A development methodology is the way a team organizes the software development process.
It affects: • when testing starts • how often software is delivered • how teams collaborate • how defects are handled • how much planning is needed
Common methodologies include: • Waterfall • V-Model • Agile
Agile is a way of working where teams deliver software in small increments, get feedback often, and improve continuously.
Instead of one large delivery at the end, Agile focuses on: • smaller releases • continuous collaboration • frequent feedback • ongoing testing
In Agile, testing is not only a final phase. Testing happens throughout the iteration.
This means: • testers work closely with developers and product people • testing starts early • feedback is fast • regression and retesting happen often
Testing starts as early as possible.
Testing happens during development, not only after development.
Quality is not only the tester’s job. Developers, testers, analysts, and product people all contribute.
The team wants to know quickly if something is wrong.
In Agile, when a new “Add to Cart” feature is planned: • QA joins requirement discussion • test ideas are created early • developers build the feature • testers check it during the sprint • bugs are fixed quickly • regression may be run before the sprint ends
This is different from waiting until the end of the project.
Waterfall is a traditional sequential development model.
Typical flow: 1. requirements 2. design 3. development 4. testing 5. release
Each phase usually happens after the previous one.
Work moves step by step, like water flowing downward.
In Waterfall: • testing often starts later • testers may get involved after development is mostly finished • changes can be harder to handle late in the process
A team spends months writing requirements and building the system. Only after development is completed does the QA team start full testing.
This can be risky, because late defects may be expensive to fix.
The V-Model is also a sequential development model, similar to Waterfall.
The main difference is that the V-Model gives stronger attention to test planning early in the process.
Each development phase is linked to a corresponding testing phase.
Waterfall says: build first, test later
V-Model says: while building each stage, already think about how it will be tested
On the left side: • business requirements • system requirements • high-level design • detailed design
At the bottom: • coding
On the right side: • unit testing • integration testing • system testing • acceptance testing
This supports early testing, because testers do not wait until the end to start thinking.
If the team is writing requirements for a payment system, QA already thinks: • how will acceptance testing be done? • what business flows must be validated? • what test conditions should be prepared?
This is better than waiting until all coding is finished.
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