TL;DR

Here are five project warnings that are indicators that you are not using an Agile project life cycle. Read another post from the project management series. The post is based on a remarkable book written by Johanna Rothman, Manage It!

Having a Kanban board does not mean that you are in an Agile project lifecycle. Here are five warnings that you are not Agile.

Iterate Only On User Story Implementation

Iterating just on user story implementation is not enough. This is the last iteration that should produce a working prototype. You should also iterate on the planning and requirements. These are the preconditions for prototype iteration. As a software tester, you should iterate on the testing mission, strategy, and testing environments. These are all preconditions for your actual testing activity iterations.

No Contact With Customer

Or no contact with the customer surrogate. To get early feedback, you need to present your working prototypes as often as possible. Many teams do not have contact with their customer, or they are in contact with false customer surrogates.

Late Testing

When testing is not part of early planing, your team is not Agile. Three Amigos always have a tester. Testers are very valuable in reviling hidden requirements during the Example Mapping (requirements definition) workshops. First, present working prototypes to testers, after that prototype is ready for customers.

Not Feature Driven

The implemented feature enables you to solve some of the customer problems using the prototype! This will, for sure, impress your customer. If you are not driven by feature but parts of feature, you will not be able to do that.

Stand Alone Documentation

Documentation must serve the working prototype. Do not deliver a pile of documentation that could not be proven with a working prototype.