Waterfall to Agile for a Tester - Part 2

In a previous post, I blogged about unfamiliar terminologies and processes that a tester might come across, when switching from waterfall to agile. This covered definitions of the Product Backlog, User Stories and the involvement a tester should expect.

In this post, I continue the series covering: Sizing, Pre-Planning and Planning meetings.

Sizing - Estimating the size of a user story using complexity points not hours. This should be relative to other user stories that you have worked on in the past and does not need significant precision when estimating. Instead, the estimate should provide a rough idea that can inform the team when planning individual tasks. Often a set of numbers based on Fibonacci (1, 2, 3, 5, 8 13, 21 & 34...) are used to size stories.


Test involvement - All team members (including the tester) will be asked to size stories together. This can be difficult for a tester because unlike developers, you'll be estimating from a test perspective . However, your efforts will be taken into account and can impact the agreed size.

Pre-Planning - A meeting to discuss the highest priority user stories from the product backlog. To ensure all team members fully understand what's required to code, test and deliver each item. This meeting is also used to clarify any ambiguous requirements.

Test involvement - As the tester of the team, you'll be expected to contribute in the general discussion. If you've already created the test confirmations for the user stories, this is a chance for the team to review what tests you plan to run.

Sprint Planning - The Scrum team meet to decide how much work they can commit to during the coming sprint. In some cases there will be negotiation with the product owner but it will always be up to the team to determine how much they can commit to completing. After deciding, the team take the highest priority users stories equal to their velocity and break them down into tasks.

Test involvement - In this meeting, you'll be expected to supply details and time based estimates for all test related tasks to complete each user story. As a team member you'll also be partly responsible for committing to workload into the sprint.

Part 3 of series coming soon!

Part 1 Product Backlog and User Stories here.

Ray