chrome DevTools - all you need is to explore the options. Each year, Chrome adds new functionalities to its extensions, including DevTools. The number of options expands and allows not only for better development but also better testing without multiple external tools or applications. For basic functional testing, Chrome DevTools is more than enough. They just require time to learn how to best use them and to benefit from all the resources they offer. 


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Chrome DevTools introduction

chrome-dev-tools-introduction

[TABLE_OF_CONTENTS]

## Why Agile?

The word 'agile' became trendy years ago and the eagerness of using it in projects in organizations remains high even today.

We have Agile dev teams and Agile testers, Agile projects. Unfortunately, the term 'agile' has become a convenient replacement for lack of requirements, lack of documentation,  or, just basically,  a pure mess.

On the other hand, Agile means nothing more than a way of working well to reduce the cost of change and uncertainty.

## Traditional vs. Agile

Talking about methodologies is always good as it leads to spotting the difference between traditional - usually phased or gated (Waterfall) ways of making software,

![phased_or_gated](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/phased_or_gated_f4e60a9340.png)

as opposed to iterative, where every story is expanded, coded, and tested with a possible release after each iteration.

![agile.png](https://bugbug-homepage.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/agile_4b0f766f35.png)

## The Agile change

Agile testing influences the whole process of making software, including:
- Whole Team Approach
- Coding and testing as a single process
- Feedback, collaboration
- TDD/ATDD practices
- Test-infected developers
- Better tools
- Better designed tests 

It also allows a tester to be an actual part of the team rather than a siloed unit in an organization. A tester is not a gatekeeper or quality police but he/she provides valuable input into each phase of development.

In real life, it means that an Agile tester takes part in all team meetings, provides the input, asks questions, is invited to pair programming sessions with developers, and takes the same responsibility for the code and product as any other member of the team. Of course, it requires from the Tester a larger skill set, great communications skills, and at least basic knowledge of coding and test automation.

## How to include testing?

There are many ways for extending Test Specialist responsibilities in an Agile team. They don’t necessarily include testing itself but also include a vast range of communication, presentation, and consultation activities.

### TDD
Traditional testing relies on ample documentation. Agile testing is an approach to a process that mimics the principles of agile software development, especially where:
- Testing is done more often,
- The whole team knows how and what to test, it is possible to share tasks
- Testing relies less on documentation and more on team member collaboration.

One of the great examples of how to include testing into an agile process is to start from Test-Driven Development. The TDD methodology is a software development process that emphasizes the need for good software quality. Traditionally, a developer has written the code, and then the testing department has examined it and reported bugs. Moreover, in TDD, it is the developers who write unit tests first before even writing any code that would complete a user story.

Of course, it is possible to pair in every task, so in most situations, it is possible for a developer to work together with a Quality Expert and think of possible test cases.

The tests initially fail until the developer writes a minimal sequencet of code to pass the tests. As the next step, the code is refactored to meet the quality requirements of the team.

It is possible to implement TDD into the Scrum or Kanban type of working. The point is to focus on testing and quality in general. Additionally, it makes testing more agile by moving most of the testing procedures to the early stages of the development lifecycle. When writing test scenarios at the beginning of each story, developers need to understand the requirements and cooperate with the other team members. This minimizes unnecessary code creation and also resolves any doubts at the beginning of the development cycle.

### Automate regression testing
Regression testing is yet another type of software testing to verify if the software, previously developed and tested, still performs correctly after changes or interface with other software. Changes may include software enhancements, patches, configuration changes, etc.

If regression testing in a software project is supposed to make any sense - it has to be performed as often as possible - at least on a sprint basis. Ideally - daily. Why? Because stable test suites would detect any unexpected system behaviors and react to a major change.

Small systems usually have checklists rather than test suites - large ones - even ‘monstrous’.
Deciding what should be automated is always tough because having automated test scripts may not be something that the team could present  to the customer. The question is rather: WHY would you want to automate anything?

The problem is that sometimes, automated suites are not reliable or trustworthy and the effort to keep them alive is quite hard. Test suites have to be regularly maintained and extended. Automation is great for this task but it is just another tool – not the purpose of the project.

Most importantly, even in the Agile environment, all tests need to be reviewed often and prioritized daily.

No one will benefit from extended long-running test suits. What is more, automated regression tests should be efficient and alert early in the development phase, to be of better quality and truly agile.

### Visualize testing activities
One of the great examples of working with a Scrum or Kanban board is to visualize all the tasks in the project, not only the developer’s ones.

It is a great idea for the team to select even small, repetitive manual test tasks as prospects for automation. All these ideas and tasks can be placed on a board and addressed accordingly. It doesn’t mean that a tester is responsible for doing it.

Besides, in cross-functional Agile teams, there is a great opportunity for the testers to learn more coding and test automation, and for the developers to pay more attention to code quality.

### Communicate
Irrespective if a project is handled in Scrum, Kanban, or another Agile manner – the key to success is (?) the communication in the team.

Also, there are useful respective tools which help  teams deliver faster and fight for better quality and efficiency. CI/CD build tools can be easily integrated with common tools for communication such as Slack, and can inform automatically that the build is done or if the build has failed. It can also be helpful in automated regression and getting the test result accessible to everyone.

### Avoid single used solutions
The responsible software development process requires planning and adjusting, not working “here and now” and then fixing production bugs. Single–used solutions in a code, in testing, unnecessary work done in the cutting-corners mode to satisfy the customer’s demands are the things that often  boomerang in the future.

When a manager  approaches you and asks for doing development quickly instead of properly – “because it’s Agile” – remember that this is nothing else but a start of technical debt.

Discuss, propose, think, but when you agree on a shortcut – for example skipping performance testing or postponing some exploratory sessions due to lack of time – be aware of the consequences in the future.

You’ll save some time now, but you’ll be in real trouble soon.

### Explore
As Elisabeth Hendrickson said in her book “Explore it!”:

 “No matter what your job title, you most likely find yourself testing regularly. Testing is an integral part of creating anything.”

This is so true in Agile. Exploratory testing is simultaneously designing and executing tests to learn about the system, and then using your insights from the last experiment to feed the next.

Exploratory testing involves scouting around areas that the net of other forms of testing doesn’t cover. A tester interacts with the implementation, designing, and executing tiny experiments in a rapid succession.

### Give and receive feedback
Every Agile Team uses feedback to improve. It does not matter whether feedback is provided daily or during longer sessions such as Retrospective or Planning. Testers are expert feedback providers, they usually have overall knowledge about the product and can advise at the beginning of brainstorming or at the end of the iteration to improve further work. Feedback lets the team make course corrections.

### Testing in Scrum
How to incorporate testing in Scrum? 
The Scrum Guide doesn't say anything about testing because it's "a framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining complex products". It transcends the type of product that the team is developing, and the types of testing that the team needs to do, or how testing fits into the process is different for producing different types of software products. It does not define a specific “Tester” role, as testing is the whole team’s responsibility.

Of course, there can be a person more focused on delivering high quality, measuring application performance or assuring application security, but this role is not defined by the book. It usually means that when a team decides to work according to Scrum Guide and at the same time, there is an organizatinal role of a “Software Tester” - an expectation might arise that this person should provide guidance for the entire team (or even organization) on how to test software most effectively and lead the others in the field.

## Summary
It is not the choice of a methodology or technology that limits us from raising the quality of the product or including test automation in a daily routine. It is rather a drive that comes from the team and helps everybody to get better at coding, testing, and taking care of the product.

The choice of the methodology is always a process, not a single decision. It requires work and effort from every team member, not only from the tester.

If you have anything to do with test management or quality assurance - this short exercise is great for practicing on a daily basis: start your working day from a short trip around different metrics - nightly builds, code coverage, cyclomatic complexity, etc. Try to explore and add a new flavor to the testing. Every day you can make an important discovery and improve the quality of your work.

