Articles

Please enter an article title, author, or keyword
Group of people holding trophy that says "2018" Top 10 StickyMinds Articles of 2018

With the rise of technology like AI and practices like DevOps, teams everywhere are looking for ways to speed up testing without sacrificing quality. The articles in 2018 reflect that, with the most popular topics being shifting testing left, optimizing tests for continuous integration, and the future of software testing. If you're looking for cutting-edge testing techniques, check out this roundup.

Beth Romanik's picture Beth Romanik
Woman holding a magnifying glass to her eye Become a Data Detective

Rapid changes in data availability and analysis tools are leading to evolving expectations for the data analyst role. We can do much more than just generate reports; we have the opportunity to not only process data, but convert it into understandable information and use the knowledge revealed by our work to help change happen.

Nels Hoenig's picture Nels Hoenig
Testers looking at graphs of performance test results Responsibly Reporting Performance Test Results: Trends, Noise, and Uncertainty

In order for performance test results to have value, you should report them in context. There are two main considerations: How do these compare to previous results? And how can we provide early reports on performance while emphasizing that these are preliminary results that may change significantly as we progress? Here are some ideas for responsible reporting.

Michael Stahl's picture Michael Stahl
Gauge with a needle in the green zone, showing good performance 7 Simple Tips for Better Performance Engineering

Rigorous practices to reinforce performance and resilience, and testing continuously for these aspects, are great ways to catch a problem before it starts. And as with many aspects of testing, the quality of the performance practice is much more important than the quantity of tests being executed. Here are seven simple tips to drive an efficient performance and resilience engineering practice.

Franck Jabbari's picture Franck Jabbari
Testing feedback loop 5 Key Factors to Achieve Agile Testing in DevOps

Part of the path to DevOps requires adoption of agile methodologies. What does it mean for testing when you switch from the traditional waterfall model, with a few long release cycles per year, to the agile model, with changes occurring every two weeks? Here are five key factors to achieve the agile software testing necessary in DevOps.

Denise Rigoni's picture Denise Rigoni
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
Coding brackets Mob Programming for Low-Code and No-Code Development

In low-code and no-code development, as the names suggest, developers do less actual coding—they create applications through GUIs and configuration instead of traditional programming. But mob programming is still a useful practice, because the entire team can clarify requirements, discuss development and test strategies, and implement the best ideas. Everyone gets to learn and contribute.

Arun Kumar Dutta's picture Arun Kumar Dutta
Decision table Using Decision Tables for Clear, Well-Designed Testing

Decision tables are used to test the interactions between combinations of conditions. They provide a clear method to verify testing of all pertinent combinations to ensure that all possible conditions, relationships, and constraints are handled by the software under test. If you need to make sure your test cases cover all outcomes in a scenario, read on to learn how to use decision tables.

Josh Giller's picture Josh Giller
Dial with the needle moving from red to green A Better Way of Reporting Performance Test Results

Reporting the results of functional tests is relatively simple because these tests have a clear pass or fail outcome. Reporting the results of performance testing is much more nuanced, and there are many ways of displaying these values—but Michael Stahl felt none of these ways was particularly effective. He proposes a reporting method that makes performance test results easy to read at a glance.

Michael Stahl's picture Michael Stahl
Code on a computer screen Testing a Software Rewrite

Suppose we’re looking at a system rewrite where the stakeholders have none of the original engineering documentation. (This isn't surprising; documentation becomes obsolete—or even misleading—as the system changes, and corresponding docs don't get updated.) What can we do? Here are some tactics to use—and risks to anticipate—when testing a system rewrite.

Steve Poling's picture Steve Poling

Pages

Upcoming Events

Oct 01
Nov 05
Apr 28