Articles

Graph showing how testing earlier costs less and means fewer overall defects The Shift-Left Approach to Software Testing

The earlier you find out about problems in your code, the less impact they have and the less it costs to remediate them. Therefore, it's helpful to move testing activities earlier in the software development lifecycle—shifting it left in the process timeline. This article explores the shift-left methodology and how you can approach shifting left in your organization.

Arthur Hicken's picture Arthur Hicken
Row of cupcakes decorated with blue frosting and rainbow sprinkles, photo by Brooke Lark Shifting Testing Left Bakes In Quality from the Start

“Shift left” is one of the latest buzz terms in software testing. Movements like agile and DevOps recommend that testers shift left, but what does that mean, exactly? Here's how one tester became a believer in the shift-left movement; how he got his team's developers, analysts, designers, and managers on board; and how his entire organization has benefited from the shift.

James Espie's picture James Espie
QA Is More Than Being a Tester QA Is More Than Being a Tester

QA testers often take on more of a role than just testing software code. When the team needs help, QA should lend a hand in assisting with business analysis, customer communication, user experience, and user advocacy.

Amanda Perkins's picture Amanda Perkins
STARCANADA Delivering the Goods: Harmonizing Regulated and Agile Practices
Slideshow

Agile testing is hard. Testers contend with terse requirements, minimal process, little documentation, continually evolving business, technical and organizational factors. Auditors demand proof of compliance. Some teams have trouble conforming to regulations while preserving agile practises..

Griffin Jones
Agile DevOps East Future-Proofing Testers in the Age of AI, ML, and Bots
Slideshow

We're all hearing the buzzwords of AI, machine learning, chatbots, and next-generation testing. Does this mean that the days of traditional testing as we know and practice it are over? Eran Kinsbruner doesn't think so. Join him to learn about the clear transformation happening toward smarter testing techniques and tools. These approaches will drive better pipeline efficiency and release velocity with high quality, and Eran thinks this means good things for the testing practice and practitioners. You'll discover the key trends that are happening around AI, machine learning, and bots in the web and mobile landscapes, and get the ability to identify some early adopters who are taking the lead in these domains.

Eran Kinsbruner
Agile DevOps East AI Is Key to Agile Testing Speed
Slideshow

Speed is king in agile. In a world where most of the agile process is automated, testing is the slowest and most expensive part of getting your app or website deployed to the world. Very few app teams have a decent amount of test automation, and even they still have days of manual testing during each agile cycle before they release new versions of their app. Testing is difficult, especially at the UI level, which is why it is still relegated to humans. But all that is changing with the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Join Jason Arbon as he explains how agile testing is ripe for disruption because AI itself is based on examples of input and output—which sounds a whole lot like the testing activity.

Jason Arbon
STARCANADA Strategies for Selecting the Right Open Source Framework for Cross-Browser Testing
Slideshow

Organizations today are required to test their web application across browsers and mobile devices. Choosing the right framework is a matter of organizational as well as technical fit. With a plethora of test frameworks that span across practices such as behavior-driven development, unit...

Eran Kinsbruner
STARCANADA Gaining Consciousness
Slideshow

Testers make difficult decisions with minimal information in turbulent times on critical projects.  Independent consultant, Fiona Charles, suggests that testers must learn to draw a line in the decision-making process between trained intuition and careless assumption.  In this...

Fiona Charles
STARCANADA A Tester’s Role in Requirements Exploration
Slideshow

Having a shared understanding of desired and undesired behaviors for each new product feature is key to delivering value to the business frequently and predictably. However, many teams lack this understanding even as they start coding. As testers, we can explore feature specifications early..

Janet Gregory
STARWEST 2018 A Tale of Continuous Testing
Slideshow

When the atmosphere is hostile to QA, and yet the demands on the QA Team are increasing, how do you transform a team where everything is tested and deployed manually, to an organization that delivers great software multiple times a day? Where do you start and how do you create the strategy for implementing Continuous Testing? Join David Lumpkin as he shares his company's journey to answer these questions and the team's evolution along the way. Over a three-year period, Craftsy went from an environment hostile towards QA, to one that embraces automation and exploratory testing, achieving the right level of coverage for every use case, device and browser. It wasn’t easy though and David shares their experience through many experiments, failures and revisions that finally made Continuous Testing a reality.

David Lumpkin

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