I have always wanted to write a blog. I never started due to procrastination… I mean a lack of time.
Thanks to Geoff Horne and the NZ Tester Magazine for giving me motivation for writing.
Anyway, here goes my very first blog.
The beginning of 2013 is the perfect time to think ahead and get ready for the rest of the year. Below are four key technology trends that impact software testing this year.
Mobile – Mobile apps are growing quickly, not just in banking and retail apps but also starting in transportation, public sector and other industries. The principles for testing mobile technologies remain largely the same as traditional testing principles, but the technology is vastly different. Mobile usability testing, mobile performance testing, security testing, are going to pose some new challenges, which requires some up-skilling from testing professionals.
Test environment virtualisation – cloud technology will keep gaining grounds in 2013, and so as test virtualisation (service virtualisation) technologies. Both technologies have shown ability to save costs and reduce setup effort when applied to test environments, and they have already caught attention from senior management in New Zealand. Testing professionals will need to gain a good understanding of these technologies to be able to create testing strategies for their own organisation.
Agile development – With agile and “water-scrum-fall” development becoming mainstream, the “throw it over the wall” mindset between development and testing needs to go. Testing professionals can show leadership by getting involved early at feature/story discussion time, hence moving test schedule earlier to improve the overall throughput of the project.
DevOps – Organisations like ANZ Banking Group have demonstrated the value of DevOps (AUD4.27m savings and efficiency gains in the first year in the case of ANZ). The practice of standardising build, test, and release environments to improve development and operation team collaboration is likely to gain more traction in 2013. Testing professionals play a key role, as quality assurance and automation are key components to building the trust between development and operation organizations in order to maximize value of DevOps.
These are but four technology trends, there are surely many other ones that are just as interesting. How do you think 2013 will shape up?