I was promoted to manager and I need to adopt a methodology to manage the programmers here.
I read a lot about Scrum but in my case, we have a tester here and I couldn't find a place for tests in Scrum. Will it be during the sprints or at the end of them?
We have 3 C# programmers, 2 VB, 1 ObjectiveC and a Web Designer/Developer. Is Scrum the best option for us?
Thanks in advance for any help and sorry for any typos, my English is not good =)
If you are trying to introduce SCRUM have a read of Scrum from the trenches it helped me enormously. The definition of the user stories etc being done should involve passing tests and I am sure your tester will be key to deciding on when a feature is done.
I have never worked on a team where testing was more in focus than when using scrum. As the other answers state, testing should be a part of the done criteria of the sprint item.
I've had good experience with the rule, that definition of system and user tests should be written as the first activity of a sprint item. Also, no item should be accepted as done without the proper level of unit and integration tests.
This implicitly means that an item should not be "doned" by the persons that the solved the item. IMHO, that should be the responsibility of other members of the sprint team -- in your case it could be the tester.
Regards, Morten
Every backlog item should be tested before considered "done", i.e. the testing is done during the sprint.
If you refer to "test" as the "demo", it should be done at the end of the sprint, with product owner, customer (and other people in charge) present.
Is testing good thing? Yes! Then do it all the time!
"Testing phase" is a term from waterfall projects.
In agile (I assume you trying to be agile since you are setting up as a scrum team) you are focused on being able to adapt and adopt quickly - testing is the key in that process.
Do it often and do it all the time - feedback will be provided often and team will be able to adopt quickly and timely.
Creating a testing phase (whenever it is scheduled for) - you will slip into waterfall mode or better yet - scrumfall. Think about the feedback - at the end of the 'testing [phase' which some after many other phases. Lots of waste that you trying to avoid by being agile and by using scrum.
There are no people with primary skills being testing - it does not matter - let them learn how to test their product/application. Invest time (and money) in that - it will pay off big time as they move forward.
There is no test phase.. test is part of each iteration..
but above is in theory.. in practice you may have important dates by which you will like to ship something - so sometimes teams label iteration(s) close to such dates as stabilization iterations where no new features are added and only must fix bugs are done..
