The Role of Test Management in DevOps

Developers put their hearts and effort to every software they create. Sometimes, they have to do code change for specific reasons before the software launches, thinking it is for the best. However, during trial runs, the code change may cause glitches, which could ruin months or years of hard work.

Does this situation ring a bell?

How can you prevent your software from crumbling before it goes out to its intended users? Having it checked with high-quality testing is your best solution. It is where the role of test management starts. But, what exactly does it do in DevOps?

Read on to know more.

Test Management: Refresh Your Knowledge

We can always find various methods, techniques, or approaches to make complex tasks more manageable. Without proper management, even the process of making things simple will be a lengthy and exhausting process. Effective and efficient management enhances the opportunity for success as it eliminates the complications of unorganized roles and activities.

Test management is a process of handling test tasks and procedures, including assessment, planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation, and reporting. What’s good is that test management applies mostly to the manual techniques and, recently, to an automated approach.

A testing team can effectively monitor and take control of the entire project through test management. A testing team leader can adequately assign roles and tasks to each member, while carefully keeping watch of any discrepancies or glitches in the SDLC (software development life cycle).

The goal of test management is to prioritize activities critical to the software performance and analyze which process and team members are well-matched for each of the tasks. Moreso, through it, the team leader can properly allot resources and predict testing risks for the specific software.

The question is, how is test management related to DevOps? Before we proceed, let us know a bit about what DevOps is.

What is DevOps?

DevOps is a mixture of cultural ideologies, practices, and ways that boosts an organization’s potential to provide fast and useful applications and services. High-quality products run at a more improved rate than those that are still dependent on conventional software development processes. The velocity and effectiveness of products allow organizations (companies, businesses, non-profit organizations, etc.) to provide better service to their consumers and gain an edge over their competitors.

DevOps has developed as a significant advantage to various organizations, especially with agile operations. This approach shows a high success rate in providing new and improved developments to consumers because of its capability to form partnerships between services, businesses, and departments. DevOps continues to uphold the receptive values that are immanent in agile projects. Teams perform at their best to make sure that they can adapt to all the daily challenges of DevOps.

During recent years, test management has proven to be a great advantage for DevOps. Some may think about how test management applies to a complex process like DevOps. It is actually the main point. DevOps runs through a complicated environment. And as the data, tasks, and process gets more in numbers, DevOps members get more overwhelmed. Why? Without test management, they will only rely on one another’s ability to resolve issues. Test management plays a significant role in assuring the quality of software products that the consumers will receive by the end of the process. We recommend you to hire an automated software testing company for your application with meeting the consumers’ expectations.

Test Management: Gearing DevOps For The Best

DevOps teams can, without a doubt, perform their roles and responsibilities well. Typically, they keep track of the product’s quality to allow appropriate adjustments. But, they need the proper tools to accomplish all their tasks without leaving out anything.

Aside from meeting the consumers’ expectations, DevOps run through test management also warrants the best outcomes. According to experts, test management strengthens how DevOps enables sustained integration and data delivery through data support. Sensitive data will have continuous protection. Test cases and data can be promptly attended to. And all outcomes undergo evaluation. This kind of approach is vital in helping DevOps teams work more effectively and exceed their customer’s expectations.

Prominent IT companies agree that functional testing validates the behavior of the software. However, test data management is a crucial factor for organizations to determine and locate the data’s changes to direct the software towards success or failure. Examining test results through a detailed comparison of the pre-test and post-test data aids in understanding if the test passed or failed. It is the best approach to pinpoint hidden bugs and errors, which let organizations recognize and fix deficiencies appropriately for continuous integration and delivery.

Testing Expertise is Vital

For DevOps to rake in success, the team must have members who can actively contribute to the betterment of the operations. According to Marc Hornbeek of DevOps.com, while most organizations practice automation, the possibility to encounter difficulties during test orchestration within the DevOps environment is still there. But, a reliable test management tool can provide an improved outcome, even in various scenarios.

The testing team can provide additional maturity in handling various operations. Their leverage and expertise in system monitoring and evaluation can bring about better results in DevOps. It is because testers with the proper tools can promptly identify, locate, and provide solutions to code changes.

Boosts Improvement in Agile Workflows/h3>

DevOps works under agile values. It means that all processes done within these environments should uphold these practices. Test management ensures to observe agile values through the usage of coordinating features, up-to-date alerts, and many more.

According to reports, some organizations still experience challenges with agile testing. Most of the concerns are from analyzing end-to-end workflows, usability across different platforms, and maintaining performance consistency in various channels or user interfaces.

Test management in DevOps can aid in fixing these challenges. As an effect, the combination of these two can ensure that the customers enjoy a positive experience through proper mobile support and cloud or front office customer service availability to help provide a hassle-free interaction.

Planned to Accelerate Delivery

Testing generally happens during the final phase of the SDLC, which provides little room for developers to make crucial adjustments and ensure that all functions are working correctly. Moreover, those who did not proceed with testing their software before release showed a high occurrence of defects showing up in various capacities and scenarios. A series of errors and glitches force organizations to spend more on trying to fix the software and, consequently, lowering the chances of delivering service to customers.

To avoid all of the above in a DevOps environment, teams must necessitate QA and test management during the whole process. These two will be the driver of quality, which helps to guarantee that products and their features are at par with the standards agreed by both the users and stakeholders.

Quality assurance is valued as a highly critical factor in DevOps. It is so high that everyone is always reminded of this vital responsibility. But while it should be innate in everyone’s work, QA professionals are still needed as they play a significant role in DevOps. Recently, DevOps teams are called to be more forward in pushing for better quality and stability while working hand to hand with QA professionals. Strategic approaches to create a more robust testing infrastructure is the goal that everyone wants to see in a DevOps environment.

Reliable Testing Increases Product Quality

Test management allows DevOps teams to experience improved collaboration among various departments and operations for accelerated delivery and agile support. More to this advantage, test management also gears DevOps to gain high-quality outcomes from multiple projects. DevOps experts acknowledge that automation, specifically, assists teams for the initiation of early and continuous testing processes.

The prompt responsiveness of this method boosts better quality and lowers the risks for additional expenditures and overall waste of time and resources for troubleshooting of errors post-production, which could have been resolved before.

In a DevOps environment, under agile values, teams typically execute automated test suites several times within a day. Due to this approach, they are able to fix any problems that they encounter right away. As a result, they enjoy higher levels of quality and fast delivery to appropriate receivers that other teams don’t. Testing, with proper management tools, proves to be an excellent addition for the operations team members who acknowledge that a solution to make the software better should have adequate quality before proceeding to submit for production.

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Final Thought

DevOps aims to provide the best product and services to its stakeholders and users under agile ideologies. Teams understand the continuous need to do everything at their best to deliver. However, suppose you choose to purchase and utilize a test management tool. In that case, it can aid members to swiftly do collaborations across projects, foster additional strength, and make it faster for the software to be released in the market.

These advantages are undoubtedly worthy enough to consider to help improve the processes in a DevOps environment. After all, giving the best has always been the goal of everyone. Therefore, we can say that test management might be a critical factor for DevOps success.

Author’s Bio

Patrick is a software developer who has vast knowledge and experience in DevOps. He has significant knowledge in multiple testing techniques and does training sessions for those who are interested to learn software development and testing.