Agile Testing vs. Traditional Testing

Which testing model should be chosen depends on the team's requirements. Communication and automation are just two factors that differentiate these methods.

Richa Sharma

Jan. 14, 17 · Opinion

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If you’re working in the field of QA testing, then you must have come across Agile and the traditional ways of testing. While some understand the difference and usability of both the kinds, a few still do not know much in terms of differences between the two. So, here we are to help you differentiate between the two kinds of testing and explain which one to opt for, as per your requirements.

Communication

Traditional testers highly rely on documentation. Yes, documentation plays a very important role in the traditional testing scenario with all the use cases and test cases preparations involved. On the other hand, in the case of agile testing, the documentation doesn’t come as a great deal in QA. QA testers, in this case, go for assimilation of the facts that they need in any form without much of documentation and carry off with the process.

Automation

Agile testing encourages the process of automation as much as possible in the testing scenario, but at times, the teams struggle a bit with the usage of tools. However, when it comes to the traditional means of testing, automation is more of a familiar practice for developers.

Exploratory Testing

In an agile testing project, the requirements may not be fixed, i.e., one can introduce changes in a healthy way. This indicates that the test case doesn’t have to be fixed with all criteria, as it used to be in the earlier scenarios and is open to exploring. This lets the user to uncover more considerations and customizations, whereas in the case of traditional testing, the requirements tend to stay fixed and concrete.

Testers as Quality Coaches

Agile testing lets testers continue to be quality coaches within the team, which permits them to share their opinion on the subject of Quality Assurance. In the traditional setup, this liberty isn’t offered.

Here is a brief comparison between the two kinds of testing.

Traditional	Agile
Follows a top-down approach, where the completion of one phase leads to another phase, making the changes difficult to carry out.	Testing is carried out simultaneously on a number of techniques, and the best-optimized result is chosen to move further with.
The project manager handles the leadership.	All members are assigned accountability for their individual roles and job.
Steps are pre-planned and the same process is followed throughout.	Offers a comparatively flexible approach where changes can be brought about at any stage.
Client’s involvement needs in the initial phases of deciding the requirements.	The client’s requirements are needed throughout.

We hope the differences between the two testing types is cleared up. Which testing model should be chosen depends on the team's requirements, and it is advisable that one considers all the aspects of these testing methodologies.

agile Agile testing

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