We've spent the last few months speaking to hundreds of CIO / CTOs and senior IT decision makers. Many of the conversations were so similar that we came to the conclusion that presenting our conclusions here will give you greater insight into industry-wide challenges. It will also hopefully serve to assure you that your issues are not unique to your teams and organisations, but are experienced by many others in your position!
Below are the top four key quality assurance areas that every CIO & CTO (and equivalents) are concentrating on over the short to medium term:
1. Invest in risk-based software testing
Why spend millions of dollars doing the very things that have achieved sub-optimal results time after time? You should not accept testing programs that test only the convenient things and result in "oh s!#t" moments the day after a new patch or version is applied throughout your system.It's time to invest your team's energy and resources into an objective risk assessment methodology that identifies the most risky processes based on key business and technological parameters.
This will help in optimising and allocating resources to test those process that are more likely to go wrong and / or more likely to cause widespread financial, reputational or operational damage if they fail.
2. Automation, automation, automation
Automated software testing is a much-maligned concept, and unfairly so in my eyes. Automation is vital in the right context: think washing machines, cars (depends on who you ask), digital marketing, lighting, Facebook birthday posts, .... , and software testing.Of course not everything can or should be automated, but that which should is much higher than most traditional testing minds would have you believe. This is the year of objectively understanding what should be automated and doing it.
A manual tester may cost half the price of an automation expert, but do the math and you'll find that your payback period in creating and running automated tests would only be a matter of days (for complex systems), or at most a few months.
Especially if you are undertaking a digital transformation program, have a think about the innovation that that you can drive (not to mention the resultant reputation enhancement) with the resources you save by switching from manual or automated testing.
3. Develop dashboards & analytics that make sense
The right insights into your testing program at the right time can save your bacon and minimise a lot of inefficiencies. The key to good dashboards is simplicity, while maintaining the ability to deep dive when required.Dashboards and reports fail when they are designed or collated merely to service the whims of senior executives. The good dashboards come to life when they are viewed and utilised as a living, breathing object that holds the clues to constant optimisation.
A lot of teams don't know where to start when it comes to developing insightful, relevant and appropriate dashboards. So we've done the hard work for you. Download our software testing metrics dashboard to understand the effectiveness and efficiency of your current software testing activities. Our testing metrics dashboard will work for you irrespective of whether your team undertakes manual, automated or manual and automated testing.
4. Invest in systems that enable data-driven decisions about when to release applications
One of the most significant drawbacks of testing tools your teams currently use is that they do not provide an easily accessible method of understanding key test-related data. For example, most enterprise-grade software testing tools, cannot inform users about how many tests have passed and how many are yet to pass in the current sprint. Most, except one.If you have digital programs then your teams are likely involved in building, testing and releasing many applications - all at once. There is very little headspace for an individual within these programs to deduce where a release is ready to go live, or whether it requires more work. These decision makers need more help. They need objective data from the software testing tools they use to help them make faster, more considered and evidence-based decisions.
We've built these benefits into our Qsome software testing tool. Get a demo of our Qsome testing platform to understand just how much it could help your teams slash software testing time and find more bugs before going live with a new release.
If you want more information about our software testing services and leading-edge software testing tool, or help in achieving any of the above, get in touch:
