There are 3 levels of planning in Agile. They are Release Planning, Iteration Planning and Daily Planning. These planning meetings help the Scrum Master, Product Owner and the rest of the team in understanding how the product will be delivered, the complexity involved and their day to day responsibility in the delivery of the product, among other things. [Read more…] about What is Release and Iteration Planning in Agile methodology?
ISTQB Agile Testing Certification
What is Continuous Integration in Agile methodology?
Continuous Integration (CI) is a practice in Software Engineering, where all the developers local working code base will be merged to share with a common repository several times during the product development.
It was first adopted as a part of Extreme Programming (XP). The main purpose of Continuous Integration is to prevent developers stepping over each other code and eliminate integration issues. [Read more…] about What is Continuous Integration in Agile methodology?
What is Retrospective meeting or Retrospection in Agile project management?
In Agile project management, a retrospective meeting is held at the end of every iteration to discuss what really went well and what didn’t go well and any action items to carry over the next Sprint. Retrospective meetings are a useful to identify the ways of continuous improvement of an Agile team.
Few topics for discussion could be about metrics and velocity of the team, tracking tools, defect density, team dynamics, self-organization, any potential impediments that surfaced during the iteration etc. [Read more…] about What is Retrospective meeting or Retrospection in Agile project management?
What is User Story Template in Agile software development?
In Agile Software development, requirements are captured from the point of value of the user. There are usually several actors that are acting on the system called User Personas (example: User, Admin, Customer, Supplier etc). It should not be written from a developer or tester or manager’s perspective.
The Product Owner along with team usually writes user stories and the Product Owner explains the User Story to the development team, and clarifies any questions the team might have. [Read more…] about What is User Story Template in Agile software development?
Roles and Responsibilities of Scrum Master and Product Owner in a Scrum team
The roles in Agile methodology specially Scrum are quite different from the traditional roles other software development methodologies. Clearly defined roles and expectations help individuals perform their tasks efficiently.
There are three key roles that are defined in Scrum:
What is a Scrum Master – Roles and Responsibilities
Scrum Master is a Scrum Champion, ensures everyone follows the practices prescribed by Scrum.
- He is a facilitator and Servant Leader who encourages and demands self-organization from the development team.
- He enables close cooperation across all roles and functions, addresses resource issue and disobedience of scrum practices.
- He protects the team from external and internal distractions.
- He removes impediments so the team can focus on the work at hand and follow scrum practices.
- He is not typically a manager or lead, but he is an influential leader and coach who does not do direct command and control.
Scrum Product Owner – Roles and Responsibilities
Product Owner in Agile is like a spokesperson for customer and needs to represent them,
- This person owns the Product backlog and writes user stories and acceptance criteria.
- Product Backlog is prioritized by him and he decides the release date and the content.
- He accepts or rejects user stories.
- He has the power to cancel the Sprint, if he thinks the Sprint goal is redundant.
- He is the one who is responsible for the Return on Investment of the product.
Development team – Roles and Responsibilities
Is a cross functional, small and self-organizing team which owns the collective responsibility of developing, testing and releasing the Product increment. There may not be any team lead since decisions are taken collectively by the team. The role of a tester in an agile team is discussed in detail, later.