Software the Agile Way....

Technical proficiency -  automation can free the time of testers to do more exploration, which allows discovery.   Investigative curiosity Observational skills Communication skills Writing skills and bug advocacy Domain knowledge Willingness to learn Social skills Humor Practice "Testing is questioning a product in order to evaluate it . Software testing is about revealing the unknown." Source-  http://www.ebaytechblog.com/2013/01/31/becoming-a-world-class-tester/#.VTNlhNKeDGd http://java.dzone.com/articles/3-technical-skills-every

A tester on an Agile team should not just be doing testing after implementation, but should be actively involved all the way through development.  They can spot testability problems and other gaps from the very beginning, help the developers design the implementation with testability in mind, and define the tests before and during development to help the developers hit the right target.  As this is the case, the tester really needs to understand the whole story, not just the testing aspects. Quality is the responsibility of an Agile team, not any one individual. Offloading quality tasks to Tester people is a handoff that decreases the responsibility as well as the agility of the team.  Offloading will not increase quality in the long run nearly as much has collaborating. These people should be integrated, which means they need to collaborate with the rest of the team on quality tasks as well as collaborate with the team on other tasks (including story pointing). ...