The Scrum Roles for Testers

Scrum teams are composed many different roles. Some of these roles are core to the Scrum project itself, while others are considered non-core. The non-core roles have some sort of bearing on the project, but typically from an external perspective.

One vital role is that of the tester. As the term implies, a tester runs tests on the product, to ensure that it operates as intended. At a glance, this may not seem to require much interaction with other roles of the Scrum Process. However, testers have a large influence on many facets of the Scrum process, and interact in some way with nearly every role, both core and non-core.

Core Roles of a Scrum Project

For any Scrum project, there are certain core roles that work directly with the product. These roles are the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Scrum Team or Development Team. For their responsibilities on a project, testers will interact with these roles in a variety of ways.

Product Owner

The Product Owner is responsible for the long term success of a project. They determine what feature enter the backlog for eventual development, and what features are rejected. The interaction between Product Owner and tester is less direct, but important nonetheless.

Testers can work with the Product Owner to understand their vision for the product, and how it should behave. There may be some ideas that were never recorded in official design documents, but can affect how a product or feature should be tested. By consulting with the Product Owner and understanding the feature better, testers can in turn write better test plans. This generates a more robust product, one that is more in line with what the Product Owner envisioned.

Even beyond the phase of writing test plans, testers can approach the Product Owner with design questions and requests for clarification. The Product Owner is the voice of the customer, and serves as the authority for how a feature should behave. Because of this, they are most equipped to make a decision if there is ambiguity in a feature.

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master managed the progress of a project, and ensures that everyone is on pace to finish their own work. Part of this responsibility is making sure that developers leave enough time for testers to adequately test a feature once it is written. If developers write code up to the last day of a sprint, testers might be unable to run through all scenarios and verify that a feature is as bug free as possible. It is the duty of the Scrum Master to determine if a story should split, or if testers or developers should be reallocated from other stories to finish the request in time.

Scrum (Development) Team

The Scrum Team or Development Team is the central entity that produces a working software product. Testers are part of the Scrum Team, so they typically have a very close working relationship with other testers and developers on the team. At the most basic level, testers test what developers code. This dynamic is what drives the entire development process. However, the dynamic between testers and the Scrum Team is much more complex than this simple explanation.

For many teams, testers might have a better working knowledge of how a system works and the intended behavior than developers. Because of this expertise, testers may be able to clear up confusion that developers might have in how a feature integrates with the rest of a product. The testers usually know the intended behavior of a new feature, and understand how it connects with related features. Their test plan may serve as a sort of road map to stories and specifications.

As part of the Scrum Team themselves, testers must interact with other testers. Instead of claiming their own assignments and working on nothing else, testers collectively share the workload of testing a product. Because of this mutual work, it benefits all testers and the entire Scrum Team when testers work most efficiently. When taking ownership of new stories, testers might divide stories based on expertise. If one tester has a reputation as the local expert on a certain component, they might take ownership of testing related stories. This ensures that the story is tested in the most timely manner possible. In some cases, teams must swarm a story. Swarming is the process of having multiple testers work on the same story to more quickly finish it. If some unexpected setback occurs and causes one or more testers to be unavailable, the rest of the team might swarm to ensure that the work is completed.

Non-Core Roles of a Scrum Project

While non-core roles might not be as directly involved with the Scrum process, they certainly have a bearing on a project, and on testers specifically. Non-core roles include stakeholders, vendors, and the Scrum Guidance Body.

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