Ho Chi Minh City Software Testing Conference January 2015 Software Testing in the Agile World Website: www.hcmc-stc.org Author: An Tran Thien Le Many testers are not clear about their roles in their Agile teams, especially if they have been familiar with the traditional waterfall testing model. This presentation aims to clarify typical tester’s roles and responsibilities on Agile projects. It suggests useful testers’ mindset in working in Agile teams. The presentation also shares ways to collaborate with key stakeholders including customers (or product owners), developers, and other members in Agile teams. Having proper understanding of their roles and responsibilities together with applying their skillsets, testers would do a better job in Agile projects.

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How To Work Effectively
As A Tester In Agile Team

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CONTENT
Scrum & Agile Testing Overview
Agile Tester’s Roles and Responsibilities
Agile Tester’s Mindset
Collaboration in Agile Team
Other Skills Agile Tester Needs
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Agile Scrum Overview
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Agile Testing Overview
Agile Testing is a software
testing practice that follows
the principles of Agile
software development.
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Agile Tester’s Roles & Responsibilities
Responsible for Test Preparation
» Take part in requirement elaboration
» Attend Iteration planning meeting
» Collaborate well with Product Owner to clarify user
stories and the concept of tests
» Prioritize all tasks
» Estimate time for testing features/backlogs
» Identify and mitigate risks
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Agile Tester’s Roles & Responsibilities
Responsible for Test Execution
» Attend Daily Stand up Meeting
» Design Test cases
» Automate acceptance test cases wherever possible
» Perform regression, exploratory & acceptance testing
» Write/update & execute acceptance criteria
» Identify the gap between what the customer expects
and what the team delivers
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Agile Tester’s Roles & Responsibilities
Responsible for Test Evaluation
» Be part of Iteration review & Retrospective meeting
» Responsible for evaluating test deliverables
» Provide continuous feedback to development team
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Agile Tester Mindset
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Agile Tester Mindset
Impediments & Challenges
» Is Tester part of the development team?
» Do we need test strategy and test plan to manage
testing?
» Is the number of defects reported a good metric to
measure testing effectiveness?
» Is automation required only when regression
testing is needed?
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Agile Tester Mindset
Impediments & Challenges
» How to manage Time zone difference?
» How to cope with short iterations?
» How to cope with lack of documentation?
» How to cope with changes of requirement
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Agile Tester Mindset
Impediments & Challenges
» Passive attitudes in daily Scrum meeting
» Focus too much on the detail of backlog items rather
than on bigger picture of product backlog
» Passive in evaluation of changes, asking permission
instead of taking charge
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Agile Tester Mindset
» Take part in all aspects of the team
» Having multiple viewpoints
» Responsible for delivering what the business needs
» Pursue proactive and continuous improvement
» Focus on delivering shippable software
» Respond appropriately to changes
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Collaboration in Agile team
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Collaboration in Agile team
With Product Owner
» PO collaborates with team to:
 Manage product backlog
 Balance quality and progress
 Decide how many backlogs to be included in a sprint
» Tester collaborates with PO to:
 Understand the concept of tests
 Enforce requirements
 Provide quality information to drive development.
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Collaboration in Agile team
With Product Owner
» PO and team have to agree on how requirement
changes are managed
» PO attends Sprint Planning meeting to prioritize
product backlogs
» PO joins Sprint Review to review team outputs
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Collaboration in Agile team
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Collaboration in Agile team
With Developer
» Learn about customers
» Build stories and acceptance testing
» Mature the definition of “done”
» Provide quality information to the developers
quickly
» Install and learn tools
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Collaboration in Agile team
With Developer
» Treat tester & developer as one integrated team
» Be friendly and open-minded
» Sharing thoughts & strategies
» Keep your reporting style positive
» Emphasize collaborations over tools & process
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Other Skills Agile Tester Needs
» Domain Knowledge
» Communication
» Automation Testing
» Exploratory Testing
» Non-functional Testing
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Summary
Agile Tester’s role is not just “Testing”
What makes Agile Tester become effective?
» Understand clearly about Roles & Responsibilities
» Have proper Agile mindset
» Collaborate well with team, and Product owner
» Have skillset that needs for testing job.
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Q&A
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For more information, please contact
An Le – IMT Project Manager
Email: anltt@imt-soft.com
IMT Web site: www.imt-soft.com
HCMC STC Website: www.hcmc-stc.org