Marked Trends In Quality Assurance During 2016

By Author: Michael Wade
Total Articles: 67
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And the way to address such challenges and meet those goals is to incorporate software quality assurance testing in the development phase itself with Agile and DevOps principles.
The year 2016 saw the twin principles of Agile and DevOps gain currency amongst companies in spite of facing unfavourable economic and trade headwinds. It seems staying ahead of one’s competitors by keeping the customers happy has become the new mantra, wherein QA testing services have acquired salience unlike the earlier ‘earn profits at all costs’ dictum.

Besides, the emergence of Internet of Things and the need to develop efficient systems running the same have posed challenges for QA testers like never before. The entire year witnessed trends that aimed at reducing costs and aligning QA software testing with business goals.
The modern customer has become choosy and particular about the products or services that are delivered by companies. One of the foremost thoughts that drive a customer’s buying spree is the performance of the product, besides the security it offers. Today’s customers do not settle for anything less vis-a-vis quality given the plethora of competitors to choose from.
In view of the presence of such demanding customers, companies have to necessarily walk on the razor’s edge - of ensuring world class quality and optimizing cost at the same time. In the last few years, quality has emerged as a key attribute with quality assurance and testing becoming an integral aspect of the development processes. In fact, the year 2016 has seen a continuation of Agile and DevOps adoption by companies, wherein development and quality assurance and software testing have become a single entity rather than existing as two discreet functions.
The five key trends observed in 2016 about quality assurance testing are as follows:
1. Growth in digital transformation: Increased competition has led to a scramble among companies to get a pie of that elusive customers’ acceptance. Software or applications that are high on quality have increasingly found favour with customers, so much so that companies have gone for digital transformation of their QA testing services. The digital transformation process envisaged adoption of cutting edge technologies, cloud services and virtualization to carry out quality assurance testing. Furthermore, the focus of digital transformation has been more on ensuring customer oriented software QA testing and faster release cycles.
2. Growth in Agile / DevOps: Traditional software quality assurance testing has taken a back seat with the advent of Agile and DevOps. Instead of being reactive after glitches have entered the software, the new approach incorporates software QA testing in the development phase itself to prevent such an eventuality. Increased synergy between QA testers and developers ensures better quality of software that passes muster customers’ expectations. In the new approach, automation of QA testing services, development of right skills, and formation of a hybrid Agile TCoE hold center stage.
3. Growth in IoT: An upshot of digital transformation is the spread of Internet of Things, where objects communicate with each other thanks to embedded sensors and software. Any software QA company worth its salt has to include IoT testing in its scheme of things to not only keep pace with this emerging cutting edge technology, but also to ensure its functionality.
4. Cost of test environment: Given the cost of establishing a real time test environment, QA testing software has to rely upon cloud based SaaS and PaaS resources, and virtualization.
5. Continuous delivery of QA: Ensuring customer satisfaction implies taking care of after sales services and updating the software from time to time.

Conclusion:
The five QA software testing trends of the year 2016 show the discipline of QA to be evolving in order to keep pace with the times. The trends have highlighted the centrality of customer satisfaction in the overall QA scheme of things.