Managing Agile Test Departments

What is the impact of agile methods on test departments and testers? How do you manage testing in an agile test department? Robert Martin, an early adopter and proponent of agile development practices, discusses his experiences and recommendations for how to organize and run an agile test department. He describes the principles, practices, tools, and metrics that are important to successful test management within agile development. Agile methods change the role of test departments from verification to specification. With agile methods, you develop tests before the code, and the tests become the detailed requirements documentation. This paradigm shift has a profound impact on both the test team and the programming team. Learn about the test management problems that often arise in making the transition to agile development and common solutions that address these issues.

• Issues and answers in transitioning a test department into agile development
• Test measurements that work best in an agile development environment
• How to be a successful agile test manager