Integrating continuous testing for digital success

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With “digital” now a key part of every aspect of business activity, the ability to deliver innovation at speed is do or die. In a highly competitive marketplace with growing expectations of customer experience, the timely release of top-notch digital products and services is no longer a bonus, it is fundamental to customer acquisition and retention. The smallest of delays might be the opportunity a competitor needs to gain market share and become the new disruptor.

This makes empowering software teams to deliver flawless digital experiences at speed and scale of great strategic importance. To achieve this, organisations need feedback to determine if the latest development will either function as intended, break core functionality or, even worse, fail in a real-world setting. Software testing, once perceived as an impediment to speed and innovation, has now become a critical component of development activity.

This represents a huge perspective shift from the classic, waterfall approach to software development in which testing was often left until the end. Now, the move to DevOps and Agile methodologies means testing is essential for accelerating the delivery of innovative applications without incurring unacceptable business risk. But Agile and DevOps initiatives are also pushing traditional testing methods to their breaking point. Automation and testing throughout the development lifecycle are new must-haves.

Facing the challenges of continuous delivery

Organizations are releasing much more frequently— even as often as multiple times per hour. Testers are expected to test each user story as soon as it’s implemented, even when that functionality interacts with other functionality which is evolving in parallel. Testing is also expected to alert the team when changes unintentionally impact the legacy functionality that was implemented, tested, and validated in previous weeks, months, or years.

As organizations increasingly edge towards continuous delivery with automated delivery pipelines, go/no-go decisions will ultimately hinge upon test results. Test automation is required, but it’s not sufficient. Even with the most comprehensive automation, there is not enough time to test everything. When organizations adopt modern architectures and delivery methods, even teams experiencing clear test automation success will face challenges.

For example, realistic tests cannot be created or executed fast enough or frequently enough. Teams are overwhelmed by a seemingly never-ending stream of false positives and incomplete tests—not to mention all the test maintenance required to address them. And finally, they can’t confidently tell business leaders whether a release candidate is fit to be released.

It’s impossible to test every possible path through a modern business application every time an organization prepares for a new release. However, if the testing approach is reconsidered, it’s possible to achieve a thorough assessment of business risk with much less testing than most companies are doing today.

Bringing continuous testing into play

This is where continuous testing comes into play: providing the right feedback to the right stakeholder at the right time. For decades, testing was traditionally deferred until the end of the cycle. But by that point it was too late. There was little the team could feasibly do to address tester feedback except delay the release.

With continuous testing, the focus is on accelerating innovation by providing actionable feedback at the point at which it’s possible to act on it. This helps development teams identify and fix issues as efficiently as possible. It accelerates delivery by supporting business leaders to determine when it’s reasonably safe to release. This is achieved by mastering—and going beyond—test automation. It requires aligning testing with business risks, ensuring that testing effectively assesses the end user experience, and providing the instant quality feedback required at different stages of the delivery pipeline.

Therefore, organisations should implement a structured testing approach for new functionality. Development and testing teams must be able to know which environments have deployed new code, when new pieces of software need to be tested, what kind of coverage various tests provide, and what additional testing is needed. But test case portfolios typically suffer from the same problem — a large volume of tests with very little coverage of the application. 

This results in duplicate test cases and more maintenance to cover the ever-growing suite of tests – an impractical and cost-intensive process. By adopting risk-based test optimization, unneeded tests can be reduced while enhancing the risk coverage dramatically. It’s also possible to see which business-critical functionality has passed or failed, allowing organizations to make faster, more informed business decisions on releases. This results in maximum coverage of the highest impact business functionality, with the least effort. At its core, continuous testing is about evaluating the effect of change – using risk-based criteria to prioritize testing and evaluating business risk when determining when to ship. 

Therefore, the approach must also be driven by change, not only within technology, but people and processes too. Organizations must consider what they can do from all perspectives to facilitate the transition from their present state to a continuous testing process that accomplishes the organization’s quality, speed, and efficiency goals.

By adopting continuous testing, teams can disclose significant issues early in each cycle, reducing time-to-release by over half the time it traditionally takes, and reducing production errors dramatically in the process, too. Even better still, testing costs can often be tangibly saved and measured – a significant ROI given the current economic environment.

A strategic imperative to digital success

The bottom line is that testing is now a strategic imperative to digital success. Continuous testing helps test smarter for rapid insight into what matters most to the business. It repositions testing from a bottleneck to a trusted coach that helps push limits and surge ahead of the competition. Along with a better product, it’s possible to uncover development areas where incredible levels of productivity gains can be achieved and financial savings can be made. Without it, you might just find that your competitors have gained the upper hand.

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