Page - 44 - in The Future of Software Quality Assurance

44 P.Gerrard industry.Digital has taken no time at all––perhaps2–3 years and it is all-pervasive in theWest. Digital is the buzz-phraseof themoment. Thespeedofdelivery is partlyaboutpro-action,but it is also aboutsurvival. Often, Chief Digital Officers are Marketers. Marketers move at the pace of marketingandtheywantchangeatthesamepace.Tothemarketer,frequentsoftware delivery is critical. Mobile users expect apps to change almost daily with new features, offers, opportunities appearing all the time. Users often don’t care which supplier they use, as long as their appswork reliably, so businesses are in an APPS RACE. S/W developmentat thepaceofmarketing. So, automation (and not just test automation) is critical. What business needs is IT responsiveness––what you might call true agility. This doesn’t necessarily meanhundredsof releaseseveryday;but it doesmean businesswant rapid, regular turnaroundfromideas to softwaredelivery. With continuous integration/deployment,DevOps, developers can now promise ContinuousDelivery Testersneed toprovideContinuousAssurance This means automation through the (shortened) life cycle. What exactly is possible and impossible with automation, right here, right now? Are Continuous Delivery and DevOps the route to success? Could testing be the bottleneck that prevents success? How do testers operate in dynamic, high-paced, automation- dominatedenvironments? 2.3 Waterfall ThinkingWon’tWorkwithContinuousMethods ContinuousDeliveryoranadaptedversionof it isbecomingincreasinglypopular in Digital projects and if Digital is the ‘future’ for the majority of organizations, then wehadbetterpreparefor it.Testersneedtoadapttofit intotheircontinuousdelivery regimesso let’s lookat howcontinuousapproachesare normallydescribed.