How can you continuously test software to improve quality and speed?

Continuous testing is to test the deliverables from the requirement phase to deployment phase on each and every step. The major advantage of continuous testing is frequent and timely feedback.

Continuous Testing: Improve Quality & Speed 1. Test automation: Automate tests for faster validation. 2. Continuous integration: Integrate code changes frequently. 3. Shift-left testing: Start testing early in development. 4. Agile development: Iterate for faster feedback. 5. DevOps collaboration: Foster teamwork for seamless testing. 6. Performance testing: Optimize software speed. 7. Test environment management: Maintain reliable environments. 8. Test data management: Ensure realistic test data. 9. Continuous monitoring: Address quality issues promptly. Boost quality and speed with continuous testing!

TDD is the best and proven approach to achieve quality and speed. I would also think about developing CI/CD/CT pipelines that would help us perform software quality checks using Sonar, vulnerability checks using TwistLock and Selenium for continuous testing.

Continuous testing goes beyond methodology. It represents a cultural evolution in software development. It introduces collective ownership for quality assurance, highlights a 'shared responsibility' between developers, testers, and operations. This method focuses on: test environments are stable, reliable, and readily available, early detection and mitigation of business risks, and efficient test data management. Embracing 'Shift-Left' and 'Shift-Right' paradigms, it advocates early testing and sustained evaluation post-deployment to capture real-time feedback and prompt issue resolution. This seamless information exchange between development phases fosters continuous enhancement, guided by critical metrics and KPIs.

Continuous testing is a boon of STLC and provides timely feedback in each phase. However the maintenance effort for scripts as well as infrastructure need to be included in estimation as well; an effort which we miss quite frequently in my opinion

CICD without Continuous testing is like running sports car on bumpy road, As You can't enjoy throttle of sports car on bumpy road, simlarly without continuous testing you cannot get advantages of CICD.

Defects can be found anywhere ar any time. It's a myth that testing at a certain phase will catch all defects. Continously testing means continuously finding issues and defects. Allowing quality to be baked in.

Continuous testin helps boost the DevOps pipeline because it fosters testing at all stages of the SDLC, from development to deployment. That means, it helps save developer time and effort because they no longer have to wait for QA teams to finish testing before fixing their code.

Continuous testing is crucial in finding the defects in early phases of SDLC, in turn saving huge costs to projects and companies. It helps to test and deploy software quicker and in more efficient way. Continuous testing enables organisations to achieve and maintain high standards for software quality by delivering software frequently, incorporating user feedback each time.

When working in a cloud environment with many dependencies, it might not be enough to test continuously when you do changes of the product. You probably need to implement Heartbeat tests that continuously test your most important use cases to detect problems when a dependency that you have break your application.

Continuous testing is just a approach, but to get benefits, you need different tools to automate your continuous testing, otherwise it will cost you more engineering effort.

Do some gap analysis on the lifecycle. Where do we have resources and testing? Find the gaps and fill them with resources, training, tools and better methodology.

Continuous testing is like having your favorite show on an endless loop – it's a never-ending quest to make sure your software doesn't end up as the punchline. Following is continuous test lifecycle: 1. Create an automated test for unit, api , functional and nonfunctional test .Always make sure to use the appropriate category and set the priority to each of your test case to have the flexibility to chose what test to run . 2. Run automated tests continuously each time code changes are made, or new features are added, allowing for immediate feedback. 3. Monitor and analyzed Test results to continuously improve.

Some of the foundamentals of continuous testing are people, processes and the technology. Having people with knowledge, clearly defined processes, it's very easy to choose which tools and technology to use, depending of the technology being used to develop and maintain the software.

Having a robust suite of automated tests is a key part of efficient continuous testing. This can be regression tests, sanity, acceptance, you name it. Once the tests are in place and in a position to offer reliable information about the state of the system, they can be plugged into CI/CD pipelines to be as efficient as they can be. Examples include: - run regression tests after each deployment to an environment - run acceptance tests as early as possible (ideally before code is being merged into master) - run sanity on UAT/Preprod environments - run visual regression on release branches

Frequent Feedback Timely Feedback Fast Delivery Early Bug identification Speed up the delivery process Time Saving Frequent Delivery

Speed up the pipeline. As you have a better understanding of quality you can push the pipelines efficiency. Customer engagement increases as they look forward to good quality code.

Continuous testing offers a multitude of benefits that are pivotal in modern software development. Firstly, it enables the early detection of defects, performance bottlenecks, and security vulnerabilities, which translates to more cost-effective issue resolution. By automating testing and integrating it into the development pipeline, continuous testing accelerates the entire development cycle, resulting in faster time-to-market and reduced time spent on manual testing. This approach elevates software quality, reducing the chances of critical defects reaching production and improving the user experience. It fosters collaboration between development and testing teams, enhancing communication and accountability. C

In my experience,continuous testing brings several benefits.It improves software quality and accelerates delivery by preventing defects from reaching production.By automating and integrating tests,it reduces manual effort and speeds up software updates.It also fosters a culture of shared responsibility for quality among team members, enhancing collaboration and communication. However,challenges like high initial investments in automation tools and the potential for false positives/negatives pose hurdles.Despite these obstacles,the resulting improvement in software quality,faster delivery times,and increased customer satisfaction make continuous testing a good practice for any organization striving to deliver top-quality software products.

Beyond the common advantages, continuous testing offers a novel perspective by acting as a catalyst for organizational evolution. It fosters a culture of learning and adaptation. As teams engage in continuous testing, they become more open to embracing change, iteration, and improvement. This culture of adaptability ripples through the organization, leading to increased resilience in the face of technological shifts and market dynamics. Continuous testing, therefore, isn't just about code; it's about cultivating an environment that thrives on change, making your organization more agile and future-proof.

Right Selection of Tools Support of Tools with infrastructure Resistance to change More engineering effort More engineering cost

it also comes with its fair share of challenges. One of the primary obstacles is the initial investment required to establish a robust automated testing framework and integrate it into the development pipeline. Developing and maintaining automated test scripts can be time-consuming, and it demands skilled personnel to design and maintain the testing infrastructure effectively. Ensuring the availability of diverse and realistic test data for comprehensive testing scenarios can be another challenge. Additionally, continuous testing may face resistance from team members who are accustomed to traditional testing methods, necessitating a cultural shift and the fostering of collaboration between development and testing teams.

Culture is the biggest one. Shifting perspective from "QA does all the testing at the end" to testing is done by everyone all the time. This can be done by engaging with a well constructed change management plan.

One of the key aspect that will pull back the concept of continous testing is "Changing Priorities". Team has to shift their focus when the business priorities changes and will have to compromise on few aspects which will impact the overall quality of the application.

Trying to automate every test can lead to create large test suites, which can be hard to maintain. Also, focusing only on functional testinf is moreover wrong approach. Also, the team must choose right tools, not popular tools. Having proper and real-life test data is something which should be considered. That data must be maintainable and to get updates from time to time. Being aware of false negatives and false positives.

To do continuous testing well, it's really important to be good at automated testing. You should save your testing scripts in a tool like Git. Then, use a tool like Jenkins to run these scripts. This is a big part of making continuous testing work smoothly. To get good at this, start by learning the basics of automated testing. Also, understand the basic ideas behind DevOps, and get comfortable with using Linux. This will make you much better at continuous testing.

As with every skill, one must learn by doing. And the easiest way to do a complex task is to divide it into manageable pieces. Define all parts of the product from the very beginning, to the end. Pick up one of the parts, understand what is expected result of that phase. And figure what needs to be done to be confident that the result is of sufficient quality. Rinse and repeat.

To improve software quality and speed, it is important to use continuous testing methodologies throughout the SDLC. This means starting with unit tests at the code level, gradually moving to automated integration and system tests, and finally reaching UAT. To speed up this process, we utilise tools where each code change triggers immediate feedback through automated test execution. We also adopt a left-shift approach that prioritises early detection of defects. This collaborative effort, where developers and testers work together, results in faster delivery of high-quality SW. Remember, it's not the formula that matters, but adapting these principles to fit your project to unlock the power of continuous testing.

To identify early defect at product life cycle testing at each level is mandatory. To emphasise more on testing at each level is beneficial as well as crucial for product development. In order to gain or achieve continuous testing there are multiple techniques that can be applied. There are various integration tools that can be brought upon to apply continuous testing. The utilisation of new tools & techniques are beneficial to project level as well as individual level. Additionally with market trending tools as well as the expert opinions can also be accumulated & processed to generate the results.

In my experience, continuous testing significantly enhances speed and quality in software development. Here are key aspects that highlight its impact: Automation: Embed automation testing early in development. Continuously add automated tests, allowing them to mature over time. Testing Often: Robust automated tests enable frequent testing, promoting the "Shift Left" approach. Fail Fast: Promptly notify development teams when automated tests fail, enabling swift code adjustments. Whitelabel tests: With strong automated tests, parameterize and modularize to adapt across environments. Cross Environment Tests: Utilizing Whitelabel tests, validate QA, UAT, Prod environments consistently and swiftly. #QualityAtSpeed #ContinuousTesting

This is like asking "How can you quench your thirst by drinking a glass of water." I am quite amazed at the decrease in quality of these LinkedIn questions. No, I won't answer this. Oh, I am already doing just that? Well, does this mean I get an expert badge now? Please, LinkedIn AI, I want to be an expert too!

Applications must self-test, without automatic tests, simulations and continuous testing in production, there are no safe/secure applications!

The team (probably mostly the dev team) needs to create test harnesses so that the system can work with mock data if either APIs are not created yet or external systems are down. In a previous project where the UI consumed data from web services, if our web services were down or the external MQ was down, we could not test the UI. Our dev team created a test harness we could connect to that could return mock data to the UI for us so that we could keep testing.

Based on my previous experience, the key to improving effectiveness in Testing is to "Shift-Left" which basically involves executing scenarios and capturing defects / requirement misses early (before it actually hits the QA phase). Continuous testing will be valuable only when testers and developers collaborate with product owners and designers. Testing throughout phases without any roadmap on what was the requirement and what is gating / non gating will have the risk of capturing defects that may be out of requirement scope, not in the roadmap which may create "clutter" in the backlog. Effective testing must be traceable to the requirement and on-point to what we are trying to deliver. This is my opinion as QA and Product Owner.