TEST Magazine asked me to step in and write a quick answer to the question “As more organisations transition to an agile environment, how will the testers role be redefined?”.
TEST Magazine May 2016
TEST Magazine asked me to step in and write a quick answer to the question “As more organisations transition to an agile environment, how will the testers’ role be redefined?”.
You can see the response on page 48 of the March edition.
My Answer to the Question “What is the Role of a Tester on Agile Projects?”
In Many Ways The Tester’s Role is Unchanged on an Agile Project
In many ways the tester’s responsibilities remain unchanged. The tester must still apply their skills to expose risks, coverage gaps, assumptions and ambiguities. As a tester on Agile projects I had to ensure that my testing skills remained at the top of their game. I also learned to test faster, to fit into the shorter feedback cycles, and use the team communication tools to track and manage testing.
No two Agile implementations are the same. Testers have to adapt to their organisations specific implementation and learn to use a ‘whole team’ approach to mitigate risk, rather than trying to do so single-handedly. Testers apply their risk identification skills to the Agile process, as well as the system: identifying gaps in the automated coverage, and ambiguities in the story definitions and acceptance criteria; and then helping the team adopt mitigating test approaches.
Testers succeed when they redefine their own role.
