At work, the evidence of something worth paying attention to is often front and center, and yet we dismiss it. If you ignore the data—negative survey results, team member absences, an increase in bugs, stakeholders who repeatedly miss meetings, etc.—you could be overlooking signs of trouble.

The conventional approach to software automation for quality creates a losing situation for the people doing the work. When tests are reliable or take more time than first estimated, management and the rest of the team lose confidence. How can you produce consistently quick, quality information?

As organizations embrace agile, requirements become a challenge because they must be considered and validated in each (short) sprint. Ideally, nonfunctional requirements should be a continuous focus throughout the project. Here are some ways to better address NFRs in an agile development lifecycle.