The Agile Tester

Adopting agile development methods means that traditional software development organization must change. For the best chances of success, QA engineers must become embedded agile team members. To do this, they need to develop skills in exploratory testing and test automation and also embrace agile team dynamics and communication methods. Agile testers contribute their unique testing perspective during story exploration, estimation, development and story completion. Testers on an agile team preserve the benefits of traditional QA within an iterative development process.

Transitioning from traditional QA to agile testing is one of the biggest challenges a development team will face. The transition from QA to agile testing must preserve the benefits of QA without impacting the benefits of iterative development. Prevailing wisdom, that everyone on an agile team tests, implies that dedicated testing resources are not valued. However, any team interested in delivering a quality product realizes that the structure and reliability of a mature QA process serves an important purpose, one which must be retained in the transition to agile. Testing a software product on an agile team requires the same product knowledge, preparation, discipline and skill as traditional QA. While everyone on an agile team CAN test, most teams value the contribution of a skilled, collaborative tester. Read more about commonly held myths of agile testing, how to transition from a traditional QA engineer and the role testers play on an agile team.