The Latest
Blending Machine Learning and Hands-on Testing[article] As your QA team grows, manual testing can lose the ability to focus on likely problem areas and instead turn into an inefficient checkbox process. Using machine learning can bring back the insights of a small team of experienced testers. By defining certain scenarios, machine learning can determine the probability that a change has a serious defect, so you can evaluate risk and know where to focus your efforts. |
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From NPR to AI: An Interview with Davar Ardalan[interview] Davar Ardalan, founder and storyteller-in-chief of IVOW, talks about how her experience working at NPR helped her launch an AI and storytelling startup. She also discusses how testers, QA analysts, and software engineers are on the front lines of working with users and understanding user engagement, and she explains the importance of finding ways to collaborate with them. |
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5 Key Elements for Designing a Successful Dashboard[article] When you’re designing a dashboard to track and display metrics, it is important to consider the needs and expectations of the users of the dashboard and the information that is available. There are several aspects to consider when creating a new dashboard in order to make it a useful tool. For a mnemonic device to help you easily remember the qualities that make a good dashboard, just remember the acronym “VITAL.” |
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A Testing Culture in DevOps: An Interview with Adam Auerbach[interview] Adam Auerbach, head of testing at EPAM Systems, discusses testing in DevOps and why it’s important we instill a testing culture in DevOps organizations. He says DevOps is about enabling teams to do things on their own, and he gives recommendations for some general metrics that teams can start with to measure speed and efficiency. |
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Risk Coverage: A New Currency for Testing[article] In the era of agile and DevOps, release decisions need to be made rapidly—preferably, even automatically and instantaneously. Test results that focus solely on the number of test cases leave you with a huge blind spot. If you want fast, accurate assessments of the risks associated with promoting the latest release candidate to production, you need a new currency in testing: Risk coverage needs to replace test coverage. |
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Universal Test Automation Patterns: An Interview with Seretta Gamba[interview] Seretta Gamba, test manager at Steria Mummert ISS GmbH, discusses how she has been working on assembling test automation patterns—solutions that experienced practitioners have already found. She talks about her developmental background and why she is so interested in these patterns, which don't include any code or tools because those will eventually change, while the patterns will remain universal. |
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The Future of Test Automation: A Conversation with Max Saperstone[interview] Max Saperstone, director of test and automation at Coveros, chats with TechWell community manager Owen Gotimer about codeless automation, using ROI to drive test automation decisions, and why manual testing is here to stay. Continue the conversation with Max (@max) and Owen (@owen) on the TechWell Hub (hub.techwell.com)! |
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Changing Mindsets around AI: An Interview with Rick Faulise[interview] Rick Faulise, COO at PinkLion, talks about how to get involved in AI and how your company can highly benefit from it. AI has been around for a long time, but he says people need to change their mindsets about it in order to start implanting AI strategies. Rick explains how the bot software works and how it can be extremely useful in gathering information so that testers can look at the data for any program. |
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Transforming a Test Automation Maintenance Nightmare into Success[article] Best practices for test automation emphasize reliability, portability, reusability, readability, maintainability, and more. But how can your existing automated test suite adopt these qualities? Should you address these issues with your current tests, or create an entirely new set of tests? Here are some questions that will help you determine if your test automation maintenance program is operating as it should be. |
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The Pendulum Swing of Testing: An Interview with Melissa Tondi[interview] Melissa Tondi, QA professional services manager at Rainforest, talks about how fast the role of the tester is changing. She describes it as a pendulum, saying when she first started, everything was very user-focused, and now it is all about the technical teams. Melissa explains why it’s important to have a distribution of both technical and user-focused roles, then gives some strategies to find the right balance. |
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7 Agile Testing Trends to Watch for in 2020[article] With 2020 upon us, software development firms seeking to increase their agility are focusing more and more on aligning their testing approach with agile principles. Let’s look at seven of the key agile testing trends that will impact organizations most this year. |
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The Joy AI Brings: An Interview with Kevin Pyles[interview] Kevin Pyles, director of QA at Domo Inc., discusses his keynote presentation, “From Zero to AI Hero.” He advises to start small with automation and Python, expanding as you discover how AI can add value to your job. He also talks about getting his hands dirty with AI and building internal tools without being afraid, saying that as a tester, you cannot be fearful of technology—you need to embrace the fun in it. |
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Zero to SME: Quickly Becoming Your Own Subject Matter Expert[article] On a new project, we often lack the luxury of having a subject matter expert available to answer our questions. When that’s the case, we have to become our own SME. Here are a few key methods from the writings and presentations of experts in various fields that deal with information gathering and rapid learning. You can easily use these methods, right now, to quickly gain the knowledge you need in order to move forward. |
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Top 10 StickyMinds Articles of 2019[article] Teams everywhere are looking to speed up testing without sacrificing quality, so once again, some of the top articles last year were about continuous integration, machine learning, and—of course—how to best implement and use test automation. But readers were also interested in what they shouldn't be doing, with two high-ranking articles about test practices we should stop and a tool you may be misusing. |
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Applying Data Analytics to Test Automation[article] Testers gather lots of metrics about defect count, test case execution classification, and test velocity—but this information doesn't necessarily answer questions around product quality or how much money test efforts have saved. Testers can better deliver business value by combining test automation with regression analysis, and using visual analytics tools to process the data and see what patterns emerge. |