Death, Taxes and…. Testing?
Today, all we do is test. We rarely stop and think about improving quality. It’s one thing to notice a defect in a product, but it’s a completely different story to go on a mysterious hunt for it. For businesses, brand is everything. But how can we predict the future and prevent poor quality with the hope to improve our business’ brand? The question remains the same: Why didn’t we get it right the first time?
If you’re an avid smartphone user, and you open your download history, see how many downloads are fixes. Now check how many were new capabilities. As we all soon discover, we see test after test to fix products — particularly apps. The funny thing is this doesn’t yet bother us — but it will. This emphasis on quality has started to occur, and it’s time to think about all the steps to improve how we approach the quality of our products the first time, to limit the time wasted on testing. But why haven’t we done it? The answer: we haven’t had access to reliable and effective optimization strategies. However, these methods and tools would enable 50% reduction in test cases while improving functional coverage to 100%.
The Rise of API
Enter API Economy which has hit the ground running ever since it stepped foot on the block. Technologists are scrambling to keep up with growing demands for goods and services delivered via seamless Mobile Apps (Application Software) — which are enabled through APIs (Application Programming Interfaces). Last year Web-based APIs grew more than ever, (up 758% since 2010) to over 17,000 public APIs currently on record.
We have all felt the ease that APIs enable. Think of the last time you could share an on-line article to Facebook or Twitter with the touch of an icon. Or how about booking flights with an airline, without leaving the bargain travel website originally accessed? Think of APIs as the components that enable diverse platforms, apps, and systems to connect and share data with each other.
Growth of Apps
Coding boot-camps where technologists are trained to write the code Apps and APIs are based on) are also on the rise, up an incredible 74% in 2016 alone while the problem of quality and testing remains. Currently, we are an App obsessed world. Given the impact to revenue of these applications, for now, many global organizations are basing most their marketing efforts on Apps — so they had better work.
It may seem silly, but the success or failure of a firm’s interface with its customers will rely on if API and App testing is done, and done right. When is the last time you re-visited a bad App experience? Exactly. Testing has just moved from the back seat — to the front. Unavoidable now are Death, Taxes and… Testing.
Security or Speed to Market?
So while no one will argue the surge in APIs, or in the applications they support — but how does this newly-directed, growth demand affect global institutions? “Just think about it,” says Nick Carnovale, IBM Global QA and Testing Partner, “In the past, the provider really managed the marketing experience. They decided what information would be shared, when, how and with whom. Today global organizations don’t control their audience, nor do they control exactly how a customer experience may unfold. I am working with clients to change their marketing approaches and imagine interactive experience with the customer at the steering wheel. If you’re on the web, the world is your audience and the pressure to create and share new interfaces with growing capabilities — and security — is fierce. Having a highly organized, enterprise-wide testing environment is now essential.”
Today, the risk of poorly developed code is enormous and ever-growing. As projects have become more complex, defect rates are reaching all-time highs. This makes quality and speed-to-market a pivotal pain point for many companies, with testing often being the bottleneck. Add on top of that, that any dysfunction can also be delivered beyond web apps straight onto customers’ tablets, smartphones, wearable devices — even cars! — and you get a very real and significant issue for global organizations. How will firms succeed in improving product quality while delivering both App and API security, and speed-to-market?
Currently, many business lines have their own test approaches to validate Apps for employees, partners, and customers. In most cases, testing is manual, and detection is narrowly focused, time consuming, and does not always deliver to the expected level of quality or speed. Redundancies due to ad hoc development and testing, leads to slower release times, a limited ability to ‘re-use’ API assets and a duplication of the actual tests themselves. The urgency for new digital products and services are pushing test cycle times which is an increased risk to the business, causing more defects being leaking into production. It has never been more important for organizations to organize testing. Where will Firms begin?
Know What You Don’t Know
“I am presently working with clients to completely transform their testing capabilities and the first question I ask them is; Do you feel that testing must be a core competency for your firm? Then we move on from there…If not, would you rather just have teams that develop, importing a testing capability? Is developing something you feel you need in-house? Do you want to develop and/or test just with Apps touching the end-user/front office? What about back office?
Again, why didn’t we get it right the first time?
Smarter About Speed
In working with clients who want to build a world class testing competency, we begin with a three-part roadmap; Optimize, Automate and Implement cognitive capabilities. By getting all participants and stakeholders onto one common platform we coordinate users, and allow them to optimize existing tests for existing apps as well as write the minimal number of tests for new applications.
Cognitive elements throughout the technology help to route, predict and prevent defects, vastly improving both devops and testing capabilities — decreasing time-to-market and increasing security. Carefully run testing programs at scale have been able to improve test speeds within any application development method by up to 40 percent, reduce the number of tests by 40 to 60 percent and find defects up to 50 percent earlier.
I talk to my clients a lot about being smarter about speed. There simply is no time to waste but at the same time security and customer experience cannot be compromised. We are using agile development theory to quickly generate ideas, develop Proof of Concepts (POCs) and drive Devops when it’s appropriate, as well as cut losses when not. I have seen development teams bring down task times form months, to days, to hours. It is nothing short of miraculous watching new approaches and technologies re-shape industries.”
API Economy Innovation
The amount of innovation the API economy will enable is hard to imagine. This year more CIOs will have their bonuses tied directly to how many new business models they help create using API and APP development, than ever before, and this trend will accelerate over the next three years. Once just an experiment, APIs have become a core piece of functionality that fuels rapid digital adoption and enables a whole new class of connection, collaboration and customization. Although side barred in infancy, APIs will become more visible within enterprises and will increasingly be at the core of IT, forming a platform upon which all new development will occur.
“Organizations need to start visualizing APIs as core to their tech strategy, not something apart from it. The API economy will allow access to unfathomable information, potentially making IT a source for extreme insight and intelligence — instead of being in the way of what business are trying to achieve. This role-reversal is a shift in the way IT has worked with businesses in the past, and will pave the way for the future. APIs will help complete the transformation of organizations into truly digital enterprise organizations going forward. Testing accuracy is nothing less than crucial.”
