Agile Testing: The Changing Role of Testers

If you are working as a software tester in the agile development project then you have a special role. Because in Agile team, software testers must communicate instantly with the other team members and business stakeholders.

You must apply your knowledge and skills in a project. Additionally, you are going to deal with various agile practices like iterative software development, time boxing, stand-up conferences, continuous delivery, test driven development and early validation.

In an agile environment the role of tester is not only testing bugs but he has to work as a part of software development in order to enhance and build quality of the product as soon as possible.

Agile Testers have to break the principles and working methodologies of traditional software development. If you want success as an agile tester then you must have the right mind-set.

Agile Tester Skills

In addition to the expertise necessary for a tester working in a waterfall software project, a tester working in an Agile team must be capable of handling test automation test-driven development, continuous testing, Devops and agile testing, acceptance test-driven development and experience-based testing.

As Agile methodologies depend heavily on collaboration, communication, and interaction between the team members as well as stakeholders outside the team, testers in an Agile team should have good interpersonal skills. Testers in Agile teams should:

Communication:

Testers should have good communication skill as he/she has to communicate frequently with the agile team. The most effective way of transferring information to and within a development team is F2F conversation. A tester should communicate more in an Agile environment.

As I am also working as software tester and from my experience testers working traditional software development lags in communicating with the product owner. They must cooperate with programmers (who are engrossed in the attributes they are developing or the bugs they are fixing) and product owners to complete the project within time period.

Technical:

Agile principle: Continuous consideration to technical expertise and good design improves agility.

A software tester in a cross-functional, self-organizing, and co-operative team identifies how appropriate technical skill is. Apart from preparing and placing himself for technical input when necessary, a tester also communicates with the programmers and product owners; he could be seen as contributing either way to get concerns resolved and moving. Contributions could be code review, requests/user stories grooming, or coding where it is acceptable. You can also prefer to contact the agile testing services to know more about agile testers skills and roles.

Automation Testing Skill:

It is always considered as best if tester have automation knowledge because automation helps in turning user stories into automated test scripts in software development. But Lack of knowledge of test automation cannot be considered as determining factor, he/she can learn the automation skill as soon as possible to complete the sprints of agile development

It is benefit for the team if the programmers can automate test scripts for the tester to run at any time, and then conclude the sprint with some exploratory testing.

After all it is "Attitude that makes the altitude". Thus, if a tester has the above Agile testing mindset then absolutely he or she is a perfect fit to the project’s agile team.

I work as a Senior Testing Specialist at TestingXperts. I handled day-to-day operations for all aspects of software testing. With over 7 yrs of professional experience I know how to build strong connection.