Can Testing Centers of Excellence really bring value?

As part of the digital transformation initiatives, IT companies are churning out software applications in large numbers to cater to the growing demand from customers as well as businesses. However, the race to be the first in the market and to garner the maximum eyeballs has driven IT companies to often take short cuts. These include developing software applications that do not necessarily pass muster on the altar of quality. And as quality is not pursued rigorously, the performance of applications can leave a lot to be desired often inviting backlash or negative feedback from the end users.

However, times seem to be changing with businesses realizing the importance of quality as the principle differentiator in deriving customer satisfaction and staying competitive. They have latched onto new paradigms like Agile and DevOps and attendant requisites like Continuous Integration and Delivery. With quality assurance becoming the center piece in the SDLC, businesses are looking to optimize their testing resources to reduce redundancies, improve performance, and strengthen security. In doing so, they are reinventing their QA architecture by adopting a Testing Center of Excellence or TCoE.

What is a test center of excellence?

Ensuring the quality of software applications involves the use of tools and frameworks. These help to accelerate the testing process and reduce turnaround time. However, given the fact that the software applications of today incorporate complex technologies and their need to function seamlessly across device platforms, browsers, and networks, testing them has become complex as well. Moreover, there is a crying need to bring a semblance of order in the usage of protocols, processes, tools and frameworks related to QA. TCoE functions as a one stop testing environment where resources such as people, technology, and processes are leveraged optimally to drive quality.

It ensures the establishment of effective, seamless, relevant, automated and streamlined quality processes that help enterprises to add value and achieve their business objectives. A Testing Center of Excellence sets up test automation as a pivot around which the entire phalanx of testing is executed. Furthermore, it facilitates the standardization of testing methodologies, the adoption of best practices, tools and frameworks, and setting up of quality metrics. In short, a robust TCoE makes quality transformation a reality and enables enterprises to drive customer satisfaction and achieve ROI. In short, a software testing center of excellence helps cross functional and geographically spread teams to collaborate effectively.

How can a QA Center of Excellence add value?

Even though enterprises might baulk at setting up a QA TCoE for considerations of cost and effort, it helps to drive efficiency and achieve outcomes that are expected of implementing Agile and DevOps methodologies. Let us understand the benefits of implementing TCoE solutions in your organization.

Better quality and risk management: Testing schedules can often go haywire due to the absence of specific automation tools or cross functional disagreements in selecting common testing metrics. Thanks to the central repository of tools and standardized metrics a la TCoE, teams can execute QA within the turnaround time. This leads to a better identification of glitches or bugs and mitigation of risks that might crop up owing to the presence of glitches.

Optimizing cost: Since testing teams across the organization share common resources from a central repository, it leads to better utilization of resources. For example, in the absence of this repository, teams across departments might use multiple tools to test similar modules of software applications. In other words, teams may end up building or buying automated tools that may not be required in the first place. Thus, a test center of excellence can lead to cost optimization.

Best practices deliver better QA: Enterprises are adopting the latest digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Internet of Things, and Virtual Reality among others to scale up deliverables and offer the best user experience. However, these involve cost and have the potential to cause disruption to processes. Since a TCoE is about setting up best test practices, the impact of implementing the above-mentioned technologies can be reduced. In fact, better collaboration between teams with respect to best practices can enhance the quality of an application.

Conclusion

Notwithstanding the costs involved in setting up a center of excellence, businesses can continue to leverage its resources, and in the process, add value to their business, clients, and end users.

Diya works for Cigniti Technologies, Global Leaders in Independent Software Testing Services Company to be appraised at Cmmi-Svc v1.3, Maturity Level 5, and is also Iso 9001:2015 & Iso 27001:2013 certified.