Get The Most Out Of Defect Management Tools In An Agile Environment
By Ray Parker
Have you ever wondered how your team can be Agile without having the right tools? Well, it is not truly possible for software testers to achieve their goals without supporting tools. There are different defect management tools for software testing but they are totally different from each other. Each tool serves a different purpose and proactive teams select their tools before beginning their work. Regression testing is a common practice in the agile environment, and in order to keep an application updated, all the testing times are scheduled within the sprint. Usually, changes made during these sprints, are categorized into different user stories. Testers evaluate each story and create different test cases, then categorize each test according to their preference. Once they have carried out the tests successfully, they can be updated, added and removed accordingly.
In an agile environment, there are usually a small number of team members, with a count of 8-10 on an average. Large organizations and enterprises are using agile methodology and choosing the right tool is critical to software testing. With the help of the right defect management tools, software testers can:
- Lower costs
- Shorten release cycles
- Enhance team work and collaboration
- Increase software quality
- Ensure real-time visibility
However, it is equally important to integrate these tools with other critical Business Intelligence (BI) tools that are used for traceability, manual and automated testing, or reporting. This is why defect management tools are altogether important in large projects to achieve quality products.
Each enterprise is different and unique, and before choosing a defect management system, it is important to choose the right agile software testing methodology that is in alignment with the culture of the development teams. Scrum is one of the most popular software testing methodologies in the agile environment that focuses on the key features before beginning the sprint. It is designed for teams to change their approach to agile software development. When introducing scrum, it can be challenging for the development teams because they need to work in iterations, build teams and assign tasks to relative scrum owners. This methodology also allows daily updates and sprint reviews for better communication between the team members.
Hence, we know that defects are a part of any software development process, whether it is in the agile or traditional software testing environment. The methodologies used in agile are more of a continuous process with multiple stages in the development phases. Thus, these tools assist in removing defects at each stage, ensuring that quality is the top priority and can be achieved without much struggle. Testers get a hang of the various defects and problems arising in the software development process. These tools assist in streamlining all the defects and manage them with defect management system so that teams can review these reports and analytics later on, if required. Thus we can say that without defect management system and its tools, software testers would have a lot of challenges that would go unresolved.
References:
https://www.qasymphony.com/blog/agile-testers-agile-test-management-tools/
Author Bio:
Ray Parker is a senior marketing consultant with a knack for writing about the latest news in tech, quality assurance, software development and travel. With a decade of experience working in the tech industry, Ray now dabbles out of his New York office.