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Automated software testing
Agile testing is a software testing practice that follows the statutes
of the agile manifesto, treating software development as the customer of testing.
Agile testing involves testing from the customer perspective as early
as possible, testing early and often as code becomes available and
stable enough from module/unit level testing.
Since working increments of the software is released very often in
agile software development there is also a need to test often. This
is often done by using automated acceptance testing to minimize
the amount of manual labor. Doing only manual testing in agile
development would likely result in either buggy software or slipping
schedules because it would most often not be possible to test the
whole software manually before every release.
Agile software development is a conceptual framework for software
engineering that promotes development iterations throughout the
life-cycle of the project.
There are many agile development methods; most minimize risk
by developing software in short amounts of time. Software developed
during one unit of time is referred to as an iteration, which may last
from one to four weeks. Each iteration is an entire software project:
including planning, requirements analysis, design, coding, testing,
and documentation. An iteration may not add enough functionality
to warrant releasing the product to market but the goal is to have
an available release (without bugs) at the end of each iteration. At
the end of each iteration, the team re-evaluates project priorities.
Agile methods emphasize face-to-face communication over written
documents. Most agile teams are located in a single open office
sometimes referred to as a bullpen. At a minimum, this includes
programmers and their "customers" (customers define the product;
they may be product managers, business analysts, or the clients).
The office may include testers, interaction designers, technical
writers, and managers.
Agile methods also emphasize working software as the primary
measure of progress. Combined with the preference for face-to-face
communication, agile methods produce very little written documentation
relative to other methods. This has resulted in criticism of agile methods
as being undisciplined.
