Do you have a ‘DevOps’ Testing Culture?

Success of DevOps requires cultural transformation across the board. This transformation is extremely essential for those who work in the QA and Testing functions.

As QA/Testing professionals embrace DevOps-style testing, it improves the quality of code that the company produces and consequently the internal status of these functions increases. They get the opportunity to work on more interesting work. However – in my experience – the significant cultural transformation of DevOps can be burdensome on those in Testing functions, and particularly so if they have been in the role for a long time.

DevOps testing differs from traditional testing. In traditional testing, the testing activity happens immediately after the development takes place and just before code gets pushed into production. Here, testing professionals and developers work in silos. This is where dev and test teams can come to sit on opposite sides of the fence.

In the DevOps approach, QA/Testers work closely with the developers. And they do so, from the beginning of the project until the end of the project. They plan together. They strategise together. Testing takes place continuously and concurrently with the development process.   

However, it is important to emphasise that DevOps does not remove the need for QA/testers. The collaboration between testers and developers under a unified workflow is essential for the improvement of the organisation in the long run.

Reducing IT budgets. Improving efficiencies in end-to-end delivery cycles. Improving the overall production framework. The integration of automation. All achievable when a traditional testing culture is transformed into a DevOps testing culture. 

But, a DevOps testing transformation must be aligned to business objectives for it to be worth the effort. Ask yourself, what are the organisational objectives and how will a DevOps testing culture help in achieving these objectives?

Do you have a traditional testing culture? Do you have a DevOps testing culture? Is your organisation prepared for this cultural transformation?