A report that we did not sponsor and had no hand in writing, the World Quality Report 2016-17, has made a series of recommendations that speak to the plethora of benefits already enjoyed by Qsome customers. We don't mean to gloat, but you can understand our delight when the 500 pound gorillas in our midst are only now writing about the service and technological innovations that we rolled out some time ago!
For the past 18 months, we have been working with our customers to remedy what the report found to be the top 5 software QA challenges:
- Enhance security
- Enhance customer experience
- Deliver higher quality software
- Cost optimisation
- Higher responsiveness to business demands
These 5 imperatives are not new. They have been around, albeit with differing priorities, for decades and will continue to challenge IT decision-makers for decades to come. The real question is: how many vendors on whom you lavish your IT budget directly address these challenges?
The report also outlines 5 key recommendations that are the source of our glee. Speak to our customers and you will understand just how the Qsome testing solution addresses each of the report's recommendations:
1. Invest in intelligent self-learning QA and testing platforms for all areas of the application landscape
Speed is king and it can make or break even the best applications strategies. The report suggests that you "predict risk areas and risk levels of projects and plan the priority of test cases." Here is how we implement risk-based testing and make it easy for you to spread across your applications landscape. Integration testing becomes a breeze when risk-based testing is harnessed.
2. Adopt a QA approach for DevOps, agile and traditional
More than a one-size-fits-all solution, I think the report's authors share our view that your QA strategy and tools should be flexible enough to adapt to your development methodology. Lean / Agile / Kanban / BDD / TDD / insert any other development model here, are almost never implemented by in their purest form, so why should your testing tool only work with one model and not others? To achieve the required flexibility, the report correctly notes that "automation of QA activities is not only required but is the core enabler of increasing throughput and velocity." Amen.
3. Invest in as-a-service solutions for test environment management, test data management, and test execution
Indeed. It is time to ditch the capex cost model for test tools and the T&M approach to resource management. Your QA budget should buy you well document, fixed-price and achievable outcomes using industry-standard tools, where the provider has skin in the game and is incentivised to deliver value throughout the engagement, not just for a few months before the next contract renewal is due. This approach lets you do what you do best, which is to concentrate on your core business.
4. Develop Internet of Things-specific test strategies
We were a little flummoxed by this one! IoT will be bigger in the years to come, once the market figures out how to make it really tick. In our view, if you implement recommendation number 2 correctly, then IoT (if it is relevant to your applications ecosystsem) will simply be another model to which your flexible QA strategy will just work.
5. Real-time dashboards to measure performance
I must admit I had a little chortle when I read this, because I remembered how some of our prospective customers are almost abused by the idea that we do not promise to deliver weekly or monthly PDF and Excel reports. The dashboard in the Qsome Technology Platform is the central source of truth for everything we do for our customers. No fudged weekly reports. No information asymmetry. Our customers see what we see, in real time. By no means is this the only data source that our customers use to measure internal performance of their teams, but it is a great way to assess the value your software testing vendor is delivering.
If you would like to discuss the recommendations of the World Quality Report or understand how Qsome's testing solution may benefit your organisation, give us a call or drop us a line:
Or contact us on +61 8 8312 1287 or solutions[at]qsometech.com
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