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Coming from a scrum environment with no integrated testing support and an independent minded QA staff, how is a tester (QA person) best integrated with a scrum team? What should they do?

For reference some test functions are:

  • Unit Testing
  • Integration Testing
  • Functional Testing
  • Performance Testing
  • Acceptance Testing

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    Blake: Over at Area 51, you're just a follower on the Genealogy Q&A proposal. We're now in Commitment Phase. It would really help the proposal if you could "Commit". Sorry to add this comment here, but it was the only way I could see to contact you. – lkessler Sep 16 '12 at 15:10

    3 Answers

    up vote 2 down vote accepted
    • they should participate in design meetings.
    • they should participate in standups.
    • They should give feedback as to the testability of the software being built.
    • they should analyze what is being developed to come up with a comprehensive plan to test it.
    • they should write automated tests.
    • they should do exploratory testing.
    • they should monitor nightly test runs.
    • they should act as a testing mentor to the developers.
    • they should be quality ambassadors, and the customer advocate.

    A really good book on this subject is Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory. Highly, highly recommended.

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    up vote 2 down vote

    ScrumMaster

    Because the team must have people with cross-funcional skills.

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    A good position to place them! It keeps them up-to-date on what's happening, and they can be involved in as many side-conversations as needed to ensure they're aware of the details as they evolve. – STW Oct 20 '10 at 21:04
    No, scrummasters should be scrummasters, and testers should be testers. They are very distict roles requiring different skillsets. – Bryan Oakley Jun 1 '12 at 22:27
    up vote 2 down vote

    If they're in the code--have them do standard code-reviews before a task is completed. Their review can encompass a review of the functionality as well as a code-guideline review (if they have enough experience as a developer or in code to get by).

    Basically, when someone reports a "done" then it becomes a QA todo. It's actually a very good idea to integrate this quick-QA approach, provided they can keep up--it's always best to catch issues sooner rather than later, so even if it's not comprehensive it can have the effect of accelerating the formal/full QA cycle.

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