While some teams have experienced process breakdowns or missed sprint deadlines, overall, QA has been resilient in the pandemic.
I had the opportunity to review the research results of a survey of 80 QA professionals conducted by Kobiton, a provider of software testing solutions. A key takeaway from the survey is that most teams haven’t experienced much disruption related to the pandemic, though some are beginning to see problems, causing them to reconsider their operational strategies.
Covid-19 has undoubtedly created challenges for QA teams, ranging from issues with team collaboration and communication to alignment with other DevOps teams. 40% of QA professionals responding to the survey reported minor disruptions to their QA processes, and 33% said they’d experienced minor delays in their product release cycles. Meanwhile, 10% said they’re beginning to see real problems in their QA processes, and another 10% said they are worried about problems looming on the horizon.
Overall, QA teams seem to be holding up rather well, with 38% of survey respondents reporting zero disruptions to their processes, and 34% saying they had no release cycle delays and weren’t too worried about future release cycle disruptions. Nevertheless, Covid-19 is causing QA teams to consider major operational shifts to combat the crisis. 21% of survey respondents said that providing systems for remote mobile device access would be their top priority, followed by more automated test cases (15%), central reporting (13%), and new collaboration processes (also 13%).
QA teams are also prioritizing the need to support distributed teams due to Covid-19. 55% of survey respondents said their top priority would be investing in culture as they embrace what it means to be a remote team. The second biggest priority would be investing in systems that enable remote testing teams (50%), followed by strategies to maintain efficiency and effectiveness in remote environments (45%).
“COVID has upended conventional business processes in every industry, company, and department. But so far at least, QA teams appear to be holding up,” said Kevin Lee, CEO of Kobiton. “This can best be attributed to strong company cultures and quick reactions to the crisis in the form of reprioritized objectives and a higher tolerance for bugs in the interest of speed. While the uncertainty and challenges surrounding COVID continue to plague organizations of all shapes and sizes, the most agile and resilient software development teams will emerge stronger, faster, and better.”
Comments