| | December 20198CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONWith the advent of new methodologies, DevOps, AI, BDD, the next phase centers around further shortening the time to market by moving the testing even further left into the development space. It's shaping up to be another wild ride, but that's why we love itGETTING THERE:By Gary Gagnon, Director Quality Assurance, Advance America [NYSE:AEA]If you set the Way back machine and visited a Quality Assurance team 15-20 years ago, you would return with a greater appreciation for how testing has evolved. Back then, we were reading requirements, preparing test cases, and waiting for what seemed forever for code delivery. When they completed the code, it was "thrown over the wall" to QA and we began executing tests. Issues were found; some were valid; others induced conversations around what a requirement "said" and what it "meant." Bugs were fixed and retested until finally a decision was made that the code was "good enough" to release. So how did we escape those disciplines? More importantly, if this describes how you work now, what can you do to move forward? Let's review a couple of examples from my experiences to show some paths forward. I believe continuous improvement helps to fix your most critical issues and builds upon each other over time.Trapped under the waterfall: When I began one job as QA director, the company was in its 18th month of developing a new point of sale system using a waterfall methodology.The QA team had been hired but had not actively worked on the project yet. The team scrambled to review all of the requirements and built the test cases. The first release came and there were many defects and requirements misses. After many months, the product was released. The team got faster at interpreting the requirements; they asked more questions and became more and more prepared for the subsequent releases.Fix #1: The Company moved QA from the Thanksgiving kiddie table to the grown-up table by adopting quality a priority. Changing mindsets made everyone consider quality A ROADMAP TO IMPROVING PRODUCT STABILITY THROUGH CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
< Page 7 | Page 9 >