What are Agile Methodologies in Testing?

Agile methodologies in testing refer to a series of approaches for testing which integrate within software development phases, focusing on flexibility, collaboration, and continuous feedback. The testing effort is broken down into smaller, manageable tasks done in line with specific user stories or requirements, permitting early and continuous testing throughout the development life cycle.

Various techniques are incorporated in agile testing: Test-Driven Development, Acceptance Test-Driven Development, Behavior-Driven Development, exploratory testing, and session-based testing, thus ensuring high-quality delivery by validating features against customers' expectations and business requirements.

The Agile testing life cycle is composed of the following stages- Test Planning, daily scrums, construction iteration, release end game, and production. Each stage ensures a continuous improvement in adaptation to the changing needs of a project. In an Agile manner, the testing also uses the Agile Testing Quadrants that define and categorize the tests into technology-facing, business-facing, manual feedback, and non-functional testing to have complete coverage.

Basic principles of Agile testing are to start testing the product at an early stage of the project, deliver it frequently, and involve intense cooperation from developers, testers, and stakeholders. Agile testing enables rapid feedback to reduce the cost of fixing problems at a very early stage and to ensure that what is being delivered at the end of the project is what the customer actually expected.