The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many business processes, including digital testing strategies. It has also increased the need for organizations to provide online and remote services. The increased demand for digital services has added pressure on IT professionals to provide integrated and customer-oriented services. At the core of this change is the need to reform digital testing strategies to align with increased system and device integration. Users and customers demand a convenient, responsive, intuitive, and personalized experience with networked systems. These demands call for a digital testing approach that sets high standards for quality, convenience, and speed.

Do you have problems determining the right test coverage?

At a time when organizations are integrating so many devices and technologies into their IT infrastructure, IT staff can be overwhelmed by the increasing number of systems and applications that need testing. The issue is which platforms to test and how far the test should go. IT managers need to balance coverage and speed when testing different operating systems, platforms, browsers, screen resolutions, and interconnected services.

The key to achieving optimal coverage is to work closely with end-users and other departments to identify the common range of use and the most critical business processes, devices, platforms, and connection speeds. These factors will help determine the areas that need testing to minimize the risk of system disruption and failure.

Are your digital testing strategies consistent with the latest technology?

Modern businesses have to integrate several technologies into their IT infrastructure. Social media, mobile, IoT, cloud, and data analytics are some of the applications that need to work seamlessly in an integrated framework. Many organizations don’t have a viable plan of modernizing the testing approach to optimize these applications, yet they are major drivers of opportunity creation and revenue growth.

IT managers and CIOs should implement a continuous process of changing the testing strategy. This may require the involvement of the top management and other stakeholder in the organization. IT managers also need to recognize the main drivers for change, such as the need for staff and customers to access services online. Then synchronize testing procedures with business needs. This might call for the IT experts to determine acceptable timeframes and appropriate risk levels.

Have you retrained your IT staff?

The integration of digital technologies in modern IT infrastructure has made it necessary for testers to develop specialized skills to manage agile platforms and DevOp models. IT managers should assess their IT staff’s awareness of the test environment and test data management. They should also train them on the use of analytical tools, test automation tools, and contemporary testing and product development practices. Any skill gaps that you cannot remedy internally should be filled with external talent.

Are your DevOps streamlined and agile enough to cope with quality demands?

The aim of DevOps is to provide great applications by developing an integrated framework for maintaining and managing quality throughout the lifecycle of the application. The system should incorporate assessment mechanisms from engineering to application design to monitoring and analysis of the performance in different environments. IT managers should adopt DevOps strategies that address increasing business demands and make their systems agile and nimble.

You can make DevOps successful through cross-functional collaboration with other teams to define quality and performance metrics and achieve consensus with critical stakeholders on service level agreements (SLAs). You should ask yourself questions such as the number of users that the app will support, the most essential business processes and transactions, and the acceptable response times for different access points.

Use the information generated by these questions to build an application that will achieve the SLAs. The IT team needs to set up a system that detects problems early before they cause costly defects on other processes and products. The software should be tested continuously for security, functionality, and performance with appropriate metrics for each parameter.

Do you have enough testing solutions for the most critical digital technologies?

Make investments in new generation testing software and platforms, such as BlazeMeter and Test Data Manager by Broadcom, and use them to support quality processes within the organization. Even though legacy testing repositories and automation tools may work, you are better off implementing solutions that are designed for digital technologies. There are several innovative digital testing solutions that you can acquire or secure as a cloud service. Some of the most revolutionary testing tools for digital technologies include:

• Service virtualization solutions that test applications that are based on distributed service architecture.
• Diagnostic, monitoring, and analytical tools to assess application quality and performance and proactively detect problems before they impact operations.
• Specialized testing tools for mobile applications to validate app functionality, performance, and security on different types of mobile devices.
• Physical and virtual network testing tools to determine the functionality of interconnected layers, applications, virtualized functions, and system infrastructure.
• User experience testing tools for validating the accessibility, usability, and intuitiveness of different applications.

Have you considered automated testing?

Test automation has advanced substantially in recent years. Traditional automation involved recording and replaying techniques, but new technologies include scriptless tools systems that integrate machine learning and AI-based robots. New generation bots and testing tools can integrate into a system or an app and perform record and replay tests independently. Such bots can process information and learn new tasks to evolve into sophisticated testing tools.

While test bots are still a novel technology, they have the potential to revolutionize the way IT teams conduct test automation. Self-aware and self-learning tools can process and analyze large amounts of data, making automated testing faster and more effective than human testers. Investing in these technologies will cut testing costs and improve the quality of your tests in the future.

Have you considered outsourcing some test processes?

CIOs need to establish the right balance between conducting systems testing internally and outsourcing some functions. The decision to outsource testing is not based entirely on costs but on providing a service that ensures consistency and continuity, quality outcomes, open communication, standardized metrics, and quality processes across platforms. CIOs should also consider the need to collaborate regularly. Ideally, you should find an outsourcing partner with robust testing infrastructure, specialized industry expertise, and the ability to collaborate in creating a coherent digital testing strategy.

A&I Solutions is a leading information technology software & services provider focused on the Broadcom portfolio of products. Contact us to discuss how we help make your operations faster and smarter.