DEVOPSdigest

Overall, C-suite executives are happy with the applications and solutions that come out of the pipeline. However, businesses are still frustrated by the speed of delivery, according to a recent study from Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Eggplant.

The research identified that improving the customer experience is the number one goal for organizations when planning and orchestrating their software strategy. The study also highlights a gap between IT and business leaders thinking when it comes to testing strategy.

To accelerate digital transformation, business leaders recognize that delivering the best customer experience hinges on the quality of their software.

Key findings:

■ Improving the customer experience is the number one requirement for organizations (49%), but almost half of businesses are not testing the user experience

■ Business focused on product usability but frustrated with the speed of app development

■ 47% of teams on average are exploring an intelligent approach to AI usage

■ IT leaders focused on reducing testing times, and feel held back by budgets, fragmented legacy technology and access to skills

The Testing Quality Conundrum
The transformation of testing is facing several hurdles as firms move towards continuous, AI-enabled test automation, including budget pressure, legacy technology being difficult to automate, and lack of the necessary skills. Businesses are having to do more with less, and using AI brings the significance of business testing back into focus, making companies smarter about what to test.

As a result of the desire for organizations to achieve superior customer experiences, speed, and quality have become essential in application delivery. However, the study also found that there is much room for improvement, especially when ensuring that quality is maintained.

■ 51% of application development teams are still applying manual functional testing

■ 46% scored the speed of testing as average, fair, or poor

■ 41% stated that the speed of their overall application development was average, fair, or poor

■ 36% also rated the quality of code in development (for testing) as average or worse

Organizations want to move towards continuous testing to increase levels of automation but are currently lagging in their capabilities to do so. However, firms that are evolving toward a continuous delivery model are transforming testing practices as part of this shift to continuous testing.

■ 52% of application development teams are implementing continuous testing

■ 49% currently apply automated functional testing

■ 47% of teams are exploring an intelligent approach to AI usage

The research identified several significant challenges that are constraining testing capabilities:

■ 32% stated that budget pressure is stifling testing innovation

■ 26% of firms pointed to legacy technology that is fragmented and difficult to automate

■ 25% highlighted that the right technical skills was the third highest challenge

The findings shed more light on the need for app development and delivery teams to fully embrace a more agile, DevOps, continuous, and automated approach to software delivery. To realize this transformation, there needs to be some fundamental changes in testing approaches to enable software delivery at speed without compromising quality.