Leading Manual Test Efforts with Agile Methods

Despite the advances in both developer and customer automated testing, there remains a great deal of anecdotal evidence and testing thought leadership that suggests degrees of manual testing are still required for software-intensive projects, especially at the traditional, higher test levels such as user acceptance testing. We have come to believe that agile techniques can stay in the picture for the duration of manual testing. We have found that using Scrum-like management techniques are highly effective in planning, tracking, leading and organizing manual testing efforts, especially in the context of experienced testers that know both the system under test and the business domain that it supports.