The Role of QA in Sprint Planning

QA Designers should be sometimes included as testers to ensure that the development team includes developers, designers and QA testers in order to produce high quality products. With this team work, the development team can create a project plan that will meet the original sprint deadline. This excellent planning helps teams’ productivity and implies agile principles. During Sprint Planning, QA can meet with the development team, product owner and other members to provide exact time estimates for tasks. This would help them when breaking down sprints in order to meet deadlines effectively. By asking the team about their experience working on similar tasks in the past, QA can provide realistic estimates for completion of tasks. This helps keep everyone focused on following the plan and meeting deadlines as intended by Product Owners. Involving QA in Sprint Planning ensures that teams are productive, blocks are identified early and goals are met within timelines set by Product Owners.

This article discusses why it is beneficial to involve QA in sprint planning, and provides examples of how the role can be implemented.

1. Estimation and Acceptance Criteria-

QA can facilitate sprint planning meetings by providing guidance and feedback to the development team. QA can also help the development team describe their sprint goal, and explain how the goal fits into the overall project. In order for QA to do this effectively, they need to understand what has been delivered by the development team so far, and what product backlog items should be picked by the team for upcoming sprints. QA can also help to start a development team off with ordered sprint backlogs, pick work from a product backlog that is appropriate for their skills and abilities, and find out which tasks are most important for subsequent agile sessions or iterations. This includes describing the sprint scope in detail so that everyone on the development team is clear on what their goal is.

2. Test Cases and Device coverage

Involving the entire scrum team in sprint planning is essential to ensure that all tasks and user stories are thoroughly understood. During the sprint planning meeting, the product owner will get the scrum team up to speed on what needs to be accomplished for the current sprint goals, including any multiple tasks associated with supporting production activities. The product owner will also present any user stories from the product backlog and assign tasks to be taken on by the team. Once these stories have been identified, it is important that everyone has a clear understanding of what needs to be done, as well as an agreement on how this goal will be achieved.

3. Prioritizing

Quality Assurance (QA) plays a crucial role in helping the Product Owner refine the product backlog and maintain it. This helps the Scrum Master to understand the work and development needs of the team. It also helps resolve conflicts between the Development Team and Product Owner. The QA also helps facilitate events such as sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews, etc., which boosts overall productivity of the team. The Scrum Master hosts these Scrum events which smoothen any obstacles that may come in during development. These events are important for making sure that all stakeholders have a clear understanding of what needs to be done and how it will be achieved. By involving QA in Sprint Planning, it becomes easier for Product Owners to create high end products that will meet their goal on time.

Summary

Above mentioned are the only the few reasons that states the importance of the QA role in Sprint Planning. Hence the QA plays an essential part in every step of the sprint planning and ideally it should always be included in order to lay out a well-planned Sprint.