COUTINHO, J.C.S.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/2653822181967565; COUTINHO, Jarbele Cássia da Silva.
Resumo:
The insertion of agile practices in the development of software has increased exponentially,
in the face of market demands regarding the agility and high quality of the software products
developed. Thus, agile methods have stimulated, in teams, simpler, dynamic, and iterative
practices that consider the reduction of artifacts, frequent communication between stake-
holders, and flexibility for changes, among other aspects. A style of testing that has become
widespread in the agile environment is Exploratory Testing (ET), as it allows professionals
to learn quickly, adjust their tests and, in the process, find software problems that are often
not foreseen in test plans. However, the ET approaches evidenced by the literature are not
applicable in the practical context of agile teams. Other reasons are given by the absence
of more specific support for the planning and execution of the ET, considering the multi-
functional profile of the team; ET artifacts are obsolete for the current context of teams;
the Session-Based Test Management (SBTM), for example, does not apply to the practical
context; difficulty in reproducing the ET, due to the absence of powerful artifacts; among
others. In this sense, the objective of this research is to support the implementation of ET
in software development environments that adopt agile methods practices.For this, we use
a problem-oriented research method, known as Design Science Research (DSR). Based on
methodological rigor, two DSR cycles were applied. The results generated in this research
indicate that the Agile ETeasy method is easy to understand and use by agile teams that work
in the context of informal documentation and frequent changes in requirements. In view of
what was investigated, we can conclude that the proposed artifact with the DSR is viable
to be used in practice by agile teams, as it enables the mitigation of the main limitations of
the application of ET in projects that adopt agile methods; and, the practical formalization
of ET, which consider the cross-functional context of agile teams, and which provides quick
results, with a little number of resources.