Discussion on:

Get an overview of the Scrum agile project approach

I read the definition of a ScrumMaster and that is basically my expectations of a good project manager. You lead the team, you work with your client and you coach. What am I missing???

Yes there is the Agile methodology but the key is leading the team to be sucessful.

Where/how does the QA team fit into the scrum model?

D2KK,

The QA is part of the development team as the 'Team' in Scrum is a cross-functional group of people working together...

Quality management in an agile project is baked in from the beginning - as features or stories are developed the confirmation of those stories is also captured in initial conversations with the client. As the project progresses quality issues are raised in daily stand-ups, and deliverables are constantly reviewed and refined in review meetings and retrospectives. Most agile methods enforce quality in deliverables through concepts like refactoring and pair programming, and by exposing interim deliverables to the client for review. Obviously technical QA requires different skills than simple customer approval, and so most agile teams I've worked with include a formal QA role, but the key idea is that testing and QA is not an after-the-fact add-on - it's an integral element of the development effort.

Thanks for your reply. Agreed that quality management should happen throughout the project. My question specifically is, if there is a QA team (say Alpha testers) with a different reporting structure than the development team (system testers), how would that fit into an agile approach? Or what is the correct structure, should there be a seperate QA department?

I'm not sure what the "official" agile or Scrum response to this would be, but my experience is that most organizations that do SW development have a separate QA function, and when my team works with those orgs we don't try to upend the existing org but focus on integrating the QA folks into our daily meetings, work sessions, client interactions etc. The biggest problem I've observed is the tendency in "traditional" PM cultures to view QA as a separate, after the fact activity, such as a "testing " block at the end of a waterfall approach. If you think about the "card, conversation, confirmation" idea I outlined in a previous column it becomes clear that QA is integrated into every development activity and nothing moves down the development line without significant testing...remember that we're aiming for a working, releasable product as early as possible so testing must happen, and must be robust, from the get-go.

There's a useful article in the latest issue of the Agile Journal on how a QA team should work with an agile project. http://www.agilejournal.com/articles/columns/column-articles/2722

Don;

Great find! Check out Lisa Crispin's blog and book here:

http://lisacrispin.com/wordpress/

This sounds like the "old" term of prototyping. What is different?

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