Updating your traditional test plan for DevOps

Traditional test planning has earned a reputation for being cumbersome and time-consuming with a top-down approach. It has a waterfall approach, and quality takes precedence over speed. It also relies on manual testing and iteration. Traditional test plans use a methodology derived from a Rational Unified Process (RUP) or a Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) and require extensive documentation. QA teams using RUP started out with a flexible framework that subsequently became more prescriptive. The documentation entails detailed techniques of each testing phase and mechanisms for measurement. The stages of testing may require another document increasing the complexity of testing.

However, working software and adapting to change is rated more highly over complex and in-depth documentation in the agile approach. An agile mindset relies on lean principles where a nimble test plan is embedded in more modern testing methodologies.

Modern test planning methodology

The DevOps testing of today’s SDLC moves at great speed, and there is little time to develop detailed artifacts such as the test cases or strategies used in RUP. Modern testing involves the development and quality flowing into a continuous testing and delivery process.

Modern testing is built on a few fundamental principles:

• • The development and testing teams work collaboratively and regularly, resulting in lower costs.
• • Delivering quality products to meet customer needs must use only the customer’s value as a reference. All activities revolve around delivering what the customer needs.
• • Adaptability is integral to modern testing, with all members of the team or teams optimizing the processes, and developers also learn to write test code. Extending testing capabilities to the whole team makes test automation a smoother process.
• • Communication is key to establishing accountability and ownership among all team members. Ensuring a quality culture and staying focused on quality entails the right testing tools, clear and defined testing strategy, and code quality.

• • Collecting data from the customer to analyze customer experience plays a big part in designing the testing strategy. It is also essential to gather data from a real environment and gather the user experience in real-time.

An effective DevOps testing strategy

Framing an effective DevOps test strategy is to support the implementation of agile best practices. And the strategy aims to build, test, and release the product faster and with greater frequency. It removes the traditional independent-working model and brings the development and operations together. Therefore, modern testing in DevOps includes automation testing and continuous testing.

Automation testing

Automation testing fulfills the purpose of reducing manual-intensive work. It does not completely eliminate manual testing. Some tasks that don’t require manual testers are simple unit tests or end-to-end tests. These can be automated. Automated logging tools can handle large amounts of data, from error messages to application requests. Monitoring is another aspect that can be automated for accurate and up-to-date information on the performance of testing activities.

Continuous testing

Continuous testing is imperative in a DevOps environment. DevOps aims to

deliver quality at speed. A continuous testing plan is a part of the modern testing process, and building CI/ CD pipelines play an integral role in DevOps testing and automation strategies. Moreover, all phases of the pipeline are optimized for efficiency and speed. Therefore, updating the traditional test plans to a more modern automated one brings rapid software delivery into sharp focus. Since there are no one-test-suits-all scenarios, test teams must design a unique, agile and flexible test plan to suit the continuous testing environment.

Conclusion

The need to get high-quality products faster to market requires a modern approach that enables ease of use and speed to keep pace with the delivery pipelines. Understandably, organizations that aim for an increased ROI are best served by transitioning their testing practices from a traditional plan to a DevOps model that supports continuous testing.

As a Growth Marketer, Satha views the internet differently and strongly believes in action rather than words.