In this article have a quick look at Continuous integration practice & its benefits and why the combination of behavior driven testing and exploratory testing has to be the best fit for Continuous Integration quality control.

1. Effective QA practices for Continuous Integration
development projects
Faster, better and cheaper is the expected result of any given hour in any given business case. Now that many organizations have adopted continu
ous integration in practice, it is for testers to get aligned to continuous integration development practices.
In this article let us have a quick look at Continuous integration practice & its benefits and why the combination of behaviour driven testing and
exploratory testing has to be the best fit for continuous integration quality control.
Continuous Integration practice and its benefits
Continuous Integration (CI) is a practice in agile methodologies where all developer workspaces are merged with a shared mainline several
times a day.In Continuous integration practice, software development is achieved by adding new code several times a day, but also by
refactoring existing codes written during previous iterations. This refactoring can be safely achieved only with a strong test system so that
the whole software doesn’t break when new code is added or when existing ones are modified.
Continuous Integration benefits:
Developers detect and fix integration problems continuously by avoiding last-minute chaos at release dates
Early warning of broken/incompatible code
Early warning of conflicting changes
Perform immediate unit testing for all changes
Immediate feedback to developers on the quality, functionality and system-wide impact of code
Metrics generated from automated testing and CI (such as metrics for code coverage, code complexity, and features complete) focus
developers on developing functional, quality code, and help develop momentum in a team
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Continuous Integration quality control
From the above mentioned points, you can clearly see the need of an efficient quality control system that replaces the regular practice of
following quality control processes with different phases and cycles for testing systems after completing all development. Also, continuous
integration quality control has to be different from the traditional quality control processes of phased unit, system and system integration
testing.

2. I can only see Behaviour driven testing which is based on the principle of unit testing focuses on behavioral specification of software units as
a best fix to continuous integration quality control
Develop test scenarios that cover software behaviour as in Behaviour Driven Development feature pattern. Note: BDT test scenarios
can be created even when development team follow methodology other than Behaviour Driven Development
Execute test scenarios with manual/automated scripts. Tools like Cucumber, JBehave and Selenium support BDT test automation with
can be integrated with continuous integration servers
Only possible cons which I encountered while practicing BDT is the possibility of missing system integration scenarios between the codes
written in previous iteration with the current iteration. Exploratory testing helps me in addressing the missing system integration scenarios
within the iterations with minimum effort.
Cem Kaner, who coined the term in 1983, now defines exploratory testing as “a style of software testing that emphasizes the personal
freedom and responsibility of the individual tester to continually optimize the quality of his/her work by treating test-related learning, test
design, test execution, and test result interpretation as mutually supportive activities that run in parallel throughout the project
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The balancing act: BDT and Exploratory Testing
I strongly recommend that balancing Exploratory Testing with manual and automated Behaviour Driven Testing is the way to go for continu
ous integration quality control.
Though BDT helps in testing the business outcomes and unit conditions as early as possible in development life cycle, exploratory testing will
help in going out of box and catching the interface related testing gaps which we would have missed in BDT test script.
Automated behaviour driven testing – Prepare test scenarios using BDT approach and automate possible test scenarios in the effort
available. Integrate Continuous integration servers with BDT automation tools for testing inline web & native application.
Manual behaviour driven testing – Execute manually the test scenarios which are not automated.
Exploratory testing – Reach out of box by executing exploratory testing to ensure test complete.
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About Aspire
Aspire Systems is a global technology services firm serving as a trusted technology partner for our customers. We work with some of the
world's most innovative enterprises and independent software vendors, helping them leverage technology and outsourcing in our specific
areas of expertise. Our services include Product Engineering, Enterprise Transformation, Independent Testing Services and IT
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