How QA Evolution Adds Real Business Value

Dinosaurs did the same old thing, day after day, year after year. And, just like them, QA organizations that fall into repetitive patterns will become extinct in today’s modern application marketplace. To avoid being left behind in the Mesozoic Era, these organizations should evolve with the times, using an adaptive approach to integrate advanced technology and development methodologies. 

Evolution in QA requires that testers evolve at a continuous pace to keep up with emerging technology, such as AI and ML. New technology means improvements in tools, along with changes in test design, execution and planning. Organizations that adopt an Agile methodology can adjust their work habits, processes and procedures to promote a culture that prioritizes ongoing evolution via continuous improvement. 

And QA evolution comes with marked results: increased quality and enhanced efficiency for the organization, and more secure, higher-performing digital products that promote more positive customer experiences. 

We’ll elaborate on the importance of evolution in QA and continuous improvement to keep your organization adaptable and producing top-tier quality applications. 

The basics of QA evolution

The methodology and approach of the development organization often informs the adaptive techniques developers and testers will take. An adaptive SDLC takes advantage of incremental and iterative development practices that can adapt easily or be flexible if requirements change. 

Agile is an adaptive SDLC. Even if your flavor of Agile is unique, any approach is considered adaptive as long as it enables flexibility based on fluctuating customer requirements. An adaptive SDLC benefits organizations by creating a flexible work culture with a focus on the quality of the end product for customers. 

Benefits of an adaptive SDLC include:

• iterative and incremental development and testing
• high efficiency based on a continuous flow of work
• team collaboration to support productivity
• short customer feedback loops to keep requirements updated
• work culture based on continuous collaboration and improvement

QA teams that can quickly adopt new technology and update testing processes can increase the depth, efficiency and quality of testing. Frequently, QA teams get stuck in testing ruts. They want to do the same type of testing and test execution that’s always been done. Many testers prefer to feel comfortable with the existing test processes and tools and often fear any changes to an established routine. The problem is, technology changes all the time. Changes are opportunities to improve.

Keeping up with emerging technologies

Evolution is gradual and ongoing change. Changing the mindset of your QA team to evolve along with technologies and products might take some time. But changes in tools, test design and even test execution are necessary to keep improving testing quality, speed and flexibility. 

Pick your acronym — AI, ML, AR and VR technology will affect the software testing world for years to come. It’s an imperative for testers to keep up with the valuable and positive changes these technologies will bring over the next 10 years and beyond.

Testers must evolve to not only survive, but to thrive. Getting acclimated to these technologies early is a gift. As QA teams evolve and learn to use each technology to their advantage, testing quality, coverage, speed and engagement improve. Your work environment and career options likely also improve, as new technologies provide learning and growth opportunities.

Evolving and adapting to new technology provides QA teams:

• active opportunities to learn and practice new skills
• career growth externally or internally 
• reduction of repetitive and mundane test execution
• infusion of innovative energy and flexibility in testing processes
• faster but still effective testing for higher-quality applications

Evolution helps QA teams tackle any project without sacrificing quality for execution speed. The quality remains, but the testing process improves. For example, automated testing tools now use AI and ML to assist with not only scripting but with the all-important task of script maintenance. The cost and time involved in failure analysis and subsequent maintenance is significantly reduced with AI. It’s a learning process, but that’s part of evolution. 

For manual testers, AI and ML can also generate testing scenarios that the team might otherwise miss. AI might even be able to map out every possible user action available, a full list of boundary values or create a full test matrix in minutes. That makes the learning curve well worth the time investment.

As AR and VR expand beyond gaming and into training, retail and other industries, the ability to test in these avenues is critical. Imagine how much fun manual testing could be within AR/VR or a metaverse. Sign me up!

A culture of continuous improvement

QA evolution is best supported by creating a culture of continuous improvement. Continuous improvement means ideas for improvement must be open, discussed, reviewed and put into active practice. Agile teams often meet at the end of an iteration and hold a retrospective, in which team members must feel comfortable bringing up both issues and new ideas. New ideas are the organization’s bridge to improve not only the work culture but the product as well. 

Many times, ideas brought up in retrospectives are reported, discussed and documented — that’s it. Nothing actually happens. Ideas are rarely tried or put into practice. Why? Because evolution isn’t easy when a team has established work habits or practices. QA teams often get short-sighted when it comes to trying new approaches or ideas. While new ideas don’t always work, the purpose is to search for innovative ways to improve product quality and work culture. Neither will improve without evolution. 

New ideas, technology and testing approaches not only shake up the status quo, but also allow for testing to improve regardless of changing requirements or tight testing schedules. When a QA team can evolve and adjust test strategies to meet the customers’ and stakeholders’ needs, the team builds business value and credibility. For that reason, an adaptive SDLC enables QA teams to establish a stronger relationship with stakeholders. Take advantage of the opportunity to raise the value of the testing team. Show off new ideas and evolutions as they develop and continuously improve.

Implementing evolution

QA evolution cannot be forced. Evolution must be developed iteratively, much like a software application. First, the organization starts with a plan that is communicated to the testing team and business stakeholders. The plan outlines the new ideas, technology or changes to implement. 

Each new evolution is included as part of a product roadmap for improving the quality of the application and customer experience. Each evolution is part of a series of iterations. Similar to developing code, testers will implement the change. Next, they’ll test it out and make suggestions for improvements if needed. Remember to plan time for training, learning and putting new changes into practice. Testers need time to grasp and embrace any new changes before they can truly develop credible and useful feedback for continuous improvement. 

Remember to balance changes and the length of iterations to accommodate work schedules. Patience is imperative, and practice is critical to making real and valuable suggestions for improvements. 

Prepare for continuous feedback throughout each iteration and beyond. Make sure everyone on the team can share feedback, not just the take-charge, action-orientated testers and leaders that tend to dominate. Make sure the less-vocal testers can also give feedback, perhaps through email, one-to-one discussion or text. You really want everyone’s opinions. 

You can’t rush evolution, but you can keep it moving forward while building a collaborative and cooperative QA team. When given the time, training and ability to put changes into practice, QA evolution can lead to improved testing productivity, efficiency, coverage and quality — adding real business value.

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