Testers in an agile team are mainly responsible for performing various tests to meet the definition of "completed", thus contributing to the continuous value creation that the team strives to deliver in repeated iterations. For testers, it is vital to have an agile mentality. Without an agile way of thinking, they may not be able to plan, prioritize and execute their tasks decisively, thus inadvertently affecting the team’s ability to meet iteration goals ability. An agile way of thinking is a prerequisite for testers to demonstrate correct behaviors, which can accelerate the performance of the entire team.
In order to succeed in agile projects, testers should focus on the following practices:
1. Attitude trumps everything
The testers in the team may not have an agile background, automation skills or extensive testing experience-as long as they have the right attitude to become a member of an agile team, this is still possible. The right attitude will be reflected in the following behaviors, such as: believing in the agile manifesto and practice, trusting the coach and following it with all his strength, being open to new learning and changes, expressing clearly and transparently, and committing to activities important to the team , Proactively improve and become better during this time, etc.
Agility, automation, testing, or other training can go hand in hand for people with the right attitude. 
Based on past experience, testers who use rigid thinking at work slow down the progress of the iteration. Some behaviors are-only test defects when the status is updated in the ALM tool; when the test environment is closed, idle and do not perform sanity testing on the local host; consider separate testing activities during the meeting; adhere to the formality of team members during deployment Communicate, block resolutions and hints, etc.
On the contrary, testers who came with an open mind changed themselves, served the team, and contributed in various possible ways. For example, some of them wrote Junit cases in their free time to help developers and learn to write services. To simulate the test environment, flexibly adjust the plan and test methods in a highly dynamic environment.
2. Prioritize iteration goals over external allocation
In a matrix organization structure, testers work with the Scrum Master in an agile team, but they report to the line manager of the test practice department or the test manager in the same project. These test managers who drive overall testing in agile teams may assign testers many special tasks that are inconsistent with the team's iteration plan.
In many contacts with testers, I found that it is difficult for them to strike a balance between the two aspects-both performance evaluation and commitment to work. Most of them try to take on external tasks without informing the agile team because they don't want to upset their direct leaders. Some people know that it will affect the ongoing iterative activities, so they complete these tasks by extending their working hours, that is, working overtime, but many people sacrifice iterative activities. Due to this compromise, they were unable to deliver the iterative goals, which led to the regular overflow of user stories and also affected the team’s level of trust and cohesion.
In this case, what should the tester do? The answer is-iterative activities should always take precedence over any other activities. However, if they can complete external tasks without affecting the iteration goals, then they can continue! However, if external tasks are likely to affect the iteration goals, then they should consult the team to obtain collective agreement or disagreement, and inform the direct manager of the decision.
3. Relationship equality in cross-functional teams
"I can't test this user story because the developer did not deploy it", a tester said in the daily standup, and the developer replied: "Sorry, I forgot it, but you should also contact other developers to complete it. .". This scenario highlights the lack of collaboration and ownership of the team. Promoting the completion of a user story and eliminating intermittent obstacles is not a personal responsibility, but a team effort, and testers who are part of the team are no exception.
Certain behaviors of testers help to speed up delivery-regardless of whether it is related to testing, you need to pay attention to obstacles; often synchronize with developers instead of communicating via email; actively participate in scrum meetings to improve the team's decision-making ability , Align with the team’s plan, so that their activities are consistent, and so on. 
Some testers who interact with other teams too much prefer to pick low-priority tasks. Because they need to spend hours to solve the problems of other teams, but at the expense of their own work-this behavior is beyond the edge of being an equal partner in a cross-functional team. Team members should first solve their problems, and if needed, providing help to other teams should be a secondary goal.
4. Assumptions are not an option
Sometimes, stakeholder reviews show that the team has some unnecessary assumptions regarding acceptance criteria. Assumptions are not a specific choice for testers, because testing is the last activity in the workflow and therefore the last opportunity for anyone on the team to verify requirements. In addition, the tester’s expertise lies in finding problematic deliverables.
I understand some of the root causes that make testers fall into unreasonable assumptions. These reasons are: fear of being judged on their ability to ask the right questions, not getting proper answers to their previous questions, poor communication skills, preventing them from seizing any opportunities, lack of a safe environment to openly challenge acceptance standards, or Ignorance during the backlog improvement meeting, do not ask questions that need clarification.
In agile projects, the assumed cost is too high, because the product increment will soon be rolled out to the end customer-any defects delivered will affect the return on investment (ROI) and require rework, which consumes more budget than the value of the function .
Iteration managers, Scrum Masters or coaches use techniques such as 5 Whys to conduct a thorough analysis of these root causes, which is very useful for designing effective guidance plans and controlling these behaviors in subsequent iterations.
Author: Chen Qi, a senior adviser agility test, as well-known project management software - Zen team members, is responsible for managing open source automated testing framework --ZTF development work. With more than ten years of agile process practical experience, he is now committed to practice and research in test automation and DevOps related fields.
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