August 20198 THRIVING IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL CHANGEBY GOVIND RAMACHANDRAN, LEAD QA AND TESTING, ASIA DELIVERY SERVICES, MANULIFE ASIAIt's no secret that we are living in an era of digital disruption. The range of software and hardware that can power businesses as they move to digital platforms on display at the Asia Cloud Expo 2019 was phenomenal ­ and necessary. Almost all companies are undergoing some sort of transformation, be it utilizing new technology or instigating new ways of working. Indeed, every company needs to be a technology company, and the fast-paced, digital-first environment is rapidly changing what people and customers expect from companies. By giving customers a best-in-class customer experience and enabling and empowering its workforce, and technology to be efficient, faster and cost-effective, companies can unlock new avenues for business growth.It's not all smooth sailing: companies are encountering many challenges on their transformation journeys as they lack the right resources. One of the key areas that get compromised during the delivery of software products especially is quality assurance and testing. And as companies undergo a transformation, the need for a strong digital quality assurance strategy is vital. Here are some factors to consider when designing a winning strategy.Testing, testingGone are the days when testing was an afterthought or the last phase in the software delivery lifecycle. Now we are in an era where delivery is iterative and on a two- or three-week delivery timeline. Testing should be done as early as possible and it should be continuous throughout the delivery process. Companies cannot afford to wait for a test phase to check for quality. The testing team should work in parallel with the development team using behavior-driven development or acceptance test-driven development. With iterative development, it is important to have regression tests. Executing regression tests manually takes time, costs more and needs additional resources, so automation is important. Teams will need to embed the functional automation in sprints so that an automated regression suite is generated that can be used for end-to-end testing.With new tech stacks being utilized, there are more API and micro services deployed, so the teams need to fully automate these tests to ensure accelerated delivery. Since all tests are dependent on the right test data set, it is important that the right strategies are in place for effective test data management. Invest in an explorative phase to IN MY V EW
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