Did you ever wonder what a tester does on an agile team? There are no formal written requirements documents from which to create test cases, and the features aren’t complete before they need to be tested. It can be confusing for testers who are new to agile teams. New agile development project teams often don’t understand how beneficial having a tester can be to the overall success of the project.
In this tutorial, we’ll follow an agile tester through typical two-week iteration, and more. We start with how testers contribute during release and iteration planning, and then follow a tester from the start, through to the end of an iteration to see what activities he does and how he adds value. Exercises and discussions will reinforce the learning. Finally, we examine the agile tester’s role in a successful release, including the end game, UAT, packaging, and documentation.
Any tester who is struggling to understand their role on an agile team, functional managers, or other members of an agile team (developers, iteration managers, product owners) wanting to know how to get all their stories, including all testing tasks, “done” by the end of each iteration, will find value in this.
The co-author of Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Agile Testers and Teams, Janet Gregory is a consultant who specializes in helping teams build quality systems using agile methods. Based in Calgary, Canada, Janet’s greatest passion is promoting agile quality processes. As tester or coach she has helped introduce agile development practices into companies and has successfully transitioned several traditional test teams into the agile world. Her focus is working with business users and testers to understand their roles in agile projects. Janet teaches courses on agile testing and is a frequent speaker at agile and testing software conferences around the world.