Category Archives: agile team roles

QA Process in Agile: Avoiding Silos, Pro Whole-Team Approach

Who is Responsible for Software Quality in Agile? The QA process in agile differs greatly from QA in traditional testing, such as in Waterfall.Agilehas changed the way we think of software quality. In fact,I have read rumblings in the blogosphere that Agile has killed QA.I promise youQuality Assuranceis alive and well on agile teams.It just looks different than what most of us are used to. I think people who have promoted the “death” of QA in agile are not looking closely enough at...

Spring Cleaning: Agile Backlog Grooming

Spring Cleaning? Now is the perfect time foragilebacklog grooming. The sun is shining; the birds are singing. The tree leaves are back, along with people’s allergies, easily confused with COVID-19. Speaking of COVID-19, millions of people have been forced to stay home over the last few months, and many have started attacking home projects with a vengeance, because they have no place to go except for their local hardware store. Garages have been organized, along with closets, basements,...

4 Ingredients to Working in Agile Remote Teams

As an Agile Coach, I often try to simplify things and refer people (and myself) to theManifesto for Agile Software Development. Almost all agilists can remember at least the first corevalue,“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.”Though the introverts might cringe about it, most are also familiar with the principle,“The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.”In order to help...

Team Level Agile Value: Is It Worth It?

Agile Value in the Journey Agile Value in Agility Agile Value in Team Transparency What if the enterprise won’t change? Is it worth it to haveAgile teams? I have long felt that certain parties in the Agile community are too quick to judge teams as not being agile because they are forced to function under less than ideal organizational structures. The mantra I was taught (and often repeated myself) was, “The leader is the limit.” Agile transformationswill only be effective as far up...

Building a Quality Software QA Team: Quality at Every Level

In thelast blog, we made the case that everyone on theagileteam owns quality and provided some ideas on how team dynamics can help build quality into the product. In today’s post, we will discusssome additional ideas on how your software QA teams can work together and ensure quality is on the forefront of everyone’s mind when building a product. As we noted in our previous post,waterfall tended to equate testing and quality, which can lead to all kinds of bad habits – the main one being...

Quality in Testing: Everyone's Responsibility

Once upon a time, in the land of Waterfall, the business analysts wrote the requirements, the developers coded the requirements and the Testers tested the requirements. Each of these people sat in his/her ivory tower, um, silo and did that which they had always done since the beginning of time.Quality was thought to be synonymous with testing, and therefore was considered to exist solely in the Tester’s realm. Present Day Quality Fast forward to today, on an agile team and the...

Moving from doing agile to BEING agile

Are you an experienced tester who has recently joined an agile team? Maybe you have testing experience but until now it has only been on traditional waterfall projects. Are you going through the motions with this new way of doing things but don’t feel like you’re completely invested? Do you even feel like you’re adding value to your team? Often times, when a company begins their agile transformation they think they are BEING agile when in fact they are justdoing it. Being agile...

The 4 Keys to Effectively Working with Agile Teams

Key Takeaways A Different Take – 4 Keys 1. Starting Properly 2. Committing to Agility 3. Collaboration tools are important, but… 4. Compensation structure and incentives Wrapping Up My first piece of advice is this: DON’T DO IT!!! Probably the worst possible setup for a team is spreading them around the country, world, or the universe and expecting them to behave and deliver like a close, cohesive team. My second bit of advice for those of you that blame it onmanagementand say you...

A Case for Quality... We Don't Need No Stinkin' QA

After 20 years in quality assurance, I’m still surprised to hear about companies that don’t have formal QA processes. Even more surprising are the companies that say having a QA function is not necessary. Maybe they are a newer tech company with a tiny, tight-knit development team and the software complexity hasn’t reached a level where defects reach a critical mass or perhaps the company doesn’t support a formal process even though it’s happening in some manner. For me, it is akin to saying...