Many teams making the transition from conventional waterfall projects to Scrum are fighting to fit the tollgates they previously had to pass in their work process. Even though the testing tollgates, such as systems evaluations and operational tests, look to match fine within a sprint, in regards to User Acceptance Testing, something feels not quite perfect. When do all of the parties, all of the departments, or all the users officially test the product and accept or deny it? Before I attempt to answer that question, a quick reminder of what User Acceptance Testing actually is.
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is:
"Formal testing with respect to consumer needs, requirements, and company processes conducted to ascertain whether or not a system satisfies the acceptance criteria and to enable the user, customers or other legal entity to determine whether to accept the system".
So, how can this really be carried out in Scrum surroundings, in which an increment of working software is delivered each month or even less? In fact, it is not as hard as it appears.
Let us take a good look at the definition and break it down.
BREAK DOWN
In most Agile and Scrum surroundings, a Product Backlog is composed of User Stories. User Stories describe the user, the characteristic he/she wants to use and finally
The reason he/she wants it.
DEFINITION OF DONE
If Scrum teams are operating on a product, it's important for them and their stakeholders to have a mutual comprehension of what it means when a User Story from the Product Backlog is completed and make this as transparent as you can. They come into an agreement of what the definition of done is and agree to only call a User Story performed as it checks all of the boxes on the listing.
A beginning team typically has fewer tests on their definition of done, so that they could provide as early as possible, and increase the definition of completed over time as they grow. For example an increment must only be known as done when it is functioning -- and thus fully tested -- a bit of software, it's only really done when it fulfills the client demand, has the feature that the client wanted and meets all of the acceptance criteria.
The Product Owner is the individual responsible for optimizing the value of the product. He or she may do this by representing stakeholders of any sort, including customers and users, and is in fact another authorized entity mentioned from the definition of User Acceptance Testing. By working closely with the Development Team, the Product Owner can continuously deliver opinions about the product and can take an individual story to be performed when it fulfills the definition of completed. Throughout the Sprint Review, feedback should also be collected from all stakeholders as input for the Product Backlog. This guarantees a continuous feedback loop that permits the Scrum team to always deliver just what the Product Owner and stakeholders want. Though this sounds easy enough, many teams still struggle with testing during the chain.
They only work in a little portion of the bigger chain and do not integrate with the other software elements in the series until the end, in which it could be tested as a complete. That is where it becomes tricky and why a lot of Scrum teams don't do User Acceptance Testing within a sprint. This is also the second where a Scrum Master and management can shine. Solving this overdue integration issue by shuffling the teams to become attribute groups, responsible for the whole chain that feature includes, or bring together Scrum teams working in precisely the same series and make clear arrangements on integrating often, or even Continuous Integration.
In summary, the transparency and customer collaboration that Agile and Scrum supply, make sure that all checks formulated in the formal definition of the UAT are done within a sprint. When struggling with part teams within a chain, shine as Scrum Master and as management by removing the impediment of integration. This way, the demand for an official tollgate is eliminated, which enhances throughput, which in turn reduces the time of the feedback loop that produces the item of greater value to the client. And isn't that why we had to do a formal User Acceptance Test in the first location?
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