Agile Testing Certifications: Elevating Your Testing Career

Agile Testing Certification is becoming increasingly important in today’s IT sector, where Agile is a widely used development style that enables faster delivery of high-quality software to clients. Among the professionals who employ Agile approaches are Quality Analysts/Assurance, Developers, Managers, Business Analysts, Designers, and Scrum Masters.

The typical test preparation period lasts around one month, during which candidates must master a substantial quantity of technical material and learn to manage their time efficiently.

Balancing certification exam preparation with college studies, essay writing, and reading all the required Agile material is not simple.

Ask professional writers: write my essay for me, and you will get help. Having enough time for your testing as a student isn’t easy. It is often not enough to read Syllabus. QA education needs a big effort. You should also read a lot of literature, learn the terms, and have more practice with dumps.

Why Do You Need to Get Agile Certifications?

There are several reasons to pass Agile certifications:

• Systematize previously acquired knowledge.
• Gain new knowledge. During the certification preparation, you may find gaps in knowledge that need to be filled.
• Test your strength. Certification will answer “how good are you in Agile?”
• Move to a new position or role if you want to gain the knowledge you need to perform new responsibilities.
• Promotion. Certificates increase your value in the eyes of the employer.

What is Agile Testing?

What is Agile for testing? And what does it teach? Agile testing is a different form of testing. In other words, Agile is a set of approaches and behavior patterns focused on the use of iterative development, time boxes, dynamic formulation of requirements, and ensuring the implementation of software as a result of interaction within a highly self-organized working group of specialists of different profiles.

The Agile approach should change the entire train of thought of the team.

Test more every day.

The main point is that each task is reviewed by QA Team immediately after it is completed. Peer reviews, even small ones, can be conducted for code, documentation, and test cases.

Doing bug prevention is more than finding bugs.

So how do you prevent bugs? This should be done the soon as possible. A significant part of the bugs is introduced at the requirements stage. It usually happens like this: often, people make assumptions about the requirements and implement the task according to their premises. This is clarified only during testing, then the bug is detected.

It would be much more productive to clarify these assumptions before writing the first line of code. It is imperative to achieve the confidence that everyone – customers, programmers, and testers – has the same understanding of how it should work. So the best way to prevent bugs is to ask ridiculous questions about what “everyone already understands.”

Do comprehensibility testing more than functionality testing 

Some Software Testers believe their job is to verify product compliance and specification. They will need help getting used to Agile. But this is just a formal check of how accurately the developers have fulfilled the technical task. This says very little about the quality of the product and its suitability for use.

Agile testers need to become advocates for customers. They need to deeply understand who their users are and what goals they want to achieve with this product. Testers should always look at the product from the customer’s point of view, from the user’s side. It is essential to check if the product meets the real needs of customers or even what the customer has asked for

Value in developing a better system more than trying to break it.

Many test engineers try to break the system during testing. And they believe that their job is only to detect technical defects. Yes, a tester can play the role of a strange user and try to damage something, but this is only one aspect of your job. Positive testing is as important as negative testing.

Sometimes QA Engineers, especially beginners, get too carried away with complex negative tests: what if I enter 27 digits after the point? What if I enter a string of 8000 characters? Remember the main goal – to create a product that carries value and performs its functions properly. So, simple positive tests, close to the real actions of users, are still a priority.

The team is responsible for quality is more than the tester’s responsibility.

The role of testing is to determine the level of quality and inform stakeholders about it. Quality improvement is possible only through the joint efforts of the whole team. Traditionally, testing has been understood as the phase that follows development.

However, in Agile development, testing is not a phase but an activity that needs to happen, along with programming, writing documentation, and all the rest.

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What are Knowledge Certifications Providing?

• Structuring of information (theory);
• Reinforcement of the theory with practical tasks and tasks;
• Elaboration of all aspects of testing – both in working with the software itself and aspects of the manager’s work, risk accounting, interaction in the team, work models in general;
• types of static and dynamic testing, types of Black-box and White-box testing techniques;
• the fundamental process of testing in detail and with examples;
• tasks (duties) of the Test Lead and the Tester;
• test plan – what, how, why;
• Risk management in the context of testing.

Preparing for certification

Start your preparation with the learning Syllabus and Glossary. Here you can download all necessary guides and find sample exam questions. 

Also, there are many apps in Google Play and Apple Store for QA and Agile Testing.

ISTQB dumps are an excellent idea for test preparation. These tests are the basis of the certification. I recommend you print all these dumps. And mark the correct answers in some color for better memorization.

Also, do not forget about Mock tests.

There are many exciting books about Agile methodology that you can read before testing:

• “Head First Agile” by Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Green
• Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory are great Agile writers. There are many books by these authors. Lisa has her website, where you can read a blog about Agile and buy her books.

When passing certification, two things are needed: knowledge of the subject area and the ability to pass a specific accreditation. It’s not enough to know testing and SDLC – you need to be able to think like those who compiled these tests.

3 Most Popular Agile Testing Certifications:

ISTQB Agile Testing Certification

The ISTQB Foundation Level certification is the starting point for Agile Testers. It is the initial stage in a certification path, with Basic, Advanced, and Expert levels available.

The certification is available in various formats, including classroom, virtual, and e-learning. The curricula at the Basic and Advanced levels differ, and the Advanced level is separated into three sections, each leading to a different certificate. The Expert level is also broken down into modules.

The Basic Level exam has 40 multiple-choice questions (60 minutes) and requires a passing score of at least 65% (26 or more points).

After passing the exam and paying the cost, the certificate will be emailed to you within six weeks. The certificate includes the candidate’s name as well as the ISTQB® logo.

ICAgile Agile Tester Certification

Certifications from ICAgile are not tied to a single methodology but have broader coverage and focus on Agile thinking, values, principles, and fundamental concepts. ICAgile offers three levels of certification:

• ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP);
• ICAgile Certified Expert (ICE);
• ICAgile Certified Master Agilist (ICM). After completing agile certifications, you can get an international certificate.

Training from ICAgile is quite famous and popular.

Getting a certificate is quite simple: 

Take a course, and you will receive a certificate.

Training takes place on 8 tracks plus 1 business unit.

Each track has 2 levels. Training at each level lasts for 3 days. 

There is a lot of practice.

The certificate will be sent within 4 weeks after the course.

The certificate is issued indefinitely, and there is no need to renew.

PMI

PMI has one of the most challenging certifications. The exam will require knowledge of a wide range of methodologies and frameworks. There are no tracks. This is one of the few certifications that still needs to be tolerated. To access the Agile Certified Practitioner | PMI exam, you will need the following:

• At least 12 months of project management experience over the past five years;
• At least 8 months of Agile project management in the last three years;
• 21 hours of training in any Agile course (not necessarily accredited).

There are few exam preparation courses. You need to be ready to confirm the information in the questionnaire. Your application may be subject to audit.

The exam consists of 120 questions; most are situational and based on practical cases. The exam continues for 3 hours. The criterion for successful delivery is kept a secret, but according to rumors, there are about 70 correct answers. The certificate must be renewed every 3 years. If you plan to do this, remember that it is enough to pass 30 hours of training in certified courses.

Advantages:

• One of the most famous companies.
• You must pass an exam.

Disadvantages:

• One of the most challenging certifications.
• It is necessary to be admitted to the exam.
• There is an exam fee
• You need to renew the certificate.

In addition to the availability of the necessary knowledge, the international certificate shows the employer that:

• You are purposeful and know what you want because you spent time preparing and obtaining certification.

• ·You strive to develop and gain new knowledge.

• You know the theory enough to pass all the tests.

What skills can be acquired?

• Understand the processes of task evaluation and how tasks should be evaluated

• Learn how to correctly determine the criteria for accepting task

– And the most exciting thing is how exploratory occurs, how it should be in theory (in practice, it will take a little longer, but the final result may be pleasantly surprising)

Conclusion

Finally, Agile Testing Certification is very valuable in the IT sector and can greatly improve one’s chances of finding a job doing Agile software testing. Various well-known Agile Testing Certifications are available as of 2023; Professionals may show their knowledge of Agile testing approaches and increase their marketability to future employers by earning one of these certifications.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Which Agile certification is best for a tester?

PMI is the best and most demanding certification. Try to find a certificate according to your needs and knowledge. Some companies like PMI require more knowledge and experience. If you need more experience, try to pass the ICAgile test.

What do testers do in Agile?

Good Agile tester promotes quality and best practices.

The most important thing is to meet the needs of users and businesses. QA advocates for processes that ensure that the developed product meets the needs of users and the organization. It prevents the creation of defects instead of detecting them. Analyzes requirements, pairing with Product Owners, Business Analysts, and Developers.  

They write unit tests, looks at pull requests, listen to what the programmer does, and discuss edge case. Studies and knows the product being developed and provides information to other team members. It is a “glue” that unites all team members and all roles.

Teaches the team that everyone should be responsible for the quality. Initiates quality discussions

What skills do Agile testers need? The agile tester should know and understand Agile principles and concepts well.

To quickly understand the requirements and work with large amounts of sometimes disparate information. Since the requirements are constantly changing, the tester must understand and be aware of the risks associated with this. Based on the needs of the Agile tester must be able to prioritize work correctly. Effectively communicate with business partners, developers, and other testers.

What types of testing are carried out during Agile?

The main types of testing during Agile are automated Unit testing and Exploratory testing.

Although, depending on the requirements of the project, the tester can perform various functional and non-functional tests.

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