About Agile Tester:
Agile testers must adapt the capability to collaborate well with technical as well as business people in order to understand the requirement specifications and thus take the bandwagon in the desired direction.
In an era of dynamic changes, where things are changing rapidly, an agile tester must be well versed with the latest trends in the technology market so that when a project is at hand he shall be able to put his thoughts into it and guide the actions of the team members.
An agile tester is the one who is a driving force behind the success of team efforts. Agile is a way of testing an application in equal iterations, that is, as and when a single module is released it is tested to see if a defect is encountered. Before proceeding towards next iterations.
Principles for Agile Testers:
Here are some principles to be followed by agile testers.
- Provide continuous feedback: A very major quality that an agile tester must imbibe is the ability to impart information to his team. He must be able to clearly state requirements, tests and test results so that the team of testers can understand the activities well.
- Deliver value to the customer: The end result should suffice the need of the customers. Client satisfaction should be the ultimate motto of the team as a whole.
- Enable face to face communication: The best way to communicate is to interact face to face as that is the most effective way of communicating any message to the audience at large.
- Have courage: By courage, we mean to say that an agile tester must possess the ability to raise questions whenever appropriate as he has to interact with different personality types at different points of time.
- Keep it simple: To complete a task on time, an agile tester must possess the ability to put the pieces together in a simple manner. Simplicity can ease the overall burden on the team as a whole.
- Practice continuous improvement: Testing, as we know, is continuous in nature. Therefore as an agile tester, a person must strive to achieve better ways of working by applying strategies.
- Respond to change: Well change is inevitable. Therefore it becomes essential for agile testers to imbibe the habit of being able to respond to a change that may take place at any given point of time. Flexibility is a major quality that forms one of the major principles to be followed by an agile tester.
- Self-organize: If ever there occurs a problem, then that is a problem for the team as a whole. To be able to organize the team according to changes is what agile is about. Therefore there should be an organized system at place in advance which could offer an alternative solution to the problem at hand.
- Focus on people: The core principle of agile methodology is centered on people involved in the process. This takes into account testers, developers, project managers and team leaders who actively participate in the agile methodology and endeavor to make it a success.
One who follows these principles proves their mettle as an agile tester. Being a success is possible only when people involved in the team are motivated to work and enjoy it at the same time.
Example of Agile Principle:
We may see how agile principles are applied to make things really happen. Kanban is a great example of agile methodology.
Kanban is a technique wherein all the team members working on the project have access to a common forum where they can list the piece of work already done or work that is due in the pipeline.
This way a coordination is maintained across the team and the team members can freely exchange their ideas or opinions on a subject. Therefore adopting the core principles shall fetch the results as per the ultimate objectives of a project plan.
In Kanban agile is implemented to track the quality, status and progress of the product in the following manner:
- Automated test results can be used to track test progress with the help of agile task boards.
- Sharing of test status using standard test management tools through wikis.
- Using agile task boards one may gather information about the degree of customer satisfaction, pass/fail test report, test basis coverage etc.
In agile methodology a sprint backlog is used to depict the status of the ongoing project.
Conclusion:
Adopting the right qualities and following principles ideal for achieving a successful agile process, shall make the journey of agile – worthwhile.