Slides from Michael Sowers's 2017 Fall OnlineTestConf session – The New Normal for Development and Testing in Agile and DevOps. Software development and testing are getting more challenging because of the tremendous complexity we face At the same time, agile, DevOps and other adaptive approaches allow us to innovate faster and deliver improvements, almost continuously. For development and testing, this means more change, less certainty, even shorter development and testing windows, a constant flow of new functionality to deploy, and the lingering risk of major or catastrophic failures. This presentation will highlight some of the characteristics of the New Normal in Development & Testing such as data analytics, TestDev thinking, continuous everything, pervasive automation and near real-time metrics and others. The audience will leave with renewed perspectives and ideas on how to better equip themselves to embrace this new normal. For more: www.onlinetestconf.com

1. Msowers@TechWell.com
@MichaelSowers4
MDSowers
Michael D. Sowers
The New Normal
for Development and Testing
in Agile and DevOps
TechWell

2. What We’ll Cover
• Context
– Key Drivers & Themes
– Digital Transformation
• The New Normal for Development and
Testing
– 10 Threads
• Remaining Relevant
– Important questions and some suggestions
– The 4 R’s
The New Normal - M.D. Sowers © TechWell 2017 2

3. What We’ll Cover
• Context
– Key Drivers & Themes
– Digital Transformation
• The New Normal for Development and
Testing
– 10 Threads
• Remaining Relevant
– Important questions and some suggestions
– The 4 R’s
The New Normal - M.D. Sowers © TechWell 2017 3

4. Key Drivers & Themes
• Global software testing market to
grow steadily at a CAGR of around
14% by 2021.
• One Driver - rise in agile testing
services and test automation
services.
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Technavio Report

5. Digital Transformation
• Change associated with the application
of digital technology in all aspects of human society
• By 2019 – 1.7T in global spending - IDC
• By 2020 – 60% of all enterprises will have defined and
be implementing digital transformation - IDC
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IDC Report

6. What We’ll Cover
• Context
– Key Drivers & Themes
– Digital Transformation
• The New Normal for Development and
Testing
– 10 Threads
• Remaining Relevant
– Important questions and some suggestions
– The 4 R’s
The New Normal - M.D. Sowers © TechWell 2017 6

7. Hot and Cold Career Trends
Hot Trends
• IT pros taking leadership roles
• Soft skills
• Analytics certifications
• Personal relationships with
contacts
• Moving Up
• Developing New Skills
• Hybrid roles
Cold Trends
• Dev and ops in silos
• Ignoring soft skills
• Vendor-specific certs
• Padding LinkedIn
connections
• Jumping ship
• Company dependent
learning
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8. Characteristics of the New Normal
• Development and Testing are a Team Sport
• Data and analytics are now playing an increasing role.
• TestDev thinking is pervasive
• Continuous everything means we automate everything
• Testing in production is a more frequent practice
• Deeper skill sets are a requirement.
• Automation is pervasive
• The whole team is accountable
• Near real-time measures and metrics are expected
• The tolerance for risks may change
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9. Development and Testing are a Team Sport
• Leverage every member’s skills
• Empower
• High level of collaboration
• Full transparency
• Fail fast and learn
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10. Data and Analytics Play an Increasing Role
• Analytics, operational profiles and production usage
information determine the next customer value priorities
• This information is integrated with data from static and
dynamic analysis of the emerging value streams
(sprints).
• Mantra is “just enough, just in time”.
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11. TestDev Thinking Is Pervasive
• “Driven Design” approaches are employed.
• TDD/ATDD/BDD/Data/Context/Model driven design
• Continuous verification is done from ideation to
production
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12. Continuous Everything
• An endless flow of customer value delivered by an
automated integrated development, test and deployment
platform
• Timely and predictable
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13. Testing in Production is More Frequent
• Teams are leveraging the value of live testing
– With the right risk controls
– Software architecture (feature switches)
– Controlled exposure
– And rollback automation
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14. Deeper Skill Sets are a Requirement.
• Analytical knowledge
– Data analysis
– Data Engineering
• Technical Skills
– Programming abilities
– Security
– Mobile
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15. Automation Is Pervasive
• Modeling
• Design
• Development
• Integration/Build
• Testing
• Deployment
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16. The Whole Team is Accountable
• Barriers removed
• Wider range of stakeholders
• Operations Team
• End Users
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17. Near Real-Time Measures and Metrics
• Business Intelligence tools help determine and prioritize
the next set of customer value
• Information from work in process (static/dynamic
analysis of emerging code)
• Integrated with information from production usage and
experience profiles
• Quick feedback loops provide immediate information on
results and readiness
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18. The Tolerance for Risks May Change
• “Right” level of quality designed in
• Focus is on prevention – verifying at every step
• Small but speedy changes that can be recalled
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19. There Will be Future “New Normals”
“The new normal in software development and
testing looks like many of the things we’ve
dreamed about. Of course, there will be future new
normals, but this current evolution is yielding better
software, delivered more quickly, and improved
means of managing risks.”
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20. What We’ll Cover
• Context
– Key Drivers & Themes
– Digital Transformation
• The New Normal for Development and
Testing
– 10 Threads
• Remaining Relevant
– Important questions and some suggestions
– The 4 R’s
The New Normal - M.D. Sowers © TechWell 2017 20

21. Important Questions
• Where is technology headed?
• What key software development methods will be
embraced?
• Which tools are likely to be the mainstay?
• What development and testing roles will be in most
demand?
• Which will be most valued?
• Which roles will be best compensated?
• What technical skills, certifications, or accreditations will
be needed?
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22. Some Possible Answers - Technology
• Cloud, mobile, embedded software, microservices,
containers, security, IoT and wearables are mentioned in
just about every industry article right now. Developers
and testers should absorb as much as they can about
these technologies.
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23. Some Possible Answers - Methods
• There will always be a place for waterfall, but agile and
DevOps are now the norm. The challenge, it seems, are
the many forms of agile methods, both formally defined
and homegrown. Nonetheless, having experience in an
agile and DevOps environment is a requirement.
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24. Some Possible Answers - Tools
• All signs point to becoming more technical and acquiring
competency in one or more programming languages and
automated tooling that assists development and testing
– This does not obviate the need for testers who are business
experts.
– Or the need for developers to learn more about the business
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25. Some Possible Answers - Roles
• Testing roles: These words come to mind: architect,
analyst, and automator, data engineer, advocate, mentor,
coach, quality engineer.
• Developer roles: analysis, modeling, design, testing
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26. Some Possible Answers - Qualifications
• Skills and qualifications: Specialization in a given
technology, domain, industry, and role will become
increasingly valued over a "generalist.
– Dev expertise in mobile security for Banking
– Test Architect for wearables in health care
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Results
• Company
• Project/Product
• Peers
• Industry
• Sector
• Function
• Proactive
• Timely
• Complete
Relationships Responsiveness
Renewal
• Continuous Learning
• New Project/Role Challenges
• Creative Contributions to our profession
Professional Mission/Purpose

28. End of Preso
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