Agile Team Work Principle

An agile team is built upon the idea of greater collaboration and clear communication between the team members. Due to the frequently changing requirements in an agile project, all the team members, including designers, developers, testers and business analysts work together with one another.

Agile teams aim to deliver products in short cycles. They embrace change and adapt easily. Flexibility, discipline, accountability and technical skills are the foremost important attributes of agile team members. it’s necessary to make sure that each cycle’s output is of top quality and conforms to the required requirements.

Role of a QA Specialist

A QA specialist uses a group of issue tracking tools, software and hardware systems to gauge a product’s functionality, safety and conformance to requirements throughout its Lifecycle. An important but not primary function of a QA specialist is to develop and execute Test Plans in order to deliver a bug-free product.

Not only does the QA specialist check the deliverables, but also the processes that are followed to organize those deliverables. As a QA specialist, he/she must check the software at frequent half-finished stages and record issues/defects with issue tracking tools. It’s also important for the specialists to create/manage quality checklists and operating procedures.

Expectations from the QA Specialist

A QA specialist’s role is sort of diverse and demands tons of skills and expertise. All the quality-related challenges faced in an agile project got to be handled by the QA Specialist. In short, a QA specialist must a minimum of meet the below set of expectations:

• Participate in technical meetings.
• Review requirements and styles.
• Refine requirements and supply inputs to designs.
• Interact with business analysts to make user stories.
• Ensure project deliverables remain regulatory compliant.
• Encourage adoption of the latest agile test automation tools.
• Ensure the data integrity standards remain in situ.
• Conduct quality checks of deliverables with proper inspection, walk-throughs and reviews.
• Record the quality-check results and supply recommendations.
• Analyze and evaluate the quality-related processes, methods and procedure utilized in a project.
• Provide areas for improvements and offer suggestions to strengthen higher quality standards.
• Conduct an application security audit and identify pitfalls.
• Make way for new test methodologies to improvise testing standards.
• Work with developers to make sure technical compatibility and user satisfaction.

Advantages of QA Specialist in an Agile Team

A QA specialist must be an integral part of the agile team right from the start, and not just included during later stages. While the role of a QA specialist is repeatedly overlooked in an agile project, it’s crucial to know that the work of a QA specialist can’t be underestimated.

• Involving the QA specialist from the initial stages of the software ensures that the software delivers what it’s alleged to.
• Despite short and frequent cycles, the software is of top quality, whenever.
• Quality standards and methods are followed to make sure bug-free delivery.
• Defects, issues and problems are closely monitored with issue tracking tools and glued to avoid recurrence.
• Process improvement techniques are implemented.
• Staff and team members remain conscious of quality standards and procedures.