DEV Community: Dileep Marway

How to plan a successful quality assurance (QA) strategy

Dileep Marway — Thu, 18 May 2023 07:52:38 +0000

Introduction

In this blog we will be travelling on a journey to learn what a QA strategy is, why it should matter to you, what should be included in your QA strategy and how you can go about implementing it within your organisation.

I have worked in many organisations where some planning has meant that the team all steers in the same direction, ultimately this means happier customers!

What is a QA strategy?

A QA strategy is a document that highlights the quality standards that a software product should adhere to.

This document is key to ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned on the quality assurance approach.

In the past I have created this document in such a way that terminology and aspects could be understood by technical and non-technical experts.

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Why do you need a QA strategy?

The key reason as to why it should be used is that it allows you to have a consistent set of tools, tests, roles, and expectations. This will ensure that all team members are aligned on the objective and they will have a shared vision.

The second reason is that you have a clear organizational standard and best practices. This enforces rules on the approach. For instance the best practice for writing test cases may be on a standardised tool that you are using.

One aspect that I found was that over time the QA strategy aligned all team members, invited questions and it prevented defects from being delivered in a client release. The approach has a key objective to ensure that we do not have any escaped defects.

Project managers were also big fans of the QA strategy as it allowed organizations to plan schedules, releases, and level of effort for a release. A clear strategy can be estimated more easily, and a project manager will be able to assign a level of effort more readily.

Some four key value adds that I found as a ‘Head of QA’ were:

Functional and non-functional testing were applied as standards. Functional testing encompasses regression testing and testing key areas which were requested in customer requirements. Non-functional testing encompasses areas such as: security, performance, accessibility testing.
Enhancement of our reputation as the quality of the product is improved.
Reduced costs as fewer defects in the released product.
Allowed us to get ahead of your customers and iterate on the product. If there is a clear regression test pack you are able to iterate on the product more readily and make more changes.

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What are the key components of a QA strategy?

When you are creating a QA strategy from scratch it can feel daunting, lets go through some key aspects to include and work through it:

Let’s add the mission statement, this is what you are looking to achieve and what are the values. An example of a good mission statement for a mobile app is: ‘To empower businesses via our mobile app to help gain a competitive edge by providing simple yet innovative customer focused technology solutions.
Devise your objectives and goals. These are what the customer needs and expectations are. They must be SMART:

Specific — The goal you set should be specific, and you shouldn’t be able to misinterpret or confuse it.

Measurable — The goal should allow you to track your progress

Achievable — The goal needs to be realistic

Relevant — A relevant goal relates to your values, dreams, and ambitions

Time-bound — There needs to be a target date for completion, such as four months or one year

Acceptance criteria — confirm what requirements we are delivering against

Roles and responsibilities — this should answer the following:

Who is doing each task

What skill set do we have in the team

Deadlines for each of the tasks

Gather progress

Critical success features and measures — this is key as you should be tracking success of your QA strategy not just at the end of a project, but at regular intervals throughout the process.

Total number of test cases
Number of passed test cases
Number of failed test cases
Number of bugs detected after releases
Test effort — such as tests per bug = Total number of defects / total number of tests
Test effectiveness
Test coverage percentage = (Number of test cases covering the function / Total number of tests) x 100

Testing approach — the testing approach is key as it details the ‘how’. In the next session we will go through what should be covered in a test approach so that you can create one yourself.

What should be in a test approach?

The key aspects that should be covered in a test approach should be well thought out and the document is interactive, therefore it should be kept updated.

Firstly it should be clear to detail the purpose and project overview — this is a clear description on the scope of work and what value it is adding. For example if we were adding a new website for selling our apples we could say: The purpose is to create a website which will allow customers to buy apples so that they can be delivered to their door.

Then we would detail what aspects are out-of-scope. This is really important as it is then clear to all stakeholders what will not be tested. In the past I have found having this section explained has meant that stakeholders have said ‘we need to test this, because of this…’

Now onto the ‘how’ — we would detail at a high level what type of testing we will do in what order. For instance using my website example to sell apples the types of testing phases would be: Unit testing > Functional testing > Regression testing > Automation testing > Accessibility testing > Performance testing.

We would then explain the test environment considerations, this is key as if we decide to use another QA it should be clear to them what test environment considerations are in scope. At the same time if the test environment needs to be configured, this section will allow them to do this. Examples of questions to answer are: What physical environments do you have? What interfaces are relevant? Are we using any test emulators? Do we need to test on any specific devices?

Another important consideration to run a test would be the test data requirements, in the past this has been very key to ensuring that we have realistic data which is used by a customer. The types of questions to ask are: Do we need to refresh the test data? Do we need to create any data from scratch? Should the data meet any regulatory requirements.

In the next session describe your testing tools and what they are used for. For example: JIRA is used to track bugs/defects and is also used to track test cases.

We would then need to describe the test phases in detail, what they are, who will be doing it and what is the exit criteria. As an example: Regression testing is ensuring changes we make do not break previously working functionality, this will be done by Adam who is a QA analyst and the exit criteria is: after running our 50 regression tests we would like to ensure that we have no critical defects.

The timescales are key, especially for stakeholders and the project manager. It would list out end dates for each of the testing phases.

Now to the last sections which would start with a distribution list on who should be updated against details listed in the test approach — this may be your project team which includes: Test Manager, Engineering Manager, Business analyst, project manager.

The last section is an audit log on who should have input and approve the testing approach. The distribution list members would generally be listed as sign-offs of the document: Test Manager, Engineering Manager, Business analyst, project manager.

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How can we start to implement a QA strategy?

From experience, it was key to understand the business goals and ensure that the QA strategy is aligned with the business.

The first big learning is that you should input time to establish your quality goals, these goals should be SMART, detailing what you would like to achieve and what success looks like.

Another key learning is that building a strong QA team is underpinned by a focus on the roles and responsibilities. If the team knows what they need to do there is more chance of success.

The last bonus point that I would add is conducting a retrospective. By doing regular quality audits you will be able to correct and learn from your mistakes. As with anything it life it is good to learn.

Now that you have the QA strategy document defined it should be seen as a ‘live’ document, which is updated on a weekly basis.

Summary

The QA strategy should be at the heart of all that you do. It is most effective when it is a live document that is updated weekly.

What is test observability and how can it improve your testing process?

Dileep Marway — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 04:07:12 +0000

What is it?

Observability allows one to observe and understand what is happening during test execution. It means that we can see the inner workings of a test and examine, analyze, look at data inputs, review intermediate states, and also the output results.

People who use observability are seen to be 2.1 times more likely to detect any issues. Another benefit is that it has been reported that there is a 69% improvement in the meantime to repair (MTTR), which is how quickly an organization can respond to unplanned breakdowns and repair them.

Observability is great as it allows us to see what is happening in a test rather than wait for the final output.

With the push to the cloud, there are more changes and dynamism around changes. This means that it is difficult to deal with unknown things, for that reason observability is a lifesaver as it allows us to tackle the complexity.

This is a critical component of effective testing, DevSecOps, and software development. Teams can then use this data to build better, more secure, and more resilient applications.

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Why does observability matter?

If we want to ship new features faster and resolve issues before customers are impacted it is key that we have a strategy in place around observability.
It decreases our development time as we can diagnose issues more quickly.
We can increase our testing coverage, thus resulting in fewer escaped defects — which in turn means better quality software.
Better quality software means that our customers will be happier — which in turn means a positive business impact.
It has been shown that those who focus on observability have a competitive advantage.
Allows developers and testers to diagnose issues during testing. This means fixes can be understood more easily and they can be resolved.
Without observability, it is hard to determine the cause of the failure, so it is harder to fix and it can slow down the development process.

Lack of observability is a massive risk. Take for instance we have a production issue, without observability in place it would be very difficult to troubleshoot the issue and in most cases, it will take 3 times the time to find a root cause if that is even possible.

On top of this, the brand reputation can be damaged, developers will be frustrated and issues with your product will sit unresolved.

How can you add observability to your testing process?

Ultimately it can be used by anyone in a software development life cycle including developers, testers, and DevOps.

For instance, you can look into:

Using logging — will help you to track what is happening before and after any operations in your code.
Using debugging tools — you can add breakpoints and steps through the code to identify issues during testing. This is great for reproducing difficult issues and from experience, this was a lifesaver for me when I was a developer.
Use monitoring tools — these are real-time insights into the performance of your applications, report usage, and error rate. Monitoring tools are a key aid and it would be difficult to find these in testing.
Test automation — allows you to run your tests more quickly, at any instance of the life cycle.

My advice would be to start small and then use that confidence to move forward. It is also key that business benefit is taken with some ‘quick wins’. Look into your user logging and debugging tools as a starting point as these are not complex tasks.

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Testing in production

Observability facilitates testing in production by providing detailed information about the production environment and the infrastructure. As per my experience, testing is an educated approach to validate a system’s correctness, though it does not predict some edge cases or possible issues that may occur in production.

For that reason testing in production allows us to test code changes on live user traffic, catch bugs early and improve customer satisfaction.

There are two ways to conduct testing in production environments:

A/B testing — analyze if changes lead to a better user experience, with observability it is easier to see the impact.
Continuous monitoring — with this you can discover issues with the software.

What observability tools exist in the market?

a. Logging frameworks — these generate logs and capture relevant information during test execution.

b. Debuggers — tools that allow you to step through the code and examine values of variables at runtime.

c. Monitoring tools — provide real-time visibility into the performance of the application during test execution.

d. Test Automation frameworks — these allow you to automate manual test cases and collect data.

e. Profilers — measure the performance of the application during test execution.

f. APM tools — application performance monitoring to track the performance of your application during test execution.

The above tools are useful, though from experience the tool selected depends on your technical stack and also the architecture of your system.

For instance, when selecting your automation framework it depends on many factors such as:

Which framework is best for collaboration between developers and testers?
What is the language of the application being tested?
Does the architecture of the system lead itself more to one framework than another?

How long will it take to implement test observability in my organization?

This depends on the complexity of the system in question, the testing framework, and the level of observability required. Basic features like logging and debugging are easy to do and can be added quickly — in hours or days.

More advanced features like monitoring tools or profiling can take a lot longer. In these instances, proof of concept is key where course corrections are implemented if you are going down the wrong avenue.

In our DevSecOps team, the types of questions that we asked ourselves initially were:

Do we have any logs for the end-to-end customer journey?
Do we need any dashboards for capturing business metrics?
Do we need any alerts when this feature is due to go live?
Are we solely focusing on metrics when we should be looking at observability AND metrics?

What are possible challenges when implementing test observability?

Data silos — it is key that we understand our data and how it connects.
Volume, velocity, variety, and complexity — it’s always good to start small, keep learning, and then keep adding more data.
Manual instrumentation and configuration.
Lack of pre-production.
Wasting time troubleshooting

The area in which we struggled was that of data silos, by understanding our architecture better we could start to piece together how different data components were linked together. This was a time-consuming task, though it added a lot of value.

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Where is observability heading in the future?

Consolidation of tools — Right now many companies are having to use two or more tools to meet their observability needs. Having one tool will allow companies to save time, be more efficient, and also lower their costs.
Culture of collaboration — observability allows collaboration on code within the developer environment. This means that the collaboration and feedback loop between teams will be enhanced. The result will be better monitoring and fewer escaped defects in production.
On-demand tooling — modern observability tools are moving away from subscription structures that limit visibility and are moving to usage-based models. Usage-based models allow organizations to only pay for what they use.

In summary

Observability should be a natural ally to all testers. Remember testers ask questions and observability does the same, but aims to uncover answers.

We are more alike than we think! Working together can accelerate successful delivery. Ultimately, it is a win for customer experience.

How Can Continuous Testing Enable Enterprises To Reimagine Digital User Experiences?

Dileep Marway — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 06:14:21 +0000

What is continuous testing?

This involves automating tests and continually executing them throughout the software development lifecycle. Continually is the key work here.

In the past few years it has been key to a DevOps culture and the term ‘shift left’ testing. In this way in the development lifecycle testing is seen as a task throughout all phases and it is not as it was in the past, which could have been described as being a handoff between teams. This also meant that software quality could be evaluated across the software development life cycle (SDLC), providing critical feedback earlier and enabling high-quality, faster deliveries.

Having set up a DevSecOps team in the past this ideology was key to the culture of the team, it is an integral part of the continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline.

I have ensured continuous testing by having our automation suite run on every code change (commit) that is made, these results were then fed on to the development team. This was advantageous, as it meant that we could quickly identify and fix issues, as they say, defects are cheaper when found earlier in the development cycle. The other key advantage to our customers was that defects were less likely to escape.

Over time we saw a pattern emerging, escaped defects were going down and the overall quality of our application was improving.

Another benefit is that the time and cost associated with manual testing are reduced.

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Why is it important?

The 8 key reasons why it is key to successful delivery:

It means a faster time to market, as you can catch defects early, which means you spend less time testing and debugging.
It increases your software quality.
Reduces your costs around manual testing.
Quality is owned by everyone in the team — which ensures a DevOps culture.
Enables test environments to more closely resemble production environments.
Better collaboration between developers and testers.
Increased customer satisfaction, as releases are more reliable.
Saves developer time and effort as they are no longer waiting for QA teams.

How can it enable enterprises to reimagine digital user experiences?

For me personally, with our app and website continually needing changes to give our customers what they wanted, continuous testing was a key aid in achieving this. It meant that we could deliver new features more quickly and get feedback quicker. For instance, if we were to add a new feature and saw that it had a detrimental impact on the user experience, we could adjust our path quickly via continuous changes.

Given the pace at which we want to release it lends itself to test automation. Without automation, we would be unable to work at pace and manual testing can involve a level of human error. From experience, automation is most useful when it is fast running, reliable, and reusable. Over time it reduces manual testing, which is more error-prone.

In previous blogs I have mentioned ‘shift left testing’, without continuous testing this would not be possible.

Key tests which I focused on when we wanted to release at pace and also ensure that the level of escaped defects had decreased:

Smoke tests — these tests were automated and were key tests for important user flows in our product. They allowed us to make sure our key tests were working.
Unit tests — these tests were smaller in scale and were key to getting developers involved in the journey of quality.

Rather than the word reimagine I would describe continuous testing as allowing us to deliver at pace in a more efficient and practical manner.

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What should I be careful of when implementing continuous testing?

Some of the key learnings and areas to be wary of are:

a. Test automation selection — this is an area where you should be careful and take your time in devising the approach. Remember that automation should be used for repetitive, time-consuming tasks. In contrast, manual tests are useful for exploratory, user acceptance testing (UAT) — summarised as areas where you need human intelligence.

b. You will need a stable environment to run your tests continually. This was one of our first major obstacles as our environments were always down and they also gave us false negatives. We found that once we fixed our environments our tests were more trustworthy and our deliveries were successful.

c. Understand your business logic. This is key because automating the wrong areas of business logic will add no value.

d. Always have time for test maintenance. Remember your first priority should always be to ensure that your test pack is running and there are no flaky tests. Rather than adding tests, make it your priority to keep your ‘tests in order’. Do not tolerate unreliable tests.

e. There will need to be a level of organizational acceptance of the change. Communication is key here– why are we moving towards this change, what value will it add, and also what do we need to do to ensure success?

f. Your developers should be involved in testing because to move at pace, it is key that there are no handoffs and holes in the process.

Summary

If you are looking to really level up your delivery approach and success to your customers, continuous testing is key and it should be at the heart of your digital strategy to ensure success! Give it a go you will not be disappointed!

What is coaching leadership

Dileep Marway — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 12:43:09 +0000

Coaching is a term that is now being mentioned a lot more in the leadership space. Having grown successful teams I thought that I was well acquainted with this subject.

I was wrong, and having been trained by an exceptional coach, it has leveled me up. We should all do the same and should reach out to be led by a coach if possible.

The best leaders for me were those who asked questions instead of providing answers, supported employees instead of judging them, and facilitated development instead of dictating what had to be done.

I fondly remember one scenario where we were asked to automate our test cases and were told by a leader to use Java and Selenium as the framework, primarily as he had used this in the past for automation.

The automation product met the objective of automating some test cases, but the tests were flaky, we had false negatives, and we generally spent more time on maintaining/fixing the framework. The worst part was that we did not even trust the results that came out of the automation run.

Now if the approach was created in a coach-like manner it would have meant that the team would have devised the approach together. We would have used a language and framework that the team had the skill set to support, and also base our framework and language on the architecture of our application.

Companies are now moving away from traditional command and control practices. For me, coaching supports this evolution.

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How easy is coaching?

First and foremost, most leaders feel they are great at it. Though, most are not!

It is a skill that is never complete and you will be learning all the time.

How can we be more coach-like?

An approach that worked for me is rather than advising all the time I now ask some of these questions in at least one of my daily conversations. Why don’t you give this a try?

What is on your mind?
And what else?
What is the real challenge here for you?
What do you want?
How can I help?
If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
What was most useful for you?

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Coaching vs mentoring 🚌

In some cases, I have found that I still need to mentor. For example, if someone has the skill already then they can be coached by asking the right questions and they can be inspired to take action.

For example, if someone has expertise in accessibility testing, a leader can use coaching to use their previous experience to make a difference for the team.

In cases where they do not have the skills, showing them how to act on their request can help. Mentoring helps in this scenario, for example mentoring someone on how to write and run scripts in Jmeter when running performance testing scripts.

I will coach when:

The person has the ability.
They have worked in a similar situation before.
They will get more value from seeing the task from their own perspective as it needs deep thinking.

I will mentor when:

There is an ability gap
It is the first time they are trying a new task
It is a complex task where working and pairing add more value.

I may also mentor and coach at the same time, they are not mutually exclusive. From my experience sometimes doing both at the same time can help to teach a tricky skill that is hard to memorize.

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Closing

We should all try to be more coach-like — for me, reflecting, reviewing, and adjusting my approach has been key, and I have learned by not always advising and dictating.

We should do this as it means that team members will grow and they will be happier.

It increases diversity of opinions, conversations are better, and it’s a win-win all round.

Coaching is an extra skill you can add to your toolkit as a leader — give it a try!

Digital transformation – part 3 – My view

Dileep Marway — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 12:32:17 +0000

Recap:

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is using technology to create new or modify existing business processes, culture and customer experience to meet changing business and market requirements.

It can be summarized as the reimaging of business in the digital age.

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Why should companies consider digital transformation?

Personally, I have seen the power of digital transformation and it really sets you up for working in an agile, cross-collaborative way that pushes a company towards the journey of growth.

It also allows value add to every customer interaction and can give a better customer experience. In most cases, companies push towards digital transformation as it helps to stand out against competitors.

The big add for me is the fact that data collected via digital transformation means that companies can make more informed decisions, and at the same time they can understand more about their customers. One brand that comes to mind is Tesco and their use of the Clubcard — this allowed them to recommend offers to customers based on what they buy generally and it enticed customers to come back when they had previously left for competitors.

My view

Digital transformations work where leaders want to go back to the fundamentals, they focus on changing the mindset of its members as well as the culture and processes before they decide what digital tools to use and how to use them.

When in an enterprise environment I found that it was essential to retrain employees around digital, cloud, CI/CD, devops and other modern technology.

Whether in an enterprise or a startup environment I found that DevOps was a big tool in the digital transformation toolbox. Devops leaders galvanize software development, by merging development with operations, enabling companies to continuously iterate software to speed up delivery.

Devops was key to our digital transformation in a start-up environment and I have seen exactly the same in an enterprise setting.

I have recently also seen the value of data scientists and data architects. The key reason is that companies seek to glean insights out of vast data, and transformations lean increasingly on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI).

Digital transformations generally succeed where they are led from the top and are accepted bottom up. In our startup setting, I found that when the whole team is invested it means that there is more chance of success. What was great was that we had a clear vision to add/improve our digital products, and this went a large way in attracting new talent. With the right culture and mindset, we found that the innovation just kept growing.

It was important to reflect weekly, this allowed us to change our path and thus focus on another change to add more value. For example if we focused on the mobile app and adding new options, if users found a defect which halted them reading articles we would shift our priorities.

The key tip I would give leaders is to really focus on the cultural aspects, with the right culture it will mean that you have a higher chance of success. What was important was that the team feel valued, respected, listened to, and are in the best environment to do their best work. I liken this to a plant where if it is in the right environment, with the right soil and right nourishment, it will surely flourish.

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Applying this to Quality Assurance

Digital transformation in a startup and enterprise environment can be different.

For instance, when I worked in a startup it was pushing more towards agile processes and what was key was that we really accelerated on automation, also ensuring that engineering and QA understood the automation and they could run it together. The automation framework selection was a group decision rather than just QA, this led to group acceptance and it pushed us to digitally transform as a team in an agile environment.

In contrast, in an enterprise environment, it was key that the assurance aspect was first, that there was buy-in for stakeholders first to prove that we knew what we were testing, whether it was prioritized with product and we were ensuring that we had no escaped defects first. Once the basics were in place they wanted to see a clear framework selection, with a proof of concept and key success criteria for the selection of the framework.

In a startup, I would say there was more appetite for experimentation and if one framework failed it was fine to try something else, though with data we could make this decision quickly.

In an enterprise environment, there was less appetite for risk and it meant that the framework selection had to be well thought out as the impact of getting this wrong was more wide facing.

Why can digital transformations fail?

Some of the key reasons why I have seen failure are due to:

Resistance — where the team is not invested in the change. The team must be taken on a journey to ensure they are committed, and this ensures more chance of success.
Ensure there are change leaders — it is essential that there are vocal supporters of your digital transformation.
There is a lack of a review process. We must review where we are and whether we are on the right path to success and if we are not on the right path then make a change.

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Closing

Thanks for sticking with me on this digital transformation journey. Digital transformation is never easy and it is difficult to put a time frame on this.

What is most important is that there are checkpoints and measures in place so that you have a greater chance of success!

Digital transformation - part 2 - Enterprise vs Startup

Dileep Marway — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 12:47:01 +0000

Recap from the first article:

Which are the most wanted automation testing tools that have climbed the top of the ladder so far? Let’s take a look.

What is digital transformation?

Digital transformation is using technology to create new or modify existing business processes, culture and customer experience to meet changing business and market requirements.

It can be summarised as the reimaging of business in the digital age.

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Why should companies consider digital transformation?

Personally I have seen the power of digital transformation and it really sets you up for working in an agile, cross collaborative way which pushes a company towards a journey of growth.

It also allows a value add to every customer interaction and can give a better customer experience. In most cases companies push towards digital transformation as it helps to stand out against competitors.

The big add for me is the fact that data collected via a digital transformation has meant that companies can make more informed decisions, at the same time they can understand more about their customers. One brand that comes to mind is Tesco and their use of the Clubcard — this allowed them to recommend offers to customers based on what they buy generally and it enticed customers to come back when they had previously left for competitors.

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When does digital transformation succeed?

I have seen digital transformation succeed in an environment where communication is clear, concise and we can track success.

Generally I have seen that in a flat organisation structure it lends itself to better communication and decision making, thus giving a higher likelihood of success.

If each decision has to go through multiple layers of managers to move forwards, mistakes cannot be detected and corrected quickly enough.

Thus as part of digital transforming an organisation I have seen the focus on the use of agile processes, which involve faster feedback loops and failing fast.

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Startup environment — digital transformation

In a startup environment digital transformation can be seen as the building blocks to building up the team and it can initially be seen as the key focus to start making profit.

The issue in this type of environment can be that this can be seen as a costly and risky solution, though with the right guide rails and metrics, the risks can be mitigated.

The most important aspect is to ensure that the culture is such that digital transformation can be achieved.

I personally feel that the technology aspect is not the hardest, rather the people side is always harder. Getting those who are fully aligned with the challenge and culturally they fit the bill will mean that there is more chance of success.

Some key tips that I would recommend to startups based on my experience:

1- Don’t be discreet about your digital transformation.

2- Don’t focus on new technology, prioritise your goals instead.

3- Don’t ignore feedback and sentiments.

4- Do your research, maybe you do not need more technology.

5- The culture of the organisation is key, no matter how good the plan if the change is not accepted it will fail.

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Enterprise environment

In an enterprise environment it can be more challenging. There are multiple structures in place and there can be a resistance to change.

What helped me personally in an enterprise setting was that keeping data on how we will measure success and delivering a weekly update meant that the team was more open to change. At the same time, documentation has been key to ensure that there is a level of confidence in the understanding of a particular change and what value it can add.

For example in our technology department we moved from bi-montlhy releases to weekly releases. At first when I mentioned this there was reluctance for the change and it was mentioned that this move had failed a few years ago.

I achieved small steps by taking a release with less tickets, adding more structure and showcasing the value of failing fast, and getting constant feedback. What helped was when we first went with a bi-monthly release there was an incident and we had in excess of 100+ tickets and could not even track down what had caused the issue. With weekly releases we do not have this issue.

Some key tips I would recommend to enterprise organisations based on my experience:

1- Strengthen communication — influence culture, productivity, performance and success of a company.

2- Be disruptive and innovate — set trends, address changing consumer needs and offer authentic solutions to address the needs.

3- Nurture a collaborative culture — departments tend to hoard information and power in a top-down hierarchy.

4- When moving forward, do not forget to look back.

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Closing

Digital transformation is a great tool to accelerate profit in a company. It can be difficult and it can fail — in those bad times it is key to learn and not be scared to keep going!

Basics Of Compatibility Testing

Dileep Marway — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 16:02:35 +0000

Compatibility testing is checking if the software is capable of running on different hardware, operating systems (OS), applications, network environments, or mobile devices.

It is a key part of a QA strategy and if this has not been thought of in your approach I would recommend that you do some research and make it a key part of your approach.

Given that there are a large number of devices/browsers it is key that you have a strategic plan to ensure that compatibility testing is factored into your testing strategy. For me, compatibility testing is a form of not discriminating against devices/browsers that a particular user may use.

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Why is compatibility testing important?

Far too many times I have used websites on my iPhone where I cannot buy the product that I want to buy, or I’m on my MacBook and a website cuts off the right-hand side on the Safari browser.

I’m sure we have all been frustrated in these ways before and it is an annoyance which hinders the user flow. As a customer I’m willing to spend more on a product if the website user experience aids the user flow.

Key reason why you should factor this in:

Ensures complete customer satisfaction
Provides service across multiple platforms
Identifies bugs during the development process and earlier than customers!
Avoids customer complaints.
Ensures a competitive advantage

Types of compatibility tests

Hardware
Operating system (OS) — such as Windows, Unix, MacOS
Software — e.g. ensuring that MS word is compatible with MS outlook
Network
Browser — for instance: Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer
Devices
Mobile — android and iOS
Version — e.g. Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1

Key terms mentioned around compatibility:

Backwards compatibility — this is where you are testing to see if your software is compatible with previous versions.
Forwards compatibility — this is where you are testing to see if you software is compatible with versions which will be coming in the future.

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Steps to fit in compatibility testing in your testing approach

Define a set of environments or platforms the application is expected to work on.
Gather customer data on how your customers use your products.
Understand the expected behaviour under different configurations.
Setup your environment and get the particular device permutations ready.
Report any bugs that are found.

Step 2 for me is super important and it is one where I do not feel enough people build into their plan.

To gather customer data on how your customers use your products I would recommend that you set-up google analytics or an alternative type of statistical analysis system.

For example when we had a website product, this data allowed us to know what browsers and OS versions our customers were using. Using this we could then tailor our test cases to ensure that the product functionality met the users needs.

Another game changer with this data is that it removes bias, many a time I have assumed that a latest device will be the most used by a user base, though when I received this data I actually learned that users generally used the latest device which was from a year before.

What are the common compatibility issues found

Changes in the users interface (UI)
Change in font size
Alignment issues
Change in CSS style and color
Scroll bar related issues
Content or label overlapping
Broken tables or frames

Why you should use a compatibility testing tool?

The biggest concern around compatibility testing is that there are so many different test cases which need to be tested constantly, and if we are making key architectural or code changes the ability to release at pace becomes near enough impossible.

So how can you build compatibility testing into your test approach and still release at pace?

The answer to this has been to use a compatibility testing tool — now there are lots on the market, though my recommendation is to do your research and take your time to pick the right tool.

In this Ad hoc testing tutorial, let’s deep dive into what Ad hoc testing is, its advantages, disadvantages, types, characteristics, and their best practices.

Key considerations for me when selecting a compatibility tool include:

Price
Usability of the tool
Device availability when you need to test on it
Availability of older/never devices and different browsers
The ability to incorporate the tool with your automation pack

My personal recommendation is LambdaTest, primarily because:

It supports more than 3000+ browsers and operating systems.
It allows live interactive browser compatibility testing.
It is cost effective and has great customer service.
The devices are readily available.
Allows integration with an automation framework.

Incorporating a compatibility tool with your automation framework is a game changer and this is a key consideration when you are at a stage where you are confident that you understand why you are testing for compatibility.

My closing statement is that if you do not have compatibility testing built into your testing approach it can be a game changer to your users and I would recommend that you add it as soon as possible!

Digital transformation – part 1 – basics

Dileep Marway — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 15:42:11 +0000

Digital transformation is using technology to create new or modify existing business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements.

It can be summarized as the reimagining of the business for the digital age.

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Why should companies consider digital transformation?

Personally, I have seen the power of digital transformation and it really sets you up for working in an agile, collaborative way which pushes a company towards a journey of growth.

It also allows a value-add to every customer interaction and can give a better customer experience.

In most cases, companies push towards digital transformation as it helps to stand out against their competitors and ultimately move ahead.

The big value add for me is the fact that data collected via a digital transformation has meant that companies can make more informed decisions, and at the same time they can understand more about their customers.

One brand that comes to mind is Tesco, and their use of the Clubcard — this allowed them to recommend offers to customers based on what they generally buy and it has enticed customers to come back from competitors and shop in their stores.

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Examples of digital transformation

In covid times a large amount of doctor appointments became virtual appointments — this is an example of using technology to meet changing requirements. This meant that customers and doctors were safer, at the same time it has helped where people are struggling to get appointments. This for many has been a game changer.
When taking a flight there has been a move towards online check in, which has enhanced the experience. This has saved time on the long airport check-in lines and as a bonus lets people book in their seats before they even reach the airport.

The biggest example of digital transformation that has come to mind though is the monster brand ‘Netflix’.

This started as a mail order service and it completely disrupted the bricks-and-mortar video rental business.

Digital innovation made wide scale streaming video possible. Digitisation also gave insights into viewing habits and preferences. The data was also used to inform decisions on everything, from design of user experiences, to development processes to actually watching the films.

To become successful Netflix digitally transformed the following areas:

Process Transformation
Business Model Transformation
Domain Transformation
Cultural Transformation.

In this case for Netflix digital transformation was a massive win!

How to go about your transformation?

Digital transformation can look different in each company, though the thought process on achieving this can be similar.

Firstly start with the problem statement and see whether there is a clear opportunity for development.

Then ask for feedback from different members, this will allow for diverse thoughts and it may also mean opportunities in areas not previously thought about.

The last step should be to plan out the transformation, and track the success via measurable metrics. This is essential as if the transformation is not giving the reward you would expect, then having data allows you to correct ahead of time.

Tips from the industry

Based on my research some key findings:

Understand what is possible with digital transformation before you start to plan.
Design customer experiences from the outside in and see what problem you are trying to solve.
Recognise employees’ fear of being replaced — this is not what digital transformation is.
Review the capacity and acknowledgement for change within your organisation.

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Closing

Digital transformation when aligned to business goals is really powerful and it has made many businesses more successful, also adding that customers have reaped the rewards.

Most of the digital products we use have certainly been achieved via digital transformations of their brands. We as the customer have certainly reaped the rewards.

Basics of Accessibility Testing

Dileep Marway — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 14:00:24 +0000

What is it?

It is a software testing type performed to ensure that the application being tested is usable for users who may or may not have an impairment. This is a subset of usability testing.

The aim is to make the software more accessible to all people, whether they have an impairment or not, and it is also known as ‘a11y’.

When sites are designed, developed, and edited correctly, all users should have equal access to information and functionality. There should not be functionality that is only accessible to one type of user.

Why should we all care about accessibility?

Increase the market share of your product
Aid usability
Assist all types of users
Means more maintainable code
Increases your SEO
Ensure that you maintain your loyal customer base
Maintains brand value
Avoid lawsuits

Here's an article that looks at what is Regression testing, its importance and types, and how to perform it.

Accessibility testing myths (not true)

Creating an accessible site is expensive.
Creating an accessible site means we cannot release at pace.
Accessibility is plain and boring.
We should not care about such a small client base.

Accessibility should be built into our daily development practices

In 2019, the US Supreme Court handed victory to a blind man who sued Domino’s (pizza outlet) over site accessibility. The blind man was unable to order food on Domino’s website and mobile app despite using a screen reader. I’m sure the site is now accessible!

This was a massive turning point in the US and it was a big win for accessibility advocates.

Since 2019 — many Fortune 500 companies have been sued as their products were not open to all types of users. Now companies are really pushing to ensure that they are accessibility compliant — if you go on a website and see an accessibility badge, this implies compliance.

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What type of accessibility legislation currently exists

US — Americans with disabilities act — 1990
UK — Disability discrimination act — 1995
AUS — Disability discrimination act — 1992
IRELAND — Disability act — 2005

Legislation exists to protect users and software created for this clientele base should adhere accordingly.

Types of impairments to support

Vision — complete blindness/color blindness or poor vision
Visual — like light strobe and flashing effect problems
Physical — not able to use the mouse or keyboard with one hand/poor motor skills like hand movements and muscle slowness.
Cognitive — learning difficulties/poor memory/not able to understand more complex scenarios.
Literacy — reading problems.
Hearing — auditory problems like deafness and hearing problems/cannot hear.

Accessibility guidelines

Web content accessibility guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) — is the key guideline whereby you can review compliance against key checklists for your testing needs.

Content accessibility is based on:

Perceivability — content and UI should be presented in the most suitable way.
Operability — Able to encounter no blockers when navigating.
Understanding — It is easy to understand the content and UI.
Robustness — the site is robust and functional.

QA checklist for accessibility testing

Techniques that can help users to access web content:

Screen reader
Web accessibility toolbar (WAT)
Screen magnifier
Bluetooth keyboard
Speech recognition tools

My recommendation to QA professionals is to buy these peripherals in your device repository and start to add use cases from an accessibility view point. I learned a lot myself personally by using a screen reader and it helped me when I was an engineer to test from a user perspective.

Useful online tools for testing accessibility standards

Web accessibility toolbar (WAT)
WAVE
Deque
Color contrast analyser

I personally have used deque and I must say that their product and independent review was game changing. Knowing what level your website or app is at is key, though they provide expertise to ensure that you know how to stay at that desired level.

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Advice for Engineers

My advice to engineers is that we should all care about quality in a team.

I would recommend that you study the accessibility standards — WCAG 2.0 guidelines and make a A11y project checklist.

Also, in my past role we got our DevSecOps team to make the accessibility tool part of our code commit lifecycle. While we still had to test accessibility aspects manually, it still helped to catch key accessibility red flags which would have hindered a user.

Another recommendation is to make accessibility a requirement by creating a user story for each sprint and project. I have personally found this useful as it means that there is a reminder that we should be releasing at the end of a sprint to compliance.

As mentioned above, make basic accessibility testing part of the quality assurance or user acceptance testing process.

Conclusion

We should all care about accessibility in our software with the main aspect being that all users should have equal access to information and functionality.

Why don’t you start by seeing whether the software that you produce is inclusive or not?

My experiences in Shifting QA left

Dileep Marway — Mon, 17 Oct 2022 13:30:13 +0000

We have all heard the term ‘Shifting QA left’ in software testing — it is a term used by many senior stakeholders and while there are lots of ways of doing this, I will be sharing some ways which have worked well for me in the past.

Defects are cheaper when found earlier, there is evidence that defects are 100 times more expensive if they are not removed during the requirements phase.

Having walkthroughs of the requirements will help to uncover questions that can add true value when done early.

I loved seeing engineering, product, and QA professionals whiteboarding ideas and devising the customer value of an idea. Having alignment as early as possible in the process meant that we created true customer value.

Sometimes asking ‘why’ early on can make a massive difference. I have seen software fail where QA, engineering, and product are not aligned on the true customer value — ultimately this may mean that critical defects are released to clients. Not because there is no care, rather it is a misunderstanding of requirements.

Take an Apple wireless mouse, me being a customer, I would have been much happier if the team discussed this early and worked out that adding a charger port on the bottom of the mouse was a bad idea — especially when it cannot be used and charged at the same time, thus, making the device unusable when out of charge.

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How can we shift QA left?

Ensuring that QA is everyone’s responsibility — I always use the statement that QA is owned by the whole squad (product, delivery, engineering and QA) — why is this? A shared output means that there is more care for the product being engineered.
Prevention rather than detection — how annoying is it when you have a QA person who feels their sole goal is to find enough defects so that a developer looks totally inadequate. This should not be the objective, rather QA and engineers should work together to prevent defects occurring — pushing better unit testing and understanding what the customer value is.
Automation is key — testing earlier is cheaper, and failing fast is the name of the game. Automating will make it easier to find defects early.
Engineers and QA contribute to unit, integration and acceptance tests — in my experience, pairing and working together on these key tests mean that team accountability for QA is shared.
Having the right culture — this for me is of utmost importance. A culture of teamwork, sharing accountability and owning the deliverable will ensure that the communication will automatically start early.

To find defects earlier you do not need to meet all of the above. From my experience small steps can help to get the team working towards the same goal.

The way that I pushed better collaboration between engineering and QA was to ensure that there was mutual respect on both sides, with each side learning from the other. What is key is to understand the skills from both sides would ultimately contribute to the same end goal, they are both cogs in ensuring the smooth delivery of software.

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Getting early testing right

Failing fast is important and having the right mindset is key for this.

We have all seen the testing pyramid: https://martinfowler.com/articles/practical-test-pyramid.html

Summarising it — unit tests are more isolated and are faster to run, in contrast user interface (UI) tests are more integrated and are slower to run.

It has been found that small and fast unit tests are key to failing fast. Whereas acceptance tests are used to test end-to-end functionality of an application from a user perspective.

Aspects that can help us shift QA left:

Unit testing
Use of linters
Static code analysers

Programming errors
Violations of common coding standards
Syntax anomalies
Security issues

Static testing

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Summary

Shift left QA is not a process change, rather it is a mindset and cultural shift for an organization.

The key reason why you should do it?

It lowers the cost of testing and development, and it also increases efficiency of releases and the quality output.

For me, what is most important is getting the team working in unison, where engineering, QA, delivery and product are aligned on the value of what they are looking to achieve. It generally means that they will push processes to shift left.

We should all care for our mental health

Dileep Marway — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 13:54:04 +0000

Mental health is not spoken about enough for me. While it is a buzzword in the industry right now, I do not feel that companies do enough to support and look out for signs of poor mental health.

Having researched online, it is a problem which is growing by the day, and we should support our peers where it is needed.

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel and act. Our inner health is as important as our exterior health — it is important to realise that someone who may be smiling on the exterior may actually be struggling internally.

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Key facts

40% of employees take time off work because of mental health.
Only 1 in 5 employees suffering from mental health confide in their employer.
More than 1 in 2 employees state that they would leave their job if their mental health was not supported.

From my own experience I have been in situations where I have not felt myself and have felt as if I am running on fumes.

Why was this?
Because I was overworked, over stressed and had a lot going on in my personal life.

What did I need?
I needed a break to recharge and this for me meant turning my laptop off and putting it in the draw. The break was needed to spend time with my family and not think about project deliverables.

How did I know that I needed a break?
A simple ‘How are you?’ a question from a peer made me realise that I was not my normal self and I felt over stressed, also I was overly tired out.

I am now enjoying my weekend with my family and I am putting ‘ME’ first.

My advice for leaders is to gauge the mental health and happiness of your team. Your words make a massive difference to people’s lives and I don’t think enough leaders see this.

Yes, delivery is important, though a person’s mental health is even more important. Delaying a release by even a day is better than having it on your conscience that someone has been broken by your decisions.

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What are the general signs of mental health concerns to look out for?

General unhappiness.
Anxiety and agitation.
Feeling lonely and isolated.
Anxiety and agitation.
Frequent changes of mood.

A sad statistic is that only 1 in 5 employees suffering from mental health confide in their employer, why is this?

People feel ashamed that they cannot handle it alone.
They do not want others to feel they are weak and cannot cope.
A feeling of being discriminated against.

Having been a mental health champion in the past, I found that my coaching skills really helped. Giving support to others really meant a lot. It is important to remember that we are not robots, rather we should show love and care to one another.

I found that talking to someone independent who is not your manager or leader is beneficial as people are able to speak in confidence to another person in the wider team. If you do not have mental health champions in your workplace I would recommend that this would be a great addition.

A mental model I like to follow is to always denote that it is normal to have a bad day and we should all wait excitedly for the next ‘happy’ day to arrive.

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What 5 things can leaders do to support the mental health of their team?

Coach and listen to your team — allow your team to open up and ask open ended questions.
Reassure your team that their views are important, and you are always there to support them.
Look out for signs of change in your team and provide support if needed.
Communicate regularly, give recognition where due and have regular 1–2–1’s.
Support your team ensuring a good work-life balance.

Using a car as an analogy, I liken mental health to when the car may need a service. We are the same and we cannot keep running on 100% as the fuel and car efficiency will falter.

As leaders it is our duty to maintain the health of our team and ensure they are the best possible versions of themselves — mental health is integral to this!

Celebrate all successes — whether small or big. Please do celebrate the fact that you are awesome for reading this article!

QA Transformation Journey

Dileep Marway — Thu, 13 Oct 2022 07:35:32 +0000

In the following article, I will talk about a situation that many QA professionals have encountered and what I would recommend the approach should be to move forwards.

The problem statement

Imagine you are in a scenario where there are lots of incidents, delivery is slow and customers are not happy with the quality of your products.

What should you do?

As a Head of QA, and Test Manager in the past, I have had experience in these situations before. I will now take you on a journey of change… grab a nice drink and come on the journey with me.

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Step 1: Investigate

The first step is to hold independent interviews with multiple team members to understand the problem at hand.

I would recommend asking open-ended questions like:

What is the reason in your view for the incidents and customer complaints?
How would you describe the culture?
If asking questions outside the QA team:
How would you describe the QA approach?
How do you collaborate with the QA team?

Once the inspector gadget phase is over, we must now digest the information. I would recommend independent chats or surveys with QA, product, engineering, delivery, and customers (if possible). These chats should not be biased in any way and it should be shared by the interviewee that chats are confidential, with no names or details being shared outwards.

Step 2: Data analysis

Based on the data gathered, this data should be analyzed to then decide where to focus your attention.

For example, in my experience data can be generally focused on the following:

Cultural issues
Lack of ‘Assurance’
Poor product knowledge
Lack of collaboration between Product, Engineering, and QA

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Step 3: What to do?

The next aspect is to decide what to do. I will explain some examples of what I did for each scenario, with additional examples.

Cultural issues
Lack of assurance
QA strategy — aligned to your technology strategy, what are you testing and why?
Testing approach — what is your particular approach to testing on a particular project/squad?
General overview on what you are testing and why? At least then you can then collaborate with engineering, product, and stakeholders to review gaps in your test cases.
Poor product knowledge
Get the product team to review and contribute to the test coverage in the test cases.
Get the product team to review and contribute to the acceptance criteria on tickets.
Meet regularly with the product team and ensure that product knowledge is shared/updated.
Poor collaboration with Product and Engineering

Step 4 — How do we maintain success?

We should track whether our mitigating measures have made a difference or not. Going back to our problem statement, we wanted to see whether we can reduce customer incidents and also customer complaints.

I would recommend a full post-mortem review as learning when incidents take place and reviewing whether the incident amount is going down. If they are not, do another review independently to establish the root of the issues.

Tracking success can only be done if we start to track certain metrics.

Aspects that I have found useful to track:

Escaped defects
Customer complaints
Test cases that have been added to your regression suite every sprint
Unit test coverage
Number of times a ticket is re-tested and defects found against it

In this article, we look at what is Regression testing, its importance and types, and how to perform it.

Conclusion

Quality assurance transformation is a journey piece, and by tracking QA metrics, step-wise improvements can be achieved.

Success cannot be maintained solely by QA, rather it is a collaborative effort with QA, Engineering, product, and the wider team.