Continuous Testing:
Digital Demands Continuous Improvement

Continuous Improvement Required

This can happen in user experience, functionality, quality, security, performance – or a combination of them all. And when it does, it’s inevitable that declines in market share, revenue and customer loyalty will follow. It might be a slow slide, or a sharp decline, but it will happen, especially where a high-profile software error occurs. Remember Equifax? (see the FTC report here)

The point is companies have to continue to innovate in software testing just as they do in software development. To deliver better products, delivery teams need to be able to test better. Most people are entirely oblivious to how many versions and updates of their most-used apps hit the market weekly. Many auto-update daily, integrate with multiple systems and accounts in the digital and physical world, and all have to operate seamlessly without anyone knowing it. This is just one example of how test and QA organizations need to keep pace in this digital age or app economy. They must look at the entire architecture of their testing cycle, testing tools, testing process, resource skills and how they are organized to enable the best business outcome. There has to be a cultural shift and commitment to continuously improve their processes for faster cycle time and greater operational efficiency Successful organizations achieve Continuous Testing by taking this approach, and not simply looking at speeding up and automating regression cycles to get the desired outcome.

While this all may seem concerning and disheartening to those leading the transformation that many organizations are making, in fact it is meant to do the opposite. While there are some organizations thriving at implementing continuous environments, the fact is that those still making the transformation aren’t alone. And most importantly, there are experts who know how to make this transformation as seamless as possible.

A few of the common misconceptions in continuous testing are what it means, what it encompasses, where to start, and how to make it successful.

What Does It Encompass: The Role of Continuous Testing

Essentially, Continuous Testing demands holistic testing optimization for higher rates of effective testing and that can’t be done without automation. This can only be enabled by making some fundamental changes in the test and QA process, including

Many businesses focus on automating just one or two aspects of the testing ecosystem. There are a lot of tools on the market – many good ones like Applitools, Hexawise, and Mabl– that do just that. But these tools can only do so much on their own. Continuous Testing requires tight integration and coordination between every stage of the test/QA process starting with the definition of Requirements & Expectations and optimizing future test with the added Insights, Analytics and User Feedback.

As a result of this broader, more integrated view, Continuous Testing enables organizations to understand where they can and should automate for the best results, as well as where they shouldn’t. This translates into big cycle-time efficiencies and effectiveness to get desired test coverage while also truly enhancing the end product.

How to make it successful

They all agree, yet follow it up with ‘when can you have it done by?’. This is when we have to reiterate the fundamentals we established earlier: process versus methodology.

Continuous Testing it isn’t a plug-and-play process, it is a methodology that needs to be pruned, tuned, and enhanced along the longevity of an organization. The most effective way to get the point across is by proclaiming “Well, when do you want to stop ensuring the confidence levels of your coverage? When do you want to stop optimizing your resources and become more cost and effort efficient?”

While this is a blunt approach, the bottom line is while we are moving at the speed of light, the lines between testing being accomplished from a syntaxial context versus and a semantical one blur more and more each day. The only way to incorporate the evolving parameters of what is done correctly from a structural execution standpoint (syntaxial) as well as what is done correctly by the desired end result (semantically), is to implement a Continuous Testing methodology that can adapt in parallel to your application development.

The most impactful way to make those decision is by investing in dynamic, real-time dashboards. Just like it was previously mentioned, all of these tools give us data to make better decisions. But there are so many tools today integrated into your organization and environment – not just in testing. They are all spitting out vast amounts of logs which all need to be aggregated to make those best decisions. For example, once a build gets checked in you want to start the unit testing, and follow-up stages with the right quality gates at each level. That way when a build fails, you will be able to and want to know why so you can take the right. Action.

Continuous Testing Advantages

It’s hard to argue with all the benefits of Continuous Testing, but how do you get there?

Infostretch Continuous Testing Services

At Infostretch we have created a Continuous Testing framework to optimize every aspect of the test/QA process. Our approach is designed to enhance the success of software development and its impact on businesses and their end users.

Infostretch provides the systems, processes, engineering, and automation needed to enhance the agility, efficiency and quality at each testing phase of the software development lifecycle – resulting in accelerated development cycles, faster time to market and increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

We leverage our extensive expertise in Quality Engineering and integrate the latest technologies to incorporate continuous feedback and analytics into testing activities to ensure business objectives and user requirements are being met even as they evolve.

Our approach focuses on:

Addressing the Key Challenges to Continuous Testing

By looking at all phases of the QA process, Infostretch can help organizations identify the key challenges they face in their software testing, pinpoint the best places to start making improvements, and understand how that will impact and improve other areas.

Integrating Continuous Testing with Actionable Insights

This data can be used to take your Continuous Testing initiative to the next level.

Combining our expertise in quality engineering and test automation with the latest AI technologies, Infostretch helps organizations leverage these analytics to optimize their testing processes even further. These capabilities include: