This document summarizes a presentation about involving quality assurance (QA) engineers throughout the agile development process. It discusses how QA can take on more of a product owner role by being involved in defining requirements, testing during development, and providing feedback after deployment. The presentation provides examples of how QA is or could be more involved in various stages and encourages QA engineers and their managers to push for more participation, such as inviting themselves to meetings and conversations. Benefits mentioned include higher quality, while drawbacks could include overextending QA resources.

1. More Than a Tester:
Involving QA throughout the Agile Process
@PaulFMeeker

2. Raise your handif…
• You are a QA engineer
• You do automation
• You are a QA manager
• You are a BA
• You are a developer
• Anyone willing to share why they came to this session?

3. Overview
• Who am I?
• Everyone is a product owner
• QA involvement in all stages
• I’m a QA person, what should I do?
• I’m a QA manager, what should I do?
• Q and A

4. Hi, I’m Paul
I am a BAUXUIWDPOSMPMQARMHDMoPD
Manager of Product Development
Franklin University

5. Mostly a Product Owner

6. Everyone as Product Owner
The Product Owner (PO) is the member of the team responsible for
defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog so as to streamline
the execution of program priorities, while maintaining conceptual and
technical integrity of the Features or components the team is
responsible for.

7. Everyone as Product Owner
The Product Owner (PO) is the member of the team responsible for
defining facilitating the definition of Stories and prioritizing the Team
Backlog in collaboration with the team and stakeholders so as to
streamline the execution of program priorities, while helping the team
to maintain maintaining conceptual and technical integrity of the
Features or components the team is responsible for.
My job is to facilitate open communication,
transparency, and promote ownership of the
product for all team members.

8. QA engineers are Product Owners
• They know the product
• They know the customer
• (in our environment, they are first line of defense for support tickets
escalated to our team)
• They should know the direction and vision of the product
• They should be advocates for the user

9. Question
What are some ways in your environment that QA are or could be
product owners?

10. QA involvement in all stages
• Pre-development
• Roadmap
• Prototyping / brainstorming
• User stories
• 3 Amigos
• Acceptance Criteria
• Gherkin
• Define and refine (backlog grooming)

11. QA involvement in all stages
• During Development
• Gherkin
• Automation (see Jeremy Davis at 3:05)
• Manual and exploratory testing
• Advocate for the user in testing

12. QA involvement in all stages
• Post-development (post deployment)
• Training?
• Tickets?
• Getting feedback
• QA/BA cross functionality

13. Question
What are some ways in your environment that QA are or should be
involved in the following?
• Pre-development
• During development
• Post-development

14. I’m a QA Engineer, how to I get more
involved?
• Take ownership!
• Push to be more involved
• Invite yourself to meetings
• Tell your manager
• Ask questions
• Be a part of the conversation
• Other ideas?

15. I’m a manager of QA, how do I get them
involved?
• Get them into as much of the SDLC as possible
• “From inception to support”
• First job is quality—always the priority
• More involvement in this way will lead to higher quality in the end
• Other ideas?

16. Benefits
What do you think could be benefits of this mindset?

17. Drawbacks
What do you think are some drawbacks to this mindset?

18. General Q and A