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One of the most prominent themes of this year’s World Quality report was ‘Orchestrating Quality Assurance in Agile and DevOps’, i.e. how to make better use of QA in agile development and DevOps. In this blog article, I have compiled the key points on the topic, and how organizations perceive the role of testing in DevOps projects.
Agile and DevOps are becoming more common – the biggest bottlenecks are found in processes and people
In the interviews with the various industry players, the views were overwhelmingly consensual: the biggest problems with agile development and DevOps are the adoption of business and operational practices. Most respondents used agile methods and DevOps at some level, but only one percent responded that they did not encounter any problems at all.
Currently, the biggest challenges are not technological but human and process-related issues. The teams have trouble finding the right targets for tests and test automation, repeating tests across sprints or estimating how much should be invested in testing. The lack of professional testing experience in teams is also evident.
The only problem directly related to the technological side was the test environment and test data problem. This means that the right kind of data was not received in the right environment in time.
On the positive side, most respondents had moved their testing to the same cycle as development and were no longer lagging behind.
Entity testing is what counts
So what’s the solution? One essential thing is to prioritise testing and invest correctly. Although technological solutions are developing and they are being deployed throughout the project, it should be clear to the projects how they can be used most efficiently.
One of the most important areas for improvement is the end-to-end testing of business processes. Individual teams too often focus on testing their own user stories, which leaves shortcomings in the quality assurance of multiple teams and system-wide business processes. In such cases, the use of Behavioral-Driven Development models and model-based test design can be the answer.
The tester of the future is in high demand
New operating models also require new talent for testing and quality assurance professionals for developing newer capabilities. Automation expertise, in particular, is much needed, as is the ability to perform performance testing. The larger E2E business processes also require a new way of thinking from test case design: who are all really affected by the new functionality and who are all really stakeholders?
All of this shows that synchronization and coordination between teams is crucial for the future of software development.
Download the latest World Quality Report
According to Sogeti’s annual World Quality Report, the most important task of digital quality assurance and testing is to ensure that development projects meet the business goals they have set for them. More than 1,700 CIOs and technology leaders from across 32 countries and a wide range of industries have been interviewed for the report. Find out how artificial intelligence can enhance testing processes, read about the best practices for managing test data, and discover how security is growing in the enterprise IT strategy. Download the report here.
