Recent publications on the state of testing across the world have revealed some interesting trends and facts. These trends highlight some issues that the testing world has to deal with. Aldo Rall will be looking at two key trends and explore underlying issues and possible solutions. Aldo will explore the following: • the demand for test maturity improvement in terms of increased efficiency, • productivity and stronger business alignment as well as • considering how testing is increasingly being viewed as a profession. Aldo Rall, Principal Consultant for Testing at IndigoCube and one of South Africa’s leading Test Management Experts. He has been involved in software testing since 1998 across a variety of international testing assignments. Aldo has a deep passion for testing and had significant success with developing, growing and maturing testing, testers and testing teams in large organisations.

2. Aldo Rall
MSc. (Liverpool)
Principal
Consultant

3. The Growing need for:
Testing Maturity
and Tester
Professionalism

6. A Changing World:
IT and Business Converges
• A dysfunctional marriage
• IT to take on more business accountability
• CEO’s consider technology as the most
significant external force shaping the future
• CIO’s consider market factors as the most
important

7. Testing has been Changing too!
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
7 Basic Principles of the Context-Driven School
The value of any practice depends on its context.
There are good practices in context, but there are no best practices.
People, working together, are the most important part of any project’s
context.
Projects unfold over time in ways that are often not predictable.
The product is a solution. If the problem isn’t solved, the product
doesn’t work.
Good software testing is a challenging intellectual process.
Only through judgment and skill, exercised cooperatively throughout
the entire project, are we able to do the right things at the right times
to effectively test our products.
Source: www.context-driven-testing.com
The

8. 4 Underlying Trends
1.CEOs demand
Greater Agility
2.Better Collaboration
Value Chain Optimisation
Breaking down barriers
Contextual
Collective
Relevance
The Collaborative effort is driven by 5
Critical Efforts:
Adaptive
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Communication
Content Management
Workflow control
Transparency
Trust

9. 4 Underlying Trends
3.Work needs to Flow
Continuously
4.Automate “Everything”
“Discard dogma, think big, act small,
fail fast, learn rapidly – Ian Davis-
ALM Scope
Continuous Feedback and
Improvement
Any routine process / tasks
Tools and Frameworks

10. Implication of these trends:
Effective and Efficient
Efficient
• How did you maximize the
value to your stakeholders?
Effective
• Did you deliver what your
stakeholders actually wanted?

11. Threats & Challenges to
Testing as a Profession
Lack of
importance
by
Management
Skills
outsourcing
Lack of
Acceptance
Increased
Complexity
Lack of
Innovation

12. What are the Implications?
• Business needs to adapt
– Business needs to view IT as a core capability, not a services
department
• IT Function needs to adapt
– IT needs to be more involved with business
• The Testing function needs to adapt
– Testing needs to happen closer to business
– Testing needs to evolve its practices, philosophy and paradigm
= Need for Increased Test Maturity

13. Possible things to do
Skills
Innovation
Think differently about Training
Complexity
Treat your Testers like Adults
Practise Agility
Collaborate
Think Continuous
Automate

14. Conclusion
• Achieve Effectiveness and Efficiency in
your context
• Maturity = Thinking different than just
‘faster and better’
• “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
different results”
- Albert Einstein• “Maturity is the Capacity to Endure Uncertainty”
- John Huston Finley-

15. Conclusion