Like most agile methods, Agile Assurance (AA) relies on a hands-on team of project leaders, called mentors. These mentors are part architect, part tech lead, part technical manager. They interface between your project management and virtually every other member of your teams. They are the "conductors" of the process on a day-to-day, minute-by-minute basis, who make sure that everything that should be done is actually done, but that no effort is wasted.

Mentors work closely with your project manager and your requirements leads to ensure that all of the important enterprise requirements are actually addressed. This often involves establishing a strong relationship with the business side of your organization. AA mentors help to explain software assurance issues to the business, and help your architects translate those requirements into technical terms. Mentors therefore need to have a good understanding of your business.

Mentors also work closely with your architects and technical leads to ensure that assurance-related decisions are actually implemented. Translating "fuzzy" requirements such as security, reliability, manageability, and maintainability into implementation is an important challenge, and AA mentors know how to do this without breaking the agility of your processes.

A critical practice of any agile project is extensive testing. Agile Assurance extends this practice to include additional forms of verification that are the most practical for verifying that the system's design and construction meets assurance objectives. For example, if a particular requirement is hard to test, an AA mentor will provide techniques for checking that the requirement is satisfied on a continuing basis. This helps to prevent surprises during operation for system characteristics that are difficult to test, such as security or long-term reliability.