Leaders know that quality assurance (QA) plays a critical role in application development and delivery (AD&D). While the pace of software development accelerates, it must not compromise quality. The challenge is to maintain rapid development without allowing testing to slow down the momentum. The solution lies in continuous testing. 

This report outlines 12 essential actions that will enhance AD&D’s continuous testing capabilities, practices, organization, and technology stack. 

The 12 most important must-dos fall into the following three categories:

1. New practices that change day-to-day operations
2. Organizational improvements that change relationships and responsibilities
3. Foundational technology preparations that set the stage for success 

1. New practices change day-to-day operations 

New practices for bringing continuous testing into agile and DevOps continuous delivery contexts mean new behaviors and new technology tools. The best development teams 

• Adopt test-driven or behavior-driven development.
• Shift testing left.
• Shift testing right and test in production.
• Replace manual testing with exploratory testing. 

2. Organizational improvements change relationships and responsibilities 

As everyone becomes a steward of quality, testing teams need to organize differently. They must 

• Embed testers in cross-functional teams.
• Federate a testing center of excellence (TCOE).
• Use common metrics to align and measure teams. 

3. Foundational technology preparations set the stage for continuous testing 

To establish a robust continuous testing practice, cross-functional teams that include testers require a solid base. As they adapt to emerging trends in testing technologies and methodologies, particularly with the growing integration of AI, cloud-native development, and serverless architectures, teams must 

• Focus on automation.
• Use API testing to manage complexity.
• Fully layer in CI/CD and version control.
• Adopt both service virtualization and test data management.
• Provision test environments quickly. 

For a breakdown of each area, read the report today!