The Business Value Of Continuous Testing

Enterprise software development has opened many doors of innovation for IT departments to streamline business goals in an organizational setup. Practicing and implementing software development models is as much a business decision as it is an IT initiative. IT departments can witness cost reduction but with a higher preference for quality control. Keeping quality intact when pushing out a new development project used to be a hurdle for developers before continuous testing took the business world by storm. It can transform costly IT projects into goldmines of profit.

Having already implemented Agile software testing and the lean method, enterprised looked for a solution which could keep the development process in check without harming any code. The fast jump to agile methodology didn’t give enough time to developers for minimizing false assumptions in a project. It turned out that simply implementing agile methodologies was not the way out of a difficult code situation. Development was still not streamlined with business goals.
Soon, teams would ignore the agile philosophy of increased collaboration and planning. A reinvented agile way came up, where IT teams were developing software but were still unable to detect flaws in the least amount of time. Lack of early monitoring resulted in a costly product by the IT department, one which posed many flaws in the beta period. The approach to change this situation brought forward the continuous testing method. It is an effort to minimize errors during the development period while concentrating on creating a robust software or application.
Continuous testing has the following business benefits:

Better decision making

The expectations of business owners from a software product regarding speed and efficiency vary through the entire software development lifecycle. Continuous testing created a centralized system which can identify failures in real-time and highlight their business disadvantage to the team. It happens as a consistent effort in the background of every development project, providing visibility and quick data for reference. Everything is documented from the beginning of the development lifecycle, which is a huge benefit when monitoring application for performance testing.

Business decision makers can stay informed about the product at all times, changing the course of business strategy as the development is underway. Lesser risks are taken when you are more informed about the product. Time of release, impact, and usability is assessed earlier in the development lifecycle.

Competitive difference

Enterprises in every industry have a development shop in the form of a service offering. These departments are responsible for creating new product and fixing the errors in existing products. For example, mobile check depositing system was a new service offered by the banking industry a few years ago, and implementing this system in your financial institution gave you a competitive edge over institutions which were not up to the task. The continuous testing method during development lifecycle provides a safety system for teams to develop and test new products without missing out on quality. It creates a safe creating and testing environment. You can add new topographies without worrying about the quality or time.

These features provide the business benefit of introducing new things to your market with the strongest assurance that they will succeed in achieving desired goals. When the competition is based on innovation, only a better product enters the market every time. The invisible line of demarcation between large organizations and five-people startups is not a pressure anymore because focus lies on the innovation, not the funding.

Continuous delivery

Ask your team if they are still relying on manual testing to prepare for a software or application release. How do they feel about the whole ordeal?
Don’t be surprised if you hear words like ‘dread’ and ‘confusion,’ because that’s what manual testing brings as baggage. Take a look at this diagram of the dreaded manual delivery:

This is the exact reason why the software development world is moving towards continuity. That’s why, there is an increased emphasis on continuous integration, checking and delivery. Constant monitoring makes sure that a good product goes out from the developer’s end.

Continuous delivery is not a hypothetical process, created only for high-end companies which can afford to do so. Every team can practice this methodology.
When the doctor strikes your knee with a hammer, you get a fast knee-jerk reaction. The brain is wired to react to stimuli in the fastest way. That’s what continuous testing aspires to achieve, a continuous reaction to external stimuli and recommendation for improvements. Which business doesn’t want a faster reaction?

Reduced risk

There is always a cost associated with a software product which has to be released into the market. Many times, these costs are not clear to the business leaders. There is too much confusion about the cost, leading to risks which are taken by half-hearted authority leaders. Continuous delivery can help in clearing the confusion about this delivery. There can be all sorts of costs required for shipping a release.

When you create a business pipeline, it will be clear where the real cost lies, and you can avoid that risk. Once a solid pipeline is created, the margin of error is erased. Clear incentives lie in the software delivery dynamic, leading to a healthy release period.

Bottom line

The bottom line is that we all must strive to achieve flexibility in the software development context. Continuous delivery provides the perfect solution in clearing out rumors about the anticipated software or application. If your cost of checking software is high, it will impact the delivery. Each ear, companies around the globe, spend more than $300 billion debugging their software, according to research from Cambridge University’s Judge Business School. Additionally, Parasoft research determined that the stock price for companies experiencing a news-making software failure fell about 4 percent on average in 2015, and 5.7 percent when they suffered multiple failures. That equaled $2.7 billion in lost market capitalization. It’s a sign for you to expose his fallacy to the business owners and convince them to adopt continuous testing. Reassess the organizational hierarchy and point out the benefits of having a constant check and balance.