Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

In my 18 years of working in quality engineering and the testing community, I’ve developed some best practices to help organizations create and manage their overall test strategies. This is the second in a 10-week series on what testers wish their CIOs and CTOs knew about testing. Each week, I’ll share my experience to help educate tech leaders on key priorities their testing teams need them to understand.

Even when seamlessly combining manual and automated approaches, testing every functional combination within web or mobile applications is challenging. Unfortunately, this means critical issues inevitably go undetected and make their way into the hands of your customers. We strive for perfect code, perfect releases, and perfect apps, but alas, perfection is a myth. With that in mind, if you cannot catch every issue before a release, at least you can take the proper steps to limit them.

Product failures and defects can occur on many different shapes and levels, impacting any part of the user experience, functionality, and even safety. In the past, organizations were taking the approach of of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for risk assessment. This allowed teams to identify and prevent failure before a product or update is released.

Artillery is an open-source command-line tool purpose-built for load testing and smoke testing web applications. It is written in JavaScript and it supports testing HTTP, Socket.io, and WebSockets APIs. This article will get you started with load testing your Node.js APIs using Artillery. You’ll be able to detect and fix critical performance issues before you deploy code to production.

Embracing DevOps is not easy. There are a lot of misconceptions about what DevOps is. DevOps is not a team, or a methodology, or a job role. DevOps is a culture founded on a set of work patterns and practices that have an impact on the whole value chain, from business to operations. DevOps helps you move from only having visibility about your own work, to having a birds-eye view and overall understanding of the whole value stream (from business to customer feedback).

Late October, the Catalyze Tech Coalition released the Action to Catalyze Tech (ACT) report, which outlined best practices, accountability measures, and systemic changes needed to support workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion in the tech industry.