Questions to Fine-tune Your 'Ready' Definition

Welcome to the first in a series of bitesize articles we're writing on Agile and Testing.

Creating a robust and practical Agile Test Strategy should exist in all organisations that employ an Agile approach to delivering projects and programmes of work. Being ‘Ready’ to test is vital to the success, having just a set of requirements isn’t enough….

 …have you thought about the acceptance criteria, have your testers tested the requirements? You want to start to test as early as you possibly can because the cost and impact of a defect rises greatly the further into the life-cycle you get, finding a defect in User Acceptance Testing will result in a whole host of re-work and re-testing….

…have you also thought about the impact of the changes proposed and the risk that they might bring to the business? If you have then you are ‘Ready’. If not then you need to carry out an impact assessment before you schedule any change.