ThoughtWorks Studios' New Twist 2.0 Provides Collaborative Agile Test Management

SAN FRANCISCO and BANGALORE, India, March 1 /PRNewswire/ -- ThoughtWorks Studios, (www.thoughtworks-studios.com) a global leader in Agile ALM and training, today announced the latest version of its Agile test automation solutions, Twist® 2.0. Designed to manage the rapid pace of software testing within Agile environments, Twist 2.0 helps testers, developers and business analysts work together to ensure testing is highly efficient and collaborative, resulting in faster release cycles of quality applications.

"It's very common for people involved in software testing to spend more time trying to keep their automated tests in synch with development rather than actually testing applications," said Cyndi Mitchell, managing director, for ThoughtWorks Studios. "Twist provides a framework for test automation and test-driven development that allows all stakeholders to build test suites and scenarios using plain English, thereby mitigating the complexity of traditional test automation."

Twist offers simplicity and an intuitive user experience to create highly robust and reusable test automation frameworks for both manual and functional automated tests. An integral part of ThoughtWorks Studios' Adaptive ALM solution, Twist provides continuous visibility into testing activities across distributed projects and teams.

Unlike traditional test tools, Twist uses Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and Domain Specific Language (DSL) to allow test automation specialists, developers and business analysts to work collaboratively as a means of ensuring testing efforts match the exact, intended functionality of new applications. This unique approach of using the English language to build test scripts expands the testing process to the "business side" of software development, reducing development re-work and faulty software that does not meet strategic business goals. Twist allows teams to adjust and/or react to change effectively through an open and flexible framework conducive to testing within short sprints or iterations. Ultimately, it allows the testing effort to keep pace with the increasingly rapid rate of application delivery.

New features in Twist 2.0 include:

• Hybrid Test Execution – allows for manual and automated test steps within the same scenario. This improves collaboration and execution efficiency of both automated and manual testing efforts.
• Improved Workflow Reuse – provides high level test scenarios and steps (manual and automated) that can be reused and shared within and across multiple projects.
• Groovy Scripting – supports the Groovy dynamic Agile language for Java. It makes modern programming features available to Twist users with almost zero learning curve.
• Additional Web Driver support for Sahi – testers have the option of using Sahi or Selenium for Web testing. The benefit of using Sahi is that it abstracts out most difficulties that testers face while automating Web applications.
• SWTBOT support – allows Twist users to test Java SWT-based applications.
• Data Driven Scenarios – build data-driven tests on the fly for increased test coverage.

ThoughtWorks Studios is the products division of the industry leading Agile consultancy ThoughtWorks®. Its Adaptive ALM™ solution includes Mingle® (project management), Twist® (test automation) and Cruise® (release management), to manage all aspects of the software development and delivery lifecycle – from requirements definition and portfolio management to test automation, quality assurance and release management.

Twist supports Agile ALM by combining requirements and test specification management and creation, and by providing manual and test automation to ensure quality throughout the application lifecycle. It plays a significant role in ThoughtWorks Studios' Adaptive ALM by providing a robust, reusable, multi-platform testing capability that ensures testing keeps pace with application development. Twist increases visibility and awareness of Agile testing activities by providing test results for processes managed by Mingle and Cruise. Together with Mingle, it connects directly to Mingle repositories and links story cards directly to Twist test scenarios. This provides full traceability of test and requirements coverage. When integrated with Cruise, Twist can export all of the necessary libraries to run test scenarios and suites. This allows tests to be run as part of a build (with reports of test results).

For more information on ThoughtWorks Studios' new Twist 2.0 please visit http://www.thoughtworks-studios.com/agile-test-automation. Users can also access a free, 30-day download by visiting: (http://www.thoughtworks-studios.com/user/register&destination=forms/form/twist/download).

About ThoughtWorks Studios

ThoughtWorks Studios is a global leader in Agile ALM tools and training. Its products and services are used by organizations as a foundation for sustainable Agile adoption, where project management, automation and engineering best practices are required. The company's Adaptive ALM solution provides a platform for managing all aspects of the software development lifecycle – from requirements definition and project management to test automation, quality assurance and release management.  The three products that make up Adaptive ALM™, Mingle® (project management), Twist® (test automation) and Cruise® (release management), are available as an integrated solution or as stand-alone products. The company also provides in-depth training courses that cover all aspects of Agile ALM through its Agile Workshops series. Backed as an independent division of ThoughtWorks®, the pioneering leader in Agile development and best-practices, ThoughtWorks Studios' customers include 3M, Barclays, BBC, eBay, Honeywell, McGraw-Hill, Rackspace and Vodafone. It is headquartered in San Francisco and Bangalore, with offices in London and select cities in Europe, Asia and Australia. For more information, please visit www.thoughtworks-studios.com.

SOURCE ThoughtWorks Studios