By implementing configuration flags as part of the initial stages of development, engineers imbue all new features with the capability to leverage system-level strategies, such as multivariate testing, beta testing, and “emergency toggles.” In this article, Noah Sussman describes some battle-tested strategies to implement and leverage configuration flags in production.

Rajini Padmanaban is the director of engagement at QA InfoTech. She will be speaking about crowdsourced software testing at the STAREAST conference in April, so I took this opportunity to learn a bit more about crowdsourced testing and find out why it is better than traditional testing in some projects.

Testing is a complex discipline. There are various approaches, methodologies, strategies. So where is the connection with CM? As with development, requirements specifications, and other aspects of product development, the connection is on the management side. A software configuration management audit is really about demonstrating that you have test case coverage for your requirements and that the test cases have been successfully run against the target build.

If you think that test automation is mostly about executing tests, then you're missing out on a big opportunity. Or rather, you're missing a lot of small opportunities adding up to a big one. Consider this: stop thinking about test automation as merely executing automated tests, stop thinking about test automation as something you need expensive tools for, and start discovering automation you can implement in a couple of days and usually with extremely inexpensive tools or tools you already have available. In this week's column, Danny Faught and James Bach suggest taking a more Agile approach to test automation.