Tag: article

Shipping Daily : From Sprints to Continuous Releases

Nishi Grover GargLeave a comment

DevOps Teams that achieve daily releases have mastered a unique set of skills and practices to ship software faster and more frequently, with higher confidence. This high frequency release model differs significantly from the traditional Scrum framework with 2-week sprints (or longer). 

I wrote about this recently in my article published at devm.io platform , where I discussed the daily routines, processes and tools that support these teams, while contrasting them with more familiar cadence of traditional scrum teams. For teams and organizations looking to move towards daily releases, I also covered the key adjustments required to turn this vision into reality.

The Daily Rhythm: Planning, Execution, and Monitoring

1. Planning

For teams delivering code daily, the rhythm of planning, execution and monitoring does not follow the two-week sprint cycle but happens continuously. Here is what this daily rhythm looks like:

  • Frequent Prioritization: Daily release teams prioritize their work each day, selecting high impact tasks that can be completed and shipped within a single day.
  • Dynamic Backlogs: Instead of working with a static sprint backlog which is derived from the mammoth product backlog, these teams operate with highly flexible backlogs – adding things to it every day. They are ready to pivot quickly in response to customer feedback or issues, urgent needs or new business opportunities.
  • Smaller Targeted Tasks: Work items are broken into small, manageable pieces – each designed to be completed within hours. User stories and tasks are refined to be achievable in less than a day, keeping workloads manageable and ensuring that work completed aligns with daily release goals.

2. Execution

Unlike Scrum teams that often release at the end of a sprint, daily release teams execute work with a focus on immediate delivery.

  • Incremental Work: Instead of waiting until the end of a sprint, developers push small, frequent changes every day. Every code change is designed to be testable and deployable at the end of the day.
  • Automated Testing: It is critical to daily releases. CI pipelines are designed to run tests on each code change, ensuring stability and reliability and readiness of production.
  • Seamless Deployment: CD pipelines are in place, so that the code – once tested – is deployed automatically to production. With daily releases, teams cannot afford to spend hours on deployment activity every single day – so it is imperative to automate it.

3. Monitoring

  • Automated Monitoring: Monitoring tools track deployment success, system performance, and error rates in real time. Tools like Datadog, New Relic, or Prometheus help track application performance, error rates and system health. These tools are crucial for catching issues early and preventing them from impacting users.
  • Daily Retrospective Feedback Loops: Instead of waiting until the end of a sprint, the team reviews their daily progress and identifies immediate improvements – leading to quick adjustments.

Read the full article here for details on :

Normal Scrum vs Daily Release : Key Differences

Practices to Support Daily Releases

Key Metrics to Track

When are Daily Releases Appropriate?

Benefits of Daily Releases

Agile Metrics that Matter: Measuring Success in Software Delivery

Nishi Grover GargLeave a comment

In the world of software delivery, the agile approach has transformed the way teams work, adapt and succeed. Agile is all about delivering value quickly and iteratively, but how do we know our team is succeeding at that? The answer will lie in the metrics we track.

I tried to answer this in my article that was published on devm.io platform recently.

Why Metrics Matter in Agile

Agile metrics provide valuable insights into:

  • the health of our processes,
  • helping us make informed decisions,
  • identifying areas of improvement and, eventually,
  • delivering better software.

Before we get into specific metrics, it is important to understand why tracking metrics is crucial in agile development.

Agile thrives on feedback – whether it is from users, stakeholder, or the development process itself. Metrics provide that feedback, helping teams understand where they stand and where they need to go.

Metrics help us answer critical questions:

  • Are we delivering value quickly enough?
  • Are we maintaining quality as we move fast?
  • Are our customers satisfied with the product?
  • Where are the bottlenecks in our process?

Without metrics, these questions are left to guesswork.

With metrics, you have data-driven insights that guide decision-making, foster continuous improvement and ensure alignment with business goals.

Let us explore the key metrics that agile teams should track to measure success in software delivery.

1. Lead Time and Cycle Time

Lead time is the time taken for a piece of work from request to delivery. It includes everything from the requirement coming in, to the idea generation, coding, testing & deployment.

Cycle time is the time it takes to complete a specific task or user story from the moment work starts on it to when it is finished. Unlike lead time, cycle time doesn’t include the time spent in backlog or waiting for the work to start.

In agile, the goal is to deliver value quickly & frequently. Lead time tells you how quickly your team can turn ideas into working functionality. Shorter lead time would indicate a more efficient process and better response to market changes.

Cycle time helps you understand the efficiency of your team’s workflow, and how long it takes to deliver a piece of work once it is in progress. Shorter cycle times mean that the team is working efficiently and can handle more tasks within a sprint.

—- Follow the link to read further —–

https://devm.io/agile/agile-metrics-software-delivery-analyze

About devmio

devmio is an IT and Tech conference platform that goes beyond the conference room. Join live events, read magazines and articles from the IT experts you know and love! You can join the live events to chat with experts, read magazines written by experts and attend conferences with exclusive discounts all accessible with their Fullstack Experience membership. Join here -> https://devm.io/

Confronting Technical Debt: Making the Case for Investment in Long-Term Quality

Nishi Grover GargLeave a comment

Technical debt is like the credit card debt of the software world – easy to accumulate but expensive to pay off if not managed. Technical debt occurs when shortcuts are taken during the development process, often to meet tight deadlines or push out new features quickly. With agile’s fast pace, it is easy to accumulate technical debt, justifying it as the need of the hour and need of the market. But just like credit card debt, the interest from technical debt compounds over time, making future changes harder, more expensive and riskier. The question many development teams face is how to convince the leadership to invest in resolving technical debt, even when everything seems to be working fine on the surface.

I recently wrote this article for the devm.io platform where I explore effective strategies for communicating the hidden costs of technical debt, demonstrating its impact on innovation, and making a compelling case for prioritizing it – even if it means temporarily slowing down feature delivery. By understanding and articulating the true risks of technical debt, you can help your team invest in long term health and scalability of your product.

The Hidden Costs of Technical Debt

Many teams struggle with increasing time to production, decreasing velocity sprint-after-sprint and it might begin to seem like the team’s productivity is decreasing over time. The most dangerous aspect of technical debt is its impact on your team’s ability to innovate and scale. At first glance, technical debt may not seem like a pressing issue – since the software is running smoothly and features are being delivered. The problem is that technical debt accumulates gradually and its effects remain hidden until they reach a tipping point.

Every shortcut taken, like skipping tests, avoiding refactoring, hardcoding solutions or neglecting peer reviews – creates complexity in your codebase. As this complexity builds up, it slows down your development process, increases the likelihood of issues, makes future enhancements more difficult and time consuming.

Not only this, there may be instances when these skipped actions are actually mandatorily needed for certain regulations, contracts or standards that we adhere to. This means the team would end up having to do them later, spending more time and causing delays in our project completion.

To read the complete article, visit the devm.io platform

<My article published at devm.io platform: https://devm.io/agile/technical-debt-costs-strategies>

Revolutionizing Manual Testing: Top Trends to Watch in 2025

Nishi Grover Garg1 Comment

Manual testing is vital in the context of software development lifecycle. Although manual testing has undergone significant change over the years, its relevance continues to be of immense value. The manual testing process involves designing test cases on the basis of software specifications as well as requirements.

The year 2025 will definitely mark a transformative phase when it comes to manual testing. Advanced technologies may play a key role in the year. These elements can magnify the importance of manual QA testing services.

Some of the major trends that have been covered in the article are Test Augmentation with AI and ML, Exploratory Testing, Seamless Integration with DevOps, Shift Towards Quality Engineering Mindset, No-Code and Low-Code Testing Platforms, Collaborative Testing with Cross-Functional Teams and Remote and Crowdsourced Testing.

The Current State of Testing

To understand the current state of manual testing, you must understand its role in the Agile Era. Additionally, the current concerns of manual testers cannot be ignored.

Importance of Software Testing in the Agile Era

In the Agile Era, the relevance and importance of manual testing have certainly surged. Without manual testing, it is impossible to think of different aspects of the software development lifecycle, such as usability, exploratory testing, and human-centric design. A trusted manual testing service provider can ensure that holistic testing is conducted to develop well-functional software.

Both manual and automated testing are critical while developing new software. Manual testing can support software quality by leveraging manual skills. Similarly, automated testing is vital to executing diverse test cases by leveraging technology. 

Challenges Faced by Manual Testers Today

At present, Manual Testers face a host of challenges and issues. The common issues that arise include:

  • Manual testing involves considerable time and resources. Thus, the time- and resource-intensive nature of the process can be quite formidable for manual testers.
  • At present, there is a rise in the demand for faster releases. For instance, the popularity of the CI/CD pipeline, which is an automated framework, adds pressure for manual testers. They have to compete with automation which might not be feasible.
  • Scaling manual testing efforts is a daunting task. Hence, the efforts and hard work of manual testers may not be easily recognized.

Top Trends Shaping Manual Testing in 2025

Test Augmentation with AI and ML

Technologies such as AI and ML are certainly revolutionizing the manual testing landscape. Manual testers can use AI-powered tools to perform tests. These tools can certainly assist them with diverse functionalities, including test case design, defect prediction, and test data generation. Some of the main benefits of leveraging advanced technologies are faster and more accurate test planning processes.

Emphasis on Exploratory Testing

In 2025, exploratory testing will undoubtedly take center stage. This is because it can help testers integrate creativity into manual testing to locate bugs. Manual testers who offer manual testing services can certainly improve their exploratory testing skills by understanding the needs of users at a holistic level.

Seamless Integration with DevOps

A top trend that will certainly shape manual testing involves the seamless Integration with DevOps. By fusing the manual testing process with DevOps pipelines and CI/CD workflows, the process can be made more efficient and effective. Furthermore, the trends relating to the application of lightweight tools can support manual testing within agile sprints.

Shift Towards Quality Engineering Mindset

In the near future, there will be a shift towards a quality engineering mindset. Thus, the role of manual testers may change. These testers will definitely become quality advocates within teams. That’s not all! Their role will not be restricted to testing. They will look beyond testing the functionality of the software application and focus on areas such as user experience, performance, and accessibility.

No-Code and Low-Code Testing Platforms

The year 2025 is Lilley to witness a surge in no-code/low-code tools. Such tools can definitely enable ng non-technical testers to execute complex tests efficiently. Using these tools may have numerous implications in relation to manual testing workflows. These workflows are likely to become more streamlined and simpler.

Collaborative Testing with Cross-Functional Teams

Manual testing may undergo change due to the rise in collaboration. Greater collaboration among diverse stakeholders, including developers, testers, designers, and product owners, can strengthen the process. Furthermore, several tools and practices that support seamless teamwork and collaboration, such as Jira, may gain high popularity.

Remote and Crowdsourced Testing

The year 2025 is most likely to witness the rise of distributed teams as well as crowdsourced testing platforms. Remote work can pave a new path for manual testing. Furthermore, manual testers from diverse areas may engage in testing, thereby popularizing the concept of crowdsourced testing. Some of the main advantages of the specific trend include the consideration of diverse perspectives, better flexibility, and an increase in cost-effectiveness.

Conclusion

The manual testing landscape continues to evolve currently. Several trends relating to manual testing have been identified that can reinvent the manual testing process in 2025.

You need to understand that the manual testing process continues to be highly relevant and important. It continues to play a catalytic role in the software development lifecycle process. Testers from the top manual QA testing services company need to embrace these trends so that they can adapt and conduct high-quality manual testing.

This is a guest post by: Harshil Malvi

Author Bio:

Harshil Malvi, Founder & CEO of TabdeltaQA, is an expert in software testing. He leads the company with a focus on delivering high-quality testing services that help businesses create smooth and reliable digital experiences. With skills in automation testing, performance testing, and quality assurance, Harshil is dedicated to making sure software works perfectly and meets the needs of users.

Beyond the Code: Crafting the Perfect Test Automation Strategy

Nishi Grover GargLeave a comment

In the ever-evolving world of software development, test automation is a necessity. But effective test automation isn’t just about writing code to automate tests; it’s about creating a strategy that aligns with your team’s goals, ensures optimal coverage, and evolves with your product. Let’s explore how you can craft the perfect test automation strategy, one that goes beyond the code and truly delivers value.

Why Strategy Matters

Many teams dive headfirst into test automation, often tempted by the promise of speed and efficiency. However, without a clear strategy, automation efforts can quickly spiral into chaos. Flaky tests, redundant coverage, and maintenance nightmares become all too common. 

For example, a startup I worked with automated their entire regression suite without prioritizing critical paths. When their checkout system broke due to an API change, the automated tests failed to catch it because they were too focused on miniscule UI tests and edge cases.

The takeaway? A good strategy ensures that your test automation efforts are focused, reliable, and adaptable to change.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Every automation strategy should start with a clear understanding of your team’s goals. Are you looking to reduce manual testing time? Improve test coverage? Speed up deployment cycles? Align your automation efforts with these objectives.

A fintech company aimed to release updates weekly without compromising quality. Their automation strategy focused on automating critical workflows like fund transfers and account creation while leaving exploratory testing to manual testers. By aligning their automation with their release goals, they achieved faster, safer deployments.

Step 2: Identify What to Automate

Not everything needs to be automated. Even if feasible, not everything would be Valuable to automate. So, we need to prioritize test cases for automation based on their :

  1. Criticality: Focus on features that are essential to your business. For instance, for an e-commerce platform, the checkout flow and payment gateway are non-negotiable.
  2. Frequency: Automate repetitive tasks, such as regression testing, to save time.
  3. Feasibility: Some tests, like those involving visual validation, might be better suited for manual testing or require specialized tools.

A SaaS team struggled with flaky UI tests for edge cases. By refocusing their automation on API-level tests and critical user journeys, they reduced test execution time and improved reliability.

Read More »

Integrating Testing with Cloud-Based Development: Challenges and Solutions

Nishi Grover GargLeave a comment

Cloud-based development has become the norm for many organizations due to its numerous benefits. These include the ability to scale resources dynamically, reduce costs, and improve collaboration among development teams. However, with these advantages come challenges, particularly in integrating testing processes. Effective testing is crucial to ensure that applications are reliable, secure, and performant. 

The rapid evolution of cloud-based development has transformed how software is developed, tested, deployed, and maintained. Software testing companies play a critical role in ensuring the quality and reliability of applications developed in cloud-based environments. However, integrating testing within these environments presents unique challenges that require innovative solutions. This article explores these challenges in detail and provides strategies for overcoming them.

What is Cloud-Based Development?

Cloud-based development refers to the process of building, deploying, and managing applications using cloud computing services. This approach leverages cloud infrastructure, platforms, and software to enable developers to work more efficiently and collaboratively. Cloud-based development environments provide tools and resources that facilitate continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), which are essential for modern software development practices.

Benefits of Cloud-Based Development

  • Scalability: Resources can be scaled up or down based on demand.
  • Cost-Efficiency: Pay-as-you-go models reduce the need for significant upfront investments.
  • Collaboration: Cloud environments enable better collaboration among distributed teams.
  • Flexibility: Developers can choose from a variety of tools and services to meet their specific needs.

Challenges in Integrating Testing with Cloud-Based Development

1. Environment Consistency

Ensuring consistency across different environments (development, testing, staging, production) is challenging in cloud-based development. Variations in configurations, dependencies, and data can lead to discrepancies in test results, making it difficult to identify the root causes of issues.

Solution

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Use IaC tools like Terraform or AWS CloudFormation to define and manage infrastructure. This ensures that environments are created consistently.
  • Containerization: Use containers (e.g., Docker) to encapsulate applications and their dependencies, ensuring consistency across environments.

2. Data Management

Managing test data in cloud-based environments can be complex. Ensuring data availability, consistency, and security across multiple environments is a significant challenge.

Solution

  • Data Virtualization: Use data virtualization techniques to provide consistent and secure access to test data without the need to replicate it.
  • Automated Data Management: Implement automated processes for data provisioning, masking, and cleanup to ensure data consistency and security.

3. Security and Compliance

Ensuring security and compliance in cloud-based environments is critical, especially when dealing with sensitive data. Testing processes must adhere to stringent security and compliance requirements.

Solution

  • Security Testing Tools: Integrate security testing tools (e.g., OWASP ZAP, Burp Suite) into the CI/CD pipeline to identify and address vulnerabilities early.
  • Compliance Automation: Use compliance automation tools to ensure that testing processes adhere to regulatory requirements (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA).

4. Performance Testing

Performance testing in cloud-based environments can be challenging due to the dynamic nature of cloud resources. Variability in resource allocation can affect performance test results.

Solution

  • Synthetic Load Testing: Use synthetic load testing tools to simulate real-world traffic and measure performance under different conditions.
  • Resource Monitoring: Implement resource monitoring tools to track and analyze the performance of cloud resources during testing.

5. Tool Integration

Integrating various testing tools within a cloud-based development environment can be complex. Ensuring seamless communication between tools is essential for effective testing.

Solution

  • CI/CD Integration: Use CI/CD tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI/CD) to automate the integration of testing tools and processes.
  • API-First Approach: Adopt an API-first approach to ensure that testing tools can easily integrate and communicate with each other.

Solutions for Effective Testing in Cloud-Based Development

Read More »

Empowering Enterprise Growth with Low-Code Platforms

Nishi Grover Garg3 Comments

<This is a guest post by Smith Mac>

In the rapidly evolving modern world, business changes in enterprises are violent and frequent, and therefore, the provision of innovative technological, many enterprise organizations adopt low-code development platforms into enabling the enhanced software development processes’ efficiency. In this conclusive and comprehensive tutorial low code aspect is discussed how it impacts organization and it also answers the critical questions with respect to traditional development to help the business to capture tremendous value in developing Ready Enterprise Applications.

1. Empowering Enterprise Outcomes through Low-Code Development

Low-code development platforms are becoming the key drivers of enterprise digital transformation by easing app development approaches. It reduces the practices of manual coding by a considerable amount, reduces time and cost of development while projecting a market growth of more than thirty percent CAGR by-year 2028. In this regard, low-code, by translating development into graphical interfaces, is the enabler for both IT and business personnel and a way to bring additional efficiency to the organization by improving development team’s velocities thus allowing to quickly adapt to market needs. It is friendly with existing IT environments and enhances legacy frameworks and third-party API for maximum return on investment while renewing applications.

Integrating Competitive Advantage into Operations

Implementation of low-code platforms means relatively increased productivity as organisations experience up to 50% reduction in the time to build application and maintaining them. This efficiency helps IT teams to avoid wasting their time on various usual tasks and shift more focus to unique tasks. However, integrated management and security mechanisms reduce the risks involved with Shadow IT, whilst adhering to stringent regulatory requirements. As more enterprises adopt low-code, they are able to deliver more applications faster to market and be more responsive to changing business requirements.

2. How Low-Code Development helps in Unlocking Enterprise Growth

Many organizations have turned to low-code platforms to ensure efficiency during the development phase and align with the DevOps concept. Forrester has it that low-code can help to speed up application delivery by as much as six times while at the same time halving development costs. This efficiency not only improves the speed for operations but also fosters the fairly essential accelerated rate of innovation for competitive advantage.

Low-code also makes application development more accessible to allow business users who are not IT experts to build applications that they require. It encourages cooperation between departments, ensures that IT works towards business objectives, and speeds up the working cycles to provide better customers’ experiences. Furthermore, the top low-code platforms are security and compliance-oriented as innovative security mechanisms are integrated into the platform to ensure proper protection of data and compliance with relevant regulations, thus reducing risks and increasing confidence.

3. Working Through the Problems of Traditional Software Development for the Enterprise

In the current environment of enterprises, the conventional software development faces issues that slow it down and prevent creativity. Complexity of development cycles and increasing costs are also significant projects issues with 68% of projects reporting delays and 45% reporting that their costs were higher than planned because of poor planning and communication. In addition, such methodologies as waterfall restrict the cross-functional team approach, which creates problems with immediate adaptation to market shifts and slows down time to market of key applications.

The primary social challenges for these enterprises are these hurdles, and therefore working with Agile and DevOps practices. There are mainly the following advantages of using agile methodologies: It encourages cross functional and cross organizational collaboration and thus teamwork, because the conditions are fully supportive of fast responses to changes in requirements and markets. Implementing DevOps does not only facilitate development but also increases deployment rates by 30x and reduces failure rates by 60x. Implementing cloud computing solutions, organizations also advance the use of cloud-native ones and microservices to improve scalability and being competitive in the digital market.

4. Realizing Increased Speed & Innovation with Low-Code Capabilities

Low-code is considered to be influencing the application development profoundly as it cuts across the time required in developing and implementing applications I superior ways. As per estimates, the CAGR is over 20% and these platforms dematerialize processes and include citizens, developers and IT persons. Since competition is high in today’s mart, reducing the time-to-market for new products and features are very critical for organizations.

Making the process of building applications accessible to more users is another advantage that comes with the use of low-code solutions. Benefits of collaboration are the ability of allowing users with different technical applications to change programs, processes and develop improvements, hence enjoying the flexibility of responding to the market and consumers’ feedbacks. Companies using low-code claim that their applications are delivered up to 50% faster, and this increases overall business functionality and customer satisfaction.

Additionally, low code enables CI/CD requirements as essential for today’s DevOps frameworks. These are easily integrated with the existing tools and processes and reduce the time spent and errors in the deployment of the software. This helps to liberate the development teams to concentrate on new value creation, thus increasing the organizational flexibility.

5. The Possibilities of Low-Code Solutions for the High-End Business Applications

Leveraging the full potential of low-code as the foundation for delivering enterprise-level solutions is transforming applications development. For enterprises, it represents that adequate use of low-code can avoid much hand-coding in the development of complicated applications, thus shortening the TTM and improving the flexibility. According to the market report, it will exhibit a CAGR of over 25% by 2028; low-code development platforms enable organisations to deliver new solutions at a greater pace.

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A Typical Day of a Tester in an Agile Pod : Guest Blog

Nishi Grover Garg1 Comment

I am glad to share that a guest post I wrote for The Test Tribe website has now been published.

I was approached by the team to contribute to their valuable and rich content library where they publish articles, how to’s, insights on testing topics, case studies and upskilling posts for their vast testing community.

I wrote about the life of a tester in an Agile Pod and how it might be different from a traditional tester. We follow a typical day of Ted, our protagonist who is a tester in an agile pod team. We see how he spends his day working with his developers, product owner and other stakeholders along with balancing his duties as a pod leader. Read the article here to follow along on his exciting journey–>

I am happy to be associated with The Test Tribe community and the great work they are doing!

Grateful for this opportunity and always looking ahead for more! 🙂

Cheers

Nishi

A Guide to Software Delivery Plan: A Plan for Easy Deployment

Nishi Grover GargLeave a comment

Welcome to the world of software development, where a well-crafted software delivery plan holds the key to seamless project deployment. In this rapidly advancing landscape, having a structured approach to delivering software solutions is crucial for success. A software delivery plan acts as a guiding beacon, ensuring that development teams navigate the complexities of the project with clarity and efficiency. From defining the project scope to allocating resources and setting realistic timelines, a robust delivery plan sets the stage for a smooth and successful journey towards delivering a high-quality software product to users. Working in the technology industry offers an exciting opportunity to shape the future through the strategic planning and efficient delivery of software solutions that revolutionize how we live, work, and interact. So, let’s delve into the intricacies of a software delivery plan and unlock the secrets to achieving project excellence.

What is a Software Delivery Plan?

A software program delivery plan is a comprehensive roadmap that outlines the diverse levels worried within the software improvement and deployment technique. It serves as a guiding light for developers, project managers, and stakeholders, offering them a clear vision of the obligations to hand and the timeline for their final touch. A properly articulated plan allows for placing realistic expectations, handling dangers, and making sure of transparency throughout the project lifecycle.

Importance of Software Delivery Project Plan

Having a well-thought-out project plan is paramount to the success of any endeavour. It serves as a roadmap, guiding teams via the various levels of an assignment and making sure an established method to achieving objectives. A project plan clarifies the project’s scope, defining what wishes to be executed and putting clean desires for all involved. This clarity eliminates ambiguity, reduces misunderstandings, and fosters effective verbal exchange among team individuals and stakeholders.

Moreover, a project plan helps allocate resources efficiently, ensuring that time, manpower, and budget are utilized optimally. It allows for the identification of potential risks and challenges, enabling teams to proactively devise contingency strategies. As a result, the likelihood of project delays or failures decreases significantly.

By having a comprehensive project plan in place, teams can stay focused, organized, and on track throughout the project’s lifecycle. It empowers them to monitor progress, assess achievements, and make necessary adjustments as circumstances change. Ultimately, the project plan acts as a foundation for success, providing a structured framework for teams to deliver their best work and attain their project goals with confidence.

Why Plan and Deliver Projects?

Effective project planning and delivery are vital for successful outcomes. By following a structured approach, projects can stay on track, minimize risks, and achieve desired objectives. A well-executed project enhances productivity, fosters collaboration, and ensures efficient resource allocation.

What is Project Planning and Delivery?

Project planning involves defining project goals, scope, timelines, and resource requirements. It lays the groundwork for the project’s execution. Project delivery refers to the implementation phase, where the planned activities are executed, monitored, and controlled to reach the project’s desired endpoint.

Key Components of a Software Delivery Plan

1. Project Scope and Objectives:

The first step in crafting a successful software delivery plan is defining the project’s scope and objectives. Understanding the desired outcomes and the problem the software aims to solve is crucial for setting the right direction and aligning all team members towards a common goal.

2. Task Breakdown and Timeline:

A detailed task breakdown is essential for effective project management. Divide the project into smaller, manageable tasks and assign them to respective team members. Alongside task allocation, establish realistic timelines to avoid bottlenecks and delays.

3. Resource Allocation:

Allocating the right resources to specific tasks is vital for maintaining efficiency. Identify the skills and expertise required for each task and ensure that team members are appropriately assigned to capitalize on their strengths.

4. Quality Assurance and Testing:

To ensure a flawless end product, a robust quality assurance and testing process must be incorporated into the software delivery plan. Regular testing and debugging should be scheduled to catch and rectify any issues promptly.

5. Contingency Plan:

Every software project comes with uncertainties. It’s essential to have a contingency plan in place to address unexpected challenges that may arise during development. This will help mitigate risks and ensure a smooth continuation of the project.

6. The Significance of Collaboration:

A successful software delivery plan relies heavily on effective collaboration among team members and stakeholders. Regular meetings and open communication channels facilitate a shared understanding of the project’s progress, allowing for timely adjustments and decision-making.

The Process of Planning and Delivering a Project

The process of planning and delivering a project consists of 5 main stages as follows:

Read More »

A Beginner’s Guide to Web Application Testing

Nishi Grover GargLeave a comment

As we know that web apps are becoming more complex, testing them is also getting equally sophisticated. The stats show that 88% of online buyers are less likely to repeat the orders if the website has bad UI/UX. Hence, it is important to perform thorough testing of web apps to ensure that it has standardized user experience, functions, and security.

For the testing process, there are many automation testing tools available along with manual testing tools. Automation tools help in reducing the risk of making human errors while testing any system and also enhance the accurate consistency of the test results. In this article, we will see more about top web app testing tools to learn in 2023. So, let’s dive in!

What is Web App Testing?

Web app testing, or web testing is a process in the SDLC that ensures that the quality of the software and its functionalities are as per the intended requirements of the clients.

The web app testing process also allows you to find errors at any given time before the app or project is released.

Testing any project is quite important before it is released for users to use it. If it is not checked and tested properly, it might cause a heavy crash of that software and also cost you a hefty money expense.

To make the testing process easier, we rely on web app testing tools – that may be open source (free to use) or commercial (paid tools). There might be pros and cons to using each of these, the decision you make regarding the tools to be used is based on your team’s need, budget and resources.

Pros and Cons of Open Source Testing Tools

ProsCons
The primary advantage of having an open-source testing tool is the cost of entry. Open-source tools like Selenium can be used free of cost.
If your team is working with a client who is cost conscious, using free tools is an amazing alternative.
Another benefit is the flexibility that testers can get by using open-source tools. Some tools have a large user community behind them. And there are some cool libraries too that can be used easily.
Moreover, open-source tools also support different languages. For instance, Selenium offers support for different languages like Python, Java, C#, etc.		The foremost disadvantage of open source testing tools is the technical barrier of entry.

Quality is also an underrated con of continuing with different open source testing tools.

If you are the leader of the testing team who does not have any automation professionals, then open source testing tools can develop some problems. In such cases, a commercial testing tool is a better option.

Pros and Cons of Commercial Testing Tools

ProsCons
There are various advantages of Commercial testing tools, that is you do not need a robust in-house skill set to start and run. Different commercial tools use in-built workflows that can make striking the ground off much smoother.

Commercial testing tools also have in-built support and documentation that is huge. There is much documentation available in a well-written format which is easy to use for testers.
 
High team support is also an advantage of commercial testing tools. You can contact the team managing the tool, in case of any emergency arises while using the tool.

The in-built feature of reporting present in commercial testing tools is also considered as their main advantage. However, the custom reporting feature of open source tools is also useful.		One of the main disadvantages of using commercial testing tools is its cost. These tools are prohibitively expensive and users need to pay subscription rates to use them.
Either annually or monthly fees have to be paid for using the tool.

These tools are not flexible like open-source testing tools. Hence these tools are only used while testing particular tasks. If you try to test things that are out of the box for commercial tools, it may drastically fail.

Here we will discuss the best tools available for web app testing. These tools will help you find the hidden bugs and process them further until they are removed.

Web Application testing tools

Let’s discuss the list of top web app testing tools that are trending at the current time:

Selenium

It is an open-source web automation testing tool and is the most widely used tool in the modern era of critical testing. Selenium is one of the best tools which automates across different OSs like Mac, Linux, and Windows and also on browsers like Chrome, Firefox, IT, etc.

The test script of Selenium can be written in any programming language like Java, Python, C#, Ruby, PHP, JS, and Perl. This tool also offers record & playback features with a simple browser add-on named Selenium IDE. There’s a POWERFUL Selenium WebDriver that helps you develop more advanced and complex automation testing scripts.

Here are some features of Selenium:

  • It has multi-browser support
  • Selenium provides multi-language compatibility
  • Quick identification of errors and use of quality web elements
  • Good performance feature
  • It also provides dynamic web elements for the use
  • Selenium is open-source and free to use
  • It is portable, which means it works easily with different OSs
  • It also has a reusability feature for testing scripts

Katalon Platform

Katalon is a comprehensive automation solution for Web, API, Desktop, and Mobile app testing. With a strong user base of more than 0.5 million, both experienced and beginners test engineers can relish its practical and versatile features for an easy testing process.

Integration platforms: Azure DevOps, BrowserStack, Circle CI, etc.

Supported Platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOS

It also provides a 30-day free trial.

Here are the features of the Katalon Platform:

  • It is flexible in testing design. Beginners in automation testing can use playback and record functions for making tests quickly. While the experts can use in-built keywords for improved productivity along with advanced scripting capacities.
  • Easy selenium migration is possible with TestNG/JUnit framework
  • It can execute powerful tests and has cross-browser automation tests along with CI/CD pipeline integrations.
  • It supports testing methodologies like Page Object Model Testing, Keyword-Driven testing, TDD/BDD testing, etc.
  • It reduces test maintenance effort and cost
  • You also get a centralized report dashboard

Testpad

Testpad tool is a simple and more accessible manual testing tool that is a good option for testing web apps. It prioritizes pragmatism over the process and uses checklists like test planning that can be in the form of various ranges of styles like Agile’s manual testing side, exploratory testing, BDD syntax highlights, and also traditional test case management.

Integration platforms: Jira, GitHub, Pivotal, etc.

Supported Platforms: Linux, Windows, Web apps, etc.

It also provides a 30-day free trial.

Here are the key features of the Textpad tool:

  • Guest testers are invited by a simple email, and they do not need special accounts to handle the testing process
  • Simple to use even by non-testing professionals. Everyone can help in the testing process when required
  • It has drag and drop feature for test plans
  • There’s an editor that is Keyboard-driven with JS-powered UI
  • It is a lightweight tool with issue trackers and JIRA

Intruder

intruder is also a powerful error scanner that will assist you to uncover different weaknesses lurking in the web apps and underlying infrastructure. It offers powerful security checks, timely and continuous monitoring, and also it is an easy-to-use tool. Intruder tools will keep your web app safe from hackers.

Integration platforms: GitHub, ServiceNow, Slack, Teams, etc.

Supported Platforms: Windows

It also provides a 14-day free trial.

Here are the features of Intruder:

  • It has best-in-class coverage of threats that covers over 10,000 security checks
  • It checks for missing patches, configuration weaknesses, and app weaknesses like SQL injection, Cross-site scripting, etc.
  • Automatic prioritization and analysis of scan results
  • Automatic analysis and priority of scan results
  • It has an intuitive interface, easy to set up and execute your scans
  • It takes proactive security testing for modern vulnerabilities
  • AWS, Google Cloud, Azure connectors
  • API integration is easy with CI/CD pipeline while using this tool

testRigor

This tool assists you to express the tests directly as executable specifications are made in English. Users belonging to different technical firms can develop a full test case, small/medium/complex which converts web, mobile, and API in one test. Test steps are made as per the end-user level instead of just relying on details of XPaths, and CSS Selectors.

Integration platforms: TestRail, Zephyr, XRay, Jira, etc.

Supported Platforms: Windows, iOS, MacOS

It also provides a 14-day free trial.

Here are the features of testRigor:

  • It has a free-forever public version
  • Test cases are made in English
  • Recorder facility for web steps
  • Unlimited tests and unlimited users
  • testRigor is the easiest tool to learn automation
  • Easy integration with CI/CD
  • Helps in test case management
  • SMS & Email testing
  • Web, Mobile, and API steps in the test

Many More

The list is endless with fantastic tools like QA Wolf, TestSigma, and many more.. You can pick the one you like and that fits the needs of your team and project.

Final words

There are many web app testing tools present in the market that can greatly change the effectiveness and efficiency of the testing process. These tools ultimately offer a huge range of features and expertise that allows you to conduct comprehensive testing and ensures that the reliability and quality of your web app are not compromised.

Selenium is a well-known tool amongst testers as it is versatile and robust to use. The ability to automate the browser functions and support various programming languages makes it an easily flexible and suitable tool in many scenarios.

Moreover, tools like TestComplete, Appium, SoapUI, etc., are worth considering and depend on your particular testing needs. The final choice of picking any web application testing tool will depend on your needs, budget, and expertise. By using any of these top tools, one can streamline the testing process, search for bugs, solve them, and finally deliver high-quality web apps which provide a beautiful user experience.

<This is a Guest Post by Colin Rooney>

<Author Bio: Colin Rooney is a Technical Consultant at a reputed web development company. He has expertise in developing enterprise level web applications in various domains such  as PHP, Laravel, magento and React JS. He loves to share his bylines through blogs. You can find his blogs on many famous websites.>