# Infosys Whitepaper 
Title: Enhancing quality assurance and testing procedures 
Author: Infosys Limited 
Format: PDF 1.7 

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 VIEW POINT ENHANCING QUALITY ASSURANCE  AND TESTING PROCEDURES - Mayank Jain    Principal Consultant 

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 External Document © 2018 Infosys Limited Introduction In today’s world, most large and mid-size  organizations have opted to centralize  their software quality assurance (QA) and  testing functions. If you are part of any  such dedicated QA and testing team,  looking to learn more about the latest QA  trends, then, this paper is for you.<|endoftext|>The Software World Quality Report, 2015- 2016 indicates an average expenditure  of 26% in 2014 and 35% in 2015 on QA  and testing. In fact, many organizations  began allocating a yearly testing budget  since about a decade ago, or even before.  These budgets are allocated for the actual  testing, the testing processes, procedures,  tools, etc. But what happens if the defined  processes are not implementable or the  teams find them to be outdated and teams  are unable to stick to these standards? The  obvious outcome in such a scenario would  be a decrease in QA effectiveness, increase  in time taken and team frustration – all  leading to lower production quality. That’s  why testing processes need continuous  review and enhancement, more so with  newer technologies and shorter sprints  (idea to production).   In this paper, I have outlined seven keys ar- eas that the QA and testing function must  focus on to enhance their organizational  maturity and bring innovation in their day- to-day work.<|endoftext|>  Seven key areas to enhance the overall QA and testing function Define quality Standardize, centralize and optimize Improve QA processes  New-age testing techniques Automated testing Supporting elements –iImprove test  environments and test data Metrics, dashboards and analytics 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 

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 External Document © 2018 Infosys Limited Standardize Optimize Centralize Defining quality The ISO standard defines quality as “the  totality of features and characteristics of a  product or service that bears its ability to  satisfy stated or implied needs.” The important part of this definition is the  conformance to requirements and the  expectations from the quality assurance  function. Quality, contextually, depends  on the organizational setup, business  demands, and the inherent nature of  business competition in the era of mobile  and increased social interaction.<|endoftext|>In my opinion, the first step to improve  quality should be to understand the  expected level of quality. Accordingly, a  decision can then be made whether to  establish a dedicated testing function  or simply follow a federated model. In  both cases, a basic discipline to ensure  the software quality processes and  periodic enhancement to methodology  and lifecycle, procedures, etc. should be  instituted. Such discipline will ensure that  products and services satisfy the stated or  implied needs.  Standardize, centralize  and optimize  As discussed, depending on the needs and  expectations from the quality function, or- ganizations can choose to either centralize  their quality function or not. Let’s discuss  the challenges and the possible steps to  address them in case the organization  intends to centralize their QA and testing  function in a Testing Center of Excellence  (TCoE).  Challenges: TCoE processes are time  consuming and expensive. In addition,  often times, the application development  team spends a large portion of their time  explaining requirements or creating  various builds for QA. These challenges  are magnified when an organization has  multiple lines of businesses (LOBs) and  lacks common grounds to leverage each  LOB’s capabilities and strengths.  Solution: Think of a scenario where each  LOB follows similar processes! Would this  not help integrate more easily? In my  experience, it certainly would. So, the  sequence of centralization should be to  first standardize processes and tools for  each LOB, then, proceed with centraliza- tion. These foundational steps will ensure  optimization of idle resources, tools, tool  licenses, and lower total cost of ownership.  Dashboards can provide critical QA  analytics here.<|endoftext|>

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 External Document © 2018 Infosys Limited Improve QA processes •  QA and test maturity assessment:           To baseline and improve the  organizational QA capability, it’s  recommended to measure the maturity  of existing processes and tools.<|endoftext|>•  Test governance / clear policies: Just  like you cannot navigate to a new  place without a map, QA teams need  clear direction in term of the test  methodology, how the testing lifecycle  aligns with the development lifecycles,  and the responsibilities of a tester, test  lead and test manager.  •  Test management process (TMP): TMP  is an artifact that can be developed at  the organizational level and individual  lines of business or application areas  can develop their specific test strategy.  For example, the strategy can outline  its strategic direction on what areas  would get automated, which customer  facing applications would be piloted for  security testing, and which applications  would go mobile and be hosted on  the cloud. These may be piloted with  mobile- or cloud-based testing. The  executive and operations committee,  once instituted, should liaison between  the business, application development,  and the operations teams to align QA  and testing methodologies with them.  •  Shift left and get the requirements  right: It’s proven that a shift left strategy  in the software development lifecycle  (SDLC) helps find issues earlier. The  industry is moving towards using a  single application lifecycle and finding  ways by which different teams can  increasingly collaborate and become  agile to respond to each other’s needs.  Reducing requirement volatility and  developing agile teams can significantly  improve strained dialogues between  business and IT.<|endoftext|>•  True vs. hybrid – Agile and DevOps:  Again, this depends on how we define  quality. If the need of the organization  fits well with a hybrid agile model,  then, the advocacy of true agile  processes would be immature. To  achieve reduced cycle time and  quicker time-to-market, continuous  integration, continuous development  and testing concepts are commonly  being used.  •  Smoke test / build quality: Approvals,  UAT support, and metric-based focus  area for regression helps break silos  with the development teams and the  business (top down and bottom up  approach).<|endoftext|>A new-age testing saga Many IT professionals often face the question – What’s next? I am sure you must have come across such situations too. To answer it,   here are the latest trends in QA that organizations can leverage to reduce the risk to IT applications: Predictive  analytics Service  virtualization Data testing and  test data  management Mobile- and  cloud- based testing Risk-based  and combinatorial  testing  Infrastructure  testing 

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 External Document © 2018 Infosys Limited Predictive analytics Like other industries, predictive analytics  and machine learning concepts are now  being leveraged in software QA and testing  as well. Most QA organizations accumulate  huge amount of data on defects, and test  cases prepared and executed. Just like  Facebook can predict and show what you  may like and Netflix knows what type of  movies you may like, QA teams can now  predict the type of defects that may occur  in production or the error prone areas of  an application or the entire IT landscape  based on the production or past QA de- fects and failed test case information.  Service virtualization In today’s world, different teams and  multiple applications under the same or  different programs, often, come to a point  where one team cannot develop or test  if the second application is not ready. In  such situation, it is best to adopt service  virtualization. This concept is mainly based  on the fact that common scenarios can be  simulated using a set of test data, allowing  interdependent teams to proceed, without  having to wait.  Data testing and test data  management (TDM) A majority of organizations have immense  data issues, including data quality, avail- ability, masking, etc. In fact, the system  integration and testing (SIT) and user ac- ceptance testing (UAT) teams can enhance  the effectiveness of testing by leveraging  various test data tools available. Apart from  the tools, test data management is becom- ing an integrated part of the shared service  organization. Many financial organizations  across the globe have dedicated TDM func- tions to manage their test data as well as  support various teams to create test data.  Mobile- and cloud-based testing Mobile devices are ubiquitous these days.  Today’s mobile world is not just