What is waterfall model and Agile model in Testing?

Waterfall model a process in software development, where all the development phases such as requirement gathering, designing, implementation, verification and maintenance were carried out separately and executed only after the completion of each phase. The major drawback of this model is that, the in between changes from the client cannot be included. Since the working model reaches the client only at the final stage of the development process, there can be chances of misinterpretation of requirements, which consumes more time in fixing. Here comes the advantages of agile model.

Agile model
Agile model is an iterative and incremental model where all the development processes are carried out simultaneously. Here there is more of interactions than processes. In this model, client can view the so far completed tasks and the changes can be incorporated. One of the agile development model is scrum.

Main Features of Agile Models are

• Agile methodology scrum.
  In scrum we will have self organising teams. Product is designed, coded, and tested during the sprint. The main aim of scrum is to deliver the highest business value in shortest time.
• Roles and responsibilities:
  1. Product owner
     He is the Representative of client. He is the one who gathers requirement (define features), prioritizing tasks and managing release dates.
  2. Scrum Master
     
     Similar to project manager, a srum master is the person who is responsible for assigning the task, monitoring the team, organising meetings.
  3. Scrum Team
     The scrum team may contain 5-9 people including Programmers, testers, designers, business analyst.
• Sprint:
  It is a Series of iterations having a Duration 2–4 weeks. In between requirement changes will not be handled on the current sprint. They are moved on to next sprint. A list of all desired work/requirements on the project are Prioritized by the product owner such that the top items on the list are prioritized and included into sprint back log.
• Daily scrum meeting:
  Scrum, the daily 15 minutes will be co ordinated by the scrum master. Following 3 questions will be asked during scrum.
  1. What did you do yesterday?
  2. What will you do today?
  3. Is anything on your way?

Even though the questions were small and less in number, the answers of these questions will help team members in getting a clear cut picture about the project. Here the meeting will be informal where all the team members are free to raise their concerns about their assigned tasks. Taking into consideration of the above advantages, agile model is now more preferred.