QA Role in the Scrum Team
The QA Role within Scrum is not actually a recognised role, this is because everyone in the Development team is described as a Developer, this means that all members of the Scrum team are responsible for Quality. Which means it is down to all the members of the Scrum team to pitch in when and wherever necessary to get the sprint goal met.
QA and Dev estimates are scored per Product Backlog Item and must include total time to ensure that the specific product backlog item is delivered using the Definition of DONE (decided at the beginning of the project).
Testing should not be saved up for the end of the Sprint and Development at the beginning as testing should run parallel with development of other tickets that have been planned into the sprint, this is why you should have a mixture of tickets that are all different sizes and levels of complexity this will allow for a constant flow of work for all members of the scrum team.
In Scrum the QA role is more of a Quality Assistance as much as Quality Assurance and we should always strive to deliver the best product we possibly can for our Customers (Product Owners/Business).
As Sprint’s are normally short and time dependant it makes sense to have small handover demos from the Developers to allow smooth transition from developing a ticket and testing a ticket this can also go the other way and short demos back to the Developers for any bugs that are found Scrum is all about communication and not documentation.
Learn more about being a Certified Scrum Master and Kanban Agile Methodology in our other posts.
A Certified Salesforce Consultant, Certified SCRUM Master and ISTQB Qualified QA Lead with experience in a variety of industries. Over 8 years of testing experience with exposure to huge array of projects and initiatives such as Product Launches, Media Advertising and Government Mandatory Financial Projects. My current role is at BrightGen, who have been an official Salesforce Platinum Partner since the start of the programme. BrightGen provide Salesforce expertise and strategic thinking that enables organisations to transform their business to Cloud-based technology.