Where does quality assurance fit in agile development?

Digg This!     StumbleUpon     Del.icio.us

RELATED CONTENT Software Process Models and Methodologies Differentiating between Functional and Nonfunctional Requirements The role of user stories in agile software development Agile software development: Proving the benefits Agile development across continents How long should an iteration be? Is iterative development a new process? Software Project Management Advice on how to enter the software technology field Differentiating between Functional and Nonfunctional Requirements Quality standards don't always mean fewer defects How to present a project to the management Project management charts: Beyond Gantt How to switch your team to Agile How to deal with a difficult team member Collaboration and communication tools for virtual meetings Project management: How to compose a project team How to create accurate project status reports Agile software development Agility and automation mark new application development and QA tools Free tools for Agile testers How to deal with iteration issues in Agile Flexibility and teamwork proven traits of Agile team maturity How to stop developer vs. tester, quality-killing blame game Using Agile, scaling back helps software projects in recession How to improve software user acceptance testing practices How testers can handle switching to Agile's short iterations Testers debate differences between waterfall, Agile test automation Tasktop brings task management into the application lifecycle

RELATED GLOSSARY TERMS Terms from Whatis.com − the technology online dictionary acceptance test  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) iteration  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) planning board  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) planning game  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) release  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) release plan  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) spike  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) stand-up  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) story  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com) timebox  (SearchSoftwareQuality.com)

RELATED RESOURCES 2020software.com, trial software downloads for accounting software, ERP software, CRM software and business software systems Search Bitpipe.com for the latest white papers and business webcasts Whatis.com, the online computer dictionary

Introducing agile in a waterfall world David Christiansen provides tips on how to bring agile development to your business. Watch now to learn how to pitch the project approach with out using the word "agile."

Agile software development projects typically don't use a formal "quality assurance" process. That's not to say that agile projects produce inferior products, although QA proponents in your organization will probably use that argument to resist agile project management techniques.

Instead, agile methodologies such as Scrum and Extreme Programming (XP) rely on a couple of less-formal approaches for ensuring that the application does what it is supposed to do and that it doesn't have bugs:

• They let users see the application as early and as often as possible to help confirm that project goals, whether they are stated, implied, or subconscious, are being met.

• They use automated tests, written by developers as they code, to help prevent bugs and make re-factoring easier

• They encourage face-to-face communication between developers and product owners to help prevent the misunderstandings that almost always occur in the over-the-wall exchange of documentation that often lead to failure to meet the goals of the product owner

• They employ motivated generalists (i.e. developers who are competent not just at coding, but also at analysis, testing, communication, etc.) rather than specialists to eliminate "hand-offs" in the development process

The net effect of these approaches is, when done well, a high-quality application. In the 11 production releases that I had in 2007 with my agile project, I had only one or two bugs reported by users in the production environment, and the users were openly thrilled with the functionality we delivered.