If you want to boost velocity and improve quality through continuous integration, quality assurance isn’t enough for DevOps teams. You need to step up to quality engineering.
In DevOps, testers play a variety of tasks, the most essential of which is that of leader and champion of the quality engineering process. From quality assurance testers to quality engineers, your team must progress.
You can start the shift once you grasp the differences between quality engineering and quality assurance, as well as the function of testers in quality engineering. Here’s everything your team needs to get started.
What is quality engineering?
The process of incorporating quality into a product is known as quality engineering, although it is not the same as quality assurance. The latter’s purpose is to uncover flaws as early as feasible in the software development process. The quality assurance team, usually testers, is responsible for evaluating the product’s quality using techniques like requirements reviews, inspections, code reviews, and manual and automated testing. As part of quality assurance, non-functional testing, such as performance and security, is carried out.
Quality engineering is more extensive and has a greater scope: it encompasses and transforms the entire product development lifecycle. By including quality dialogues into idea generation and user-experience research, quality engineering can begin before software development. The practice of specification by example, for example, involves architects, developers, and testers bringing their viewpoints to the requirements stage.
By suggesting methods for the architecture and design processes, quality engineering leads the way into the software development process. As the architecture is being designed, for example, members of the quality assurance team give comments as they plan for security and performance testing. Because the main cause of security, performance, and defect concerns can usually be traced back to the design phase, ensuring quality is crucial at this time. Rather than attempting to detect and remedy design flaws later in the process, quality engineering seeks to prevent them from occurring.
Quality engineering is an important part of DevOps since it allows you to increase both velocity and quality. It facilitates continuous integration and serves as the foundation for continuous testing.
How to implement quality engineering
Because your entire DevOps team must take responsibility for building quality at every step of the process, transitioning from quality assurance to quality engineering necessitates a cultural transformation. Start by assessing your team’s skillsets to ensure you have the required expertise for the continuous delivery process. To get your team up to speed, you may need to provide training in areas like release management, setting up new environments, and testing the continuous integration process. You may also need to hire a new team member with specialized skills, such as a security specialist or a software development engineer in testing (SDET).
This cultural shift is required for “shift left,” in which testing begins as early as feasible in the development cycle, and “shift right,” in which testing is introduced in production with the goal of detecting and resolving errors before customers do. It’s also a predecessor to continuous testing, which includes not only code testing but also testing the continuous integration process.
Next, make sure your tool stack and automation framework are up to date and capable of supporting both left and right shifts. Continuous integration and testing are based on automation, which necessitates a whole DevOps tool stack that includes not only SDKs and test automation tools, but also tools for continuous integration, continuous deployment, and continuous monitoring.
Finally, create a quality engineering strategy and road map that outlines how your team will incorporate quality into each stage, from concept through continuous delivery. Make a list of the people, processes, tools, and outcome-based metrics you’ll utilize. Your quality engineering road map should outline the steps between quality assurance and quality engineering, as well as the activities your team will need to complete at each stage and a deadline for execution.
Where testers fit
In DevOps organizations that value quality engineering, testers can serve a variety of responsibilities. The most significant is that of the quality engineering process manager, who is in charge of those quality dialogues from start to finish. Because he or she must ask the proper questions, this person must have a lot of expertise and knowledge.
Testers can become customer champions by focusing on the user experience and applying their subject skills and business knowledge. Alternatively, they could pursue a more technical path, specializing in performance, security, or mobile testing, or upgrading their skills to become an SDET.
For testers, the path from quality assurance to quality engineering is paved with opportunity. The best way forward is for each member of your team to assess their abilities and interests and select the most fascinating and gratifying career.
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Also Read: https://www.guru99.com/software-testing.html