Agile Testing vs. Waterfall Testing

We had this small conversation with my colleague, what Agile Testing really is and is there a conceptional difference between these two?

One thing should be common. Both should verify that the customer expectations are satisfied. But when in waterfall way of testing, the testing phase is long and in the beginning of testing condition of software is uncertain, in Agile the emphasis is always on working software, situation where we are each moment should be clear. This is done by using Continuous Integration, with Automated Regression tests.

Finding bugs is one of the main reasons of testing in waterfall model. In Agile, on the other hand, and especially when using Engineering practices like Test Driven Development (TDD) and Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD), tests are telling when things are done and bugs are avoided in the first place.

Also iterative way of doing makes planning different. In waterfall, testers have a long period of test planning, but in Agile test planning is made in the same way as everything else, in the last moment (of course not too late :) ) and also it's short term.

Exploratory Testing - Practical Guide

We had a small session with one of our Agile Coaches about Exploratory Testing (ET) and we came out with following practical guide. This guide is written in Scrum Context. I'll try to update this guide, when I explore more about Exploring :)

So what is Exploratory Testing? Word exploring is actually very defining word. Idea is to explore, how product the in our hands is working, and this does not mean only trying to find as many bugs as you can , but also find out how it really is behaving and come familiar with it.

How to do this?

- Product Owner (PO) should be the person, who requests this.
- PO decides the area which is going to be explored.
- You should not write own User Story out of ET, just allocate time in Sprint for it.
- Short 30-60min intensive session.
- Intensive session excludes time for preparation and analysis.
- All observations are written down, during session but not analyzed.
- Analysis happens after session.
- You can use real entities towards System Under Test, or use test tools.

That's all folks. Happy exploring :)