What is Agile Methodology?
Agile methodology is the alternative of the traditional method of project management. The agile management is used in software development. This agile project management helps team to interact, responding unpredictably, which is called sprints.
The agile methodologies are alternative to the waterfall methodology and traditional development. The agile testing interview questions will help you crack the interviews for this agile testing methodology.
21 Agile Testing Interview Questions and Answers:
Here are some of the top questions on agile which would help you in preparing for the agile methodology interview questions. Some of the questions are as follows:
1. Tell about agile testing?
This could be the very first question. Everyone would like to know whether you know about the foundation or no. So, this question could be answered like, this agile testing is the practice which follows in the dynamic environment. This is required because, in such an environment, requirements for testing keep on changing as per the customer need and demand. This testing is done in parallel with that of the development activity which receives testing codes from their development teams.
2. Tell about differences between the burn down and burn up chart?
The burndown and burn up charts are used to keep a close track of the project work done. It is used to check the progress of project.
The burn up charts help us to know the amount of work that has been done till date assigned. While the burn down charts are used to know what else is pending or left out. These charts help to review the situation and also help to analyze the whole work.
3. What is agile model testing process and how is it different from the traditional ways?
The agile model testing is the practice which follows the principle of the agile software development. The major difference between the traditional method of waterfall model is that agile is not the phase, but the activity which goes in parallel with the development.
In the agile environment, small features of the software are sent frequently, so, this way the testing activity goes parallel to other activity. But this is not the case in the waterfall activity because of that testing is the biggest effort done after the whole application is made. The time of testing is very long as the whole application needs to be tested.
4. Tell us about the good characteristics of the agile tester?
Here are some of the good characteristics of the agile tester:
a. It’s a good communicator:
In the terms of agile, the level of communication has increased with the QAs, Bas and Devs.
b. It’s priorities changes with time:
The priorities change very frequently in the agile projects. So, this way the agile projects should be able to prioritize the important task. Agile tester should be able to understand the concept and principles properly. He should participate in the daily sprint planning, stand – ups and the retrospectives. Should not be afraid of the changes as per the time demands.
c. What would be your approach when the requirements change?
Many changes arise with the time, but those changes are not in the requirement, but in the technical details which changes with time. For instance, the behaviour of the feature remains the same, but there are changes in the implementation. Other possible answers can be like:
Work very closely with the owner of the products so as to analyze the scope of the change so that testing is done.
Make sure that your team understands the risk involved in it and also the change in requirement especially during the end of the sprint.
If you are thinking to automate the feature, then it is better to wait till the feature and the requirements become stable.
Negotiate well if the changes can be done to keep it a minimum or if you can implement the changes in the next sprint.
d. Explain about the key factors when you are working as a QA in the agile team?
QA adds a lot of value to the agile team because of the arid mindset. The testers can think of the possible scenario in order to test a story. However, the most important aspect here is:
To provide the quick feedback:
Providing feedback is important because the developers need to know if the new functionality works well or not. Also they need to know the feedback very quickly. The QA provides the instant result which saves a lot of time and energy.
To know if any defect is there or not:
In order to prevent the defects from entering the system, this has to be checked at the first place.
5. Tell about the main roles of the scrum?
The scrum team consists of mainly three roles like:
The product owner, the scrum master and the scrum team itself. The product owner helps in managing the product backlog.
The product owner is the voice of the business and helps in creating new features that needs to be developed for the application.
Next is the scrum master which is responsible for the management of the sprint, also keeps track of the progress.
The third one is the scrum team, which is composed of the developers, QA and designers. This helps in forming the team, which is responsible for delivering the quality software. So these are the main roles of the important component of the scrum.
6. Tell about the terms product backlog and the sprint backlog?
The product backlog is owned and maintained by the owner of the project. It also contains every feature and the major requirements of the project.
Sprint backlog can be considered as one of the subsets of the backlog of the product. It contains the features and the requirements only related to that particular sprint.
7. Explain refactoring?
When the codes are modified without changing it’s functionality in order to improve the performance it is defined as refactoring.
8. Explain about pair programming and the benefits:
The pair programming as the name itself suggest that it is a technique where two programmers work as a team. Here one programmer writes down the code while the other one reviews the codes. Also, both of them can switch their roles as per their own understanding and the knowledge.
The benefits of the pair programming are given below:
It provides improved code quality:
As the work is divided, the chances of doing mistake are reduced in lower level.
Transfer of the knowledge is very easy:
If one of the partners is experienced, he will be able to teach the other partner new techniques and the policies which are helpful for both you and the partner.
9. What do you mean by scrum ban?
It is the software development model, that is the combination of both the scrum and the kanban. The scrum ban is mainly used for the maintenance of the projects which also contain the frequent changes and the unexpected users stories.
Scrum ban can also help in minimizing the completion time for the user stories. Because of the benefits it provide, there is massive use of the scrum ban and also it is very helpful.
10. What do you know about TDD?
TDD means test driven development. It is the development technique where in we basically add a test before writing down the whole production code. Next is that we run the test and on the basis of the result refactor, it is done so as to fulfill the requirement of the test.
11. Name some of the agile quality strategies?
Some of the major agile quality strategies are as follows:
Dynamic code analysis, refactoring, iteration and small feedback cycles.
12. Tell about zero sprint?
It is the pre-step to first sprint. Some of the activities like the setting of the development environment and preparing backlog should be done before you start with first sprint. They can also be considered as the zero sprint.
13. What is the agile manifesto?
Agile manifesto is defined as an interactive and people centric approach to the software development. It is basically about the four key values and the 12 principals.
14. What is the importance of the daily standup meeting?
This is basically essential for all the teams because:
The team discusses about the work completed and the pending work. Also, they discuss about plans to solve the technical issues which arise. Not just this, also about the future steps the discussion is done so as to complete a project as soon as possible.
15. What do you know about the tracer bullet?
Tracer bullet is defined as the spike which helps with the recent architecture and ongoing set of best practices. The main purpose of this is to closely find how the whole process will work and move with the flow.
16. Tell about the ways of measurement of the velocity of the sprint?
If the capacity is calculated in the percentage of 40 hours per week, then the team capacity multiplied by finished story points.
If the capacity is calculated in the man hours, then the whole story points divided by team capacity.
17. What do you mean by a spike?
In design, there may be some technical design issues in the project which needs to be solved at the very first. In order to provide the solution of such problems, spikes are created and these are mainly of two types like functional and technical.
18. What is the test stub?
It is a small code which mimics the specific component in the system and it can also replace it. The output remains the same as per the component which is replaced.
19. Explain about the velocity in agile?
Velocity is calculated by the addition of all the efforts which is associated with the user stories which is further completed in the iteration process. It helps in predicting how much agile work can be completed in a sprint and how long it will take to accomplish the project work.
20. Explain about the interactive and the incremental development?
The iterative development is that in which the software is developed and then delivered to the customer. After that looking for the feedback, again the cycles are developed in the sprints and then released.
For example, in the release 1, the software is developed in almost five sprints and then delivered to the customers. If in case the customer wants some changes then the development team has to plan something new which can be done within less time and also can be completed in few sprints.
Next is the incremental development:
In this the software is developed in parts or increments as the name itself says. In every portion a complete requirement has to be delivered.
21. Explain the difference between the user stories, epic and the tasks?
The user stories define the actual business requirements. The requirements are usually created by the business owner himself so that the major demands, and the needs of the customers is achieved that too on time.
Task means the work that the development team needs to complete within the prescribed time frame. The last one is epic. It is defined as the group of stories.
Final Words:
So, above are some of the agile development interview questions that one needs to keep in mind and also prepare before going for the interview. There are many other numbers of questions which one needs to prepare for so that no question is left unanswered. Whichever question comes forth you, just keep in mind that you need to be very confident. This is because, most of the time, the interviewers test the confidence of an individual and not the knowledge.
