Below are examples of what I personally strive for when I’m on an agile project. Do note that the role that a tester plays on a project varies and can depend on the tester or the unique dynamics of the team.
- Show interest in participating on project Inceptions and always accept when invited!
- Provide tester input when the team is holding their story Estimation Sessions.
- Be present in team IPMs ( Iteration Planning Meetings ) to gain familiarity with the upcoming stories.
- Pair with the BAs in writing the Acceptance Criteria so that missed scenarios can be identified.
- Hold Story Kickoffs with a BA and the Developer that has picked up the story.
- Pair with Developers in writing their tests.
- Don’t wait till stories are “Ready to Test”. Pull the latest and greatest on your local or Test Environment and start testing early! (No defects should be created at this time, simply notify the Devs about the issues/concerns found.)
- Once Dev’s believe that their stories are “Ready to Test”, hold Desk-checks with them and a BA to make sure that they’ve implemented the stories according to the Acceptance Criteria.
- Automate functional tests. (Pair with Devs as much as possible when doing this!)
- Perform Exploratory Testing on stories and push back stories when blocking issues associated to the stories are found.
- Log Defects for issues not blocking stories or those that are new/regression issues.
- Encourage the client to verify stories on Pre-Production and to push to Production as often as possible.
- Perform Smoke Tests on the Production Environment.
- Pair with Dev Ops to make sure the necessary Environments are created with appropriate data and automated tests.