Agile Testing Question:

Again a fundamental interview question. This time, however, there is more to it than meets the eye.

Because, the answer is: It depends.

It depends on how agile a team really is.

The easiest answer is that the testing team sits within the Scrum team, and deliver to sprints. This is true for well-run Agile test initiatives. Having the testing team embedded within the Scrum team helps drive code development to primarily pass test cases.

By nature of how Agile and Scrum work, a Scrum team is expected to possess all the skills necessary to deliver an Agile project – including Testing. And, we all know that anyone in the team can deliver any skill – when the team is truly Agile.

Obviously, there are pros and cons to this approach of a multi-disciplined, multi-skilled team – as opposed to one in which individual are identified and earmarked for particular skills like Business Analysis, Development, Testing etc. We won’t get into that today.

When embedded within a Scrum team (and even otherwise), the hallmark of a good Agile tester is that they help reduce the defects count and percentage of defects found per line of code written.

How do they do this? By working with the rest of the team to deliver to requirements. And what better way to do this than by working day-to-day as part of the Scrum team.

On the other hand, the more experienced agile tester knows that at times, traditional test cycles need to be run outside the Scrum.