Scrum encourages a Whole Team Approach to projects, meaning that every team member is involved in each activity related to the project. This self-organizing team is accountable for meeting project deliverables. The team is given the freedom to make decisions and take the necessary actions at the right time, allowing them to best utilize each team member’s talents. This includes testers, who are encouraged to participate in all aspects of the project, such as the Test Strategy, Test Planning, Test Specification, Test Execution, Test Evaluation, and Test Results Reporting. By utilizing the whole team, projects are able to be completed more efficiently and effectively.
Collaborative User Story Creation
Collaborative User Story Creation is an important part of the Scrum process, and testers are involved in this activity. They contribute ideas about how the system should behave and can help the customer or end user better understand what is expected of the system. This leads to quicker requirements and reduces the chances of changes occurring later in the process. In addition, testers can create testable user stories and determine the Acceptance Criteria for each scenario.
Release Planning
Release Planning is also done for the entire project, although the Scrum framework allows for iterative decision making as more information becomes available throughout the sprints. This means that, initially, the release plan does not need to be detailed for the whole project. It can be continually updated as needed. Releases are usually made after a group of sprints, and the team decides the sprint length. This release plan is used as the basis for the test approach and test plan for the release, and testers must estimate the Test Effort and plan Testing accordingly. If the release plans change, they must be able to handle the changes and have an adequate test basis for the larger context of the release. Furthermore, testers must provide the necessary testing effort at the end of each sprint.
Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is an essential part of each sprint. During this phase, the team works together to create the sprint backlog, which contains the user stories chosen from the product backlog, that need to be implemented in the sprint. Testers should assess the testability of these user stories, create acceptance tests, define test levels and identify test automation opportunities. In addition, they should update the test plan with the required testing effort and duration estimates.
Test Analysis
Test Analysis is an important step that follows sprint planning. During this stage, testers analyze the user stories and create the necessary test cases – both manual and automated.
Testing
Testing is something that all members of the Scrum team should be involved in. Developers carry out unit tests as they develop code and testers perform functional and non-functional tests on the user stories. In addition, testers should mentor other members of the team to help ensure quality. At the end of the sprint, customer and/or end users conduct User Acceptance Testing and provide feedback to the scrum team. This feedback is then used to inform the next sprint. Finally, test results are collected and maintained.
Automation Testing
Automation testing is given great importance in Scrum teams. Testers dedicate time to creating, executing, monitoring and maintaining automated tests and results. As changes can occur at any time in Scrum projects, testers must be prepared to accommodate testing of changed features and any regression testing required. Automation testing helps to manage the test effort associated with changes. Automated tests at all levels help to achieve continuous integration, as they run much faster than manual tests and require no additional effort. In comparison, manual testing focuses more on exploratory testing, product vulnerability, and predicting defects.
Automation of Testing Activities
Automation of testing activities can reduce the burden of repeated work and result in cost savings. This includes automating the following activities: – Test Data Generation – Test Data Loading – Build Deployment into Test Environment – Test Environment Management – Data Output Comparison
Regression Testing
Regression testing is an important part of the software development process in Scrum. It involves testing changes and new code in each sprint to ensure that the existing functionality and code from previous sprints still works correctly. Automated regression tests are often used in continuous integration to ensure that all code changes are functioning as expected. This helps to identify any potential issues and ensure that the code is stable before the next sprint.
Configuration Management
Configuration management is an important part of Scrum projects as it allows for automated build and test frameworks to be used. This helps to ensure that static analysis and unit tests are run repeatedly when new code is checked into the Configuration Management System. Automated regression tests are also run during continuous integration, which helps to identify any potential issues with the code. Furthermore, manual test cases, automated tests, test data, test plans, test strategy and other testing artifacts need to be version controlled and require relevant access permissions. This can be accomplished by maintaining these testing artifacts in the Configuration Management System.
Agile Testing Practices
Agile testing practices are important for testers in a Scrum team to follow. These practices include pairing, where two team members sit together and work collaboratively; incremental test design, where test cases are developed as the sprints progress; test-driven development, where testers write test cases before developers write code; and continuous integration, where automated regression tests are run as soon as the code is checked into the Configuration Management System. All of these practices help to ensure that the code is functioning as expected and any issues are identified quickly.
Agile Metrics
Agile metrics are an important part of software development in Scrum and help to improve the process and achieve better productivity, quality deliverables and customer satisfaction. The following metrics are suggested for Scrum development: 1. Ratio of Successful Sprints – (Number of successful Sprints / Total number of Sprints) * 100. A Successful Sprint is one in which the Team could meet its commitment. 2. Velocity – A team’s Velocity is based on the amount of Story Points a team earned during a sprint. Story Points are the measure of the User Stories counted during estimation. 3. Focus Factor – (Velocity / Team’s Work Capacity) / 100. Focus Factor is the percentage of the team’s effort that results in finished stories. 4. Estimation Accuracy – (Estimated effort / Actual effort) / 100. Estimation Accuracy is the Team’s ability in estimating the effort accurately. 5. Sprint Burndown – Work (in Story Points or in hours) that is Remaining Vs. Work that needs to be Remaining ideally (as per the Estimation). 6. Defect Count – Number of defects in a Sprint. Defect count is the amount of defects in the software as against the backlog. 7. Severity of Defects – Defects can be categorized as minor, major and critical as per their severity. Testers can define the categorization.
Sprint Retrospectives
Sprint Retrospectives are an important part of the agile methodology, providing an opportunity for teams to review the progress of their project and identify areas for improvement. During a Sprint Retrospective, all team members will participate to reflect on their work and share their thoughts and insights. They will discuss the following topics: 1. Things that went well: review successes, best practices, lessons learned and ideas for improvement. 2. Metrics: review key performance indicators such as velocity, throughput, and defect rates. 3. Scope for improvement: identify areas for improvement, such as speed of delivery, team dynamics, and communication. 4. Action items: develop an action plan to address identified issues and define who will be responsible for taking action. Overall, Sprint Retrospectives offer a great opportunity for teams to learn from their experiences and make improvements for future projects.