Is the Role of Test Manager Facing Extinction in Today's Agile World?

So by now, you would have realised that projects run using waterfall methodologies are from the Triassic period and Agile is the new kid on the block and here to stay (well for the next six months at least..). And, the traditional role of a Test Manager seems no more, almost extinct like the Tyrannosaurs. But wait, just because testers are working in collaboration with the project teams and reporting, estimating and planning directly with them doesn’t mean the Test Management role is dead as a Dodo, no far from it.

Identifying Common Themes in Scrum Testing

So I get to see lots of different organisations all trying to implement Scrum to varying levels, several themes come out:

Firstly, testers are sometimes excluded from certain activities/events or aren’t given an equal voice in the team. Sometimes they don’t understand that they have an equal voice that needs to be heard. The “Development Team” is supposed to be cross-functional which means that it should have testing or testers in it, don’t get me started on why we decided to call it the “Development” team.

Agile Test Strategy Part Three: A Definition and Explanation

Here's the final part in our mini-series on Agile Test Strategy. If you've missed the previous posts, we recommend you read part one and part two. 

So, you have employed a well-defined Agile Test Strategy and looked at the impact and risk of changes to be made for your project and of course you are testing just enough in the most effective way to prove the requirements have been met to a standard fit for purpose…Right?

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….

Agile Testing Practices

Agile Project Management is the focus on producing a quality product by the continuous improvement, project team support, and providing flexibility in the requirements and scope, not to mention ensuring testing is performed in the most dynamic and efficient way possible to produce the desired outcomes. Performing good Agile Project Management is very important, to embrace the main principals of Agile to ensure the customer satisfaction through early and continuous delivery and to provide the best chance of the customer's competitive advantage by being first to market with new and innovating products and services.

Agile Test Strategy Part One

There have been challenges in the adoption of the Agile principles (an Agile Test Strategy) and Scrum Framework particularly with poor quality of the delivered software. This has resulted in delays and a mismatch of the expectations of stakeholders and delivery teams. There is no specific mention of testing or quality assurance in Agile or Scrum; it is implied as an integral part of the principles and framework. This has caused some confusion resulting in inconsistent approaches to quality management and testing. Often formal testing has been reduced to ad hoc ‘try it and see’ during a sprint. This loses the testing rigour that delivers quality by use of industry accepted full lifecycle testing.