In Agile testing everything is dynamic. Complicated applications are split into smaller pieces and requirements change during development. This raises the requirements for the testers working in this team. In this short article we will talk about people management in Agile testing.
Agile testers have to be able to communicate quickly, find creative ways to test half-finished features, understand all the details of the applications but at the same time keep an eye on the bigger picture. For this reason we mostly use senior QA. The team structured is twisted, the pyramid is reversed in as that the base part which used to be occupied by Junior/Middle level employees, is now comprised of testers in a senior / lead role. When starting a team, the first concept that need to be clarified to your members is what Agile is and why we use it.
During the training session of an Agile testing team, we need to emphasize to members to understand Agile methodology. To understand why features always change, why there is nothing documented and why collaboration & responsiveness are so important. Secondly we need to train testers to be strong enough so they can test independently in depth on the software products. To be specific, tester in Agile team have to be capable of time management, prioritizing, fast issue resolving, analyzing root cause and viewing the application from an user perspective.
Now, how does Agile projects impact the resource management? One of my long term customer used to develop desktop software for consumers for many years. Now it’s time to change. Dozens of Web/Mobile application are built in the Cloud and released in quick iterations. The QA team is separated into smaller groups with each responsible for a set of Web/Mobile applications. One traditional desktop application can be split into more than ten small applications. They have different development and testing lifecycles.
Well congratulations, in an instant, you become a project manager monitoring a dozen of applications when you used to be leading just one project. The key of assembling these projects and making them work out under Agile mode is communication. Applying a Physical Examination Technique produces surprisingly chemical reaction in team communication. Refer to below graph. It works great in my team. What is your experience in team management nowadays?
