How to Get Digital Transformation Right with Continuous testing

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How to Get Digital Transformation Right with
Continuous testing
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How to Get Digital Transformation Right with
Continuous testing
Agile manifesto came into existence almost two
decades back, changing the IT industry out and
out. Emphasizing value of the items on the left
more than the items on the right, Agile manifesto
focused on cutting down the delivery time and
determined working software as the primary
measure of progress. While revolutionizing the
SDLC processes, it also set the precedent for
birth of DevOps, which took place about a decade
later than Agile. Contrary to the popular belief
of Agile and DevOps being two different
methodologies incompatible to each other, DevOps
is the most logical continuation of what Agile
set out to do increased collaboration, shorter
feedback cycles, and broken silos. The evolving
IT ecosystem supports rapid innovation and
frequent deployments, raising customers
expectations and demands. In order to
satisfactorily fulfill those demands, enterprises
are en route their digital transformation
journey, which goes beyond just the technological
nuances. As defined by Forrester, Digital
transformation is not just about technology it
is about reimagining your company. It is the
necessary but challenging journey of operating
digital-first with the speed and nimbleness to
change or introduce new products and experiences
rapidly, exploit technology to create lean
operations, and free people to do more complex
tasks that create value. The customer-oriented
organizations are making mindful attempts and
strategic modifications to adopt digital
transformation, which requires a holistic
approach with sound planning and solid
foundation. Necessitating the involvement of both
technology as well as people, digital
transformation can adeptly help enterprises
achieve scalability and cost effectiveness.
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How to Get Digital Transformation Right with
Continuous testing
Instead of an Agile or DevOps strategy, digital
transformation needs an Agile and DevOps
strategy. Diego Lo Giudice, Vice President and
Principal Analyst at Forrester, says, it is
simply unacceptable for any IT organization to
focus on an Agile-only or DevOps-only journey.
They are two sides of the same coin, and one
completes the other. The Digital transformation
puzzle supported by an Agile and DevOps
approach still misses a critical piece rendering
it incomplete, inefficient, and ineffective
Continuous testing. What and Why of Continuous
Testing Continuous Testing is defined as
People, processes, and technology to deliver
quality at speed and minimize business risk by
conducting all Agile testing activities
continuously in parallel to and in an integrated
fashion with ideating/planning, building,
integrating, delivering, and deploying features
into production. Testing also happens
post-production by leveraging the DevOps feedback
loop by Forrester. Continuous testing enables
businesses to meet the client demands of quality
at speed, while supporting the developers fulfill
their CI/CD pipelines in time. The quick cycles
of Agile and the automation capabilities
introduced by DevOps, both mandates as well as
facilitates the continuous integration and
continuous testing practices. As testing shifts
to the left, starting early in the SDLC,
businesses are able to mitigate the risks
associated with each release.
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How to Get Digital Transformation Right with
Continuous testing
Continuous testing approach allows businesses to
get off the firefighting mode and be proactive
when it comes to dealing with software failures
and errors. As per the Forrester Wave Q1 January
2019 report, customers identified test automation
and non-functional testing, which includes test
data management and shift-left performance
testing, as the most impactful set of services
for Continuous testing. For any enterprise
aspiring for digital transformation, continuous
testing is indispensable. Continuous testing is
infeasible without automation. In order to
establish regular two-week Agile sprints for
frequent software delivery, 80 of the test cases
need to be automated. The three ways guiding the
Agile DevOps digital transformation With the
sprawling foothold of Agile and DevOps, backed by
continuous testing, enterprises are able to
follow The Three Ways described in The Phoenix
Project for optimizing business processes and
improve profitability. The three ways are First
Work should always flow in one direction Second
Create, shorten, and amplify feedback
loops Third Practice continued experimentation,
in order to learn from mistakes and achieve
mastery These three ways stand true for both
business as well as IT processes. They help in
imparting direct customer value through
integrating quality in products while maintaining
speed and efficiency. The human value in
digitally transforming businesses Businesses
aspiring for digital transformation must have
their customers at the center of their every
decision, every step,

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How to Get Digital Transformation Right with
Continuous testing

and every strategy. Obsession with the customers
will allow the businesses to bring an end-to-end
thinking into their vision. Like DevOps, digital
transformation requires a shift in both processes
as well as culture. An enterprise-wide cultural
change is at the core of a digitally transformed
organization. From leaders to the lowest-level
employees, each individual is affected. There is
a need for critical assessment of, how things
have been done so far, how things should have
been done, and how they will be done.
Understanding the difference between the three
outlooks, a digital transformation strategy
should be formulated such that it takes care of
any underlying resistance from the individuals in
terms of shifting processes. As businesses are
moving to cloud, open source, and APIs, there is
a dire necessity to fill the gap in their talent
pool with resources who are able to successfully
perform or steer such migrations. With digital
transformation, leaders not only need to manage
the technical migrations, but also the migrations
of the mindsets. The whole picture of digital
transformation When Agile manifesto dictated,
Individuals and interactions over processes and
tools, it was essentially stating manage the
individuals first, they will then themselves take
care of the processes and tool. While Agile
stated, DevOps implemented. By breaking silos
and bringing Dev and Ops together, it ingeniously
accelerated the feedback loops, optimized risk
management, and improved quality. Digital
transformation services are shifting the weight
of iterative, labor-intensive tasks from manual
to automated tools, while making the human
resources responsible for bringing innovation and
creativity through continuous experimentation.
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How to Get Digital Transformation Right with
Continuous testing

Digital transformation, Agile, and DevOps are
together building a future where innovation is at
the heart of all the processes. But this picture
needs continuous testing to become truly complete
and deliver on all the expectations. Cigniti
Technologies is hosting a Webinar with Forrester
on Accelerate Digital Transformation with Agile
and DevOps Continuous Testing. Register for the
webinar and join the discussion with our guest
Diego Lo Giudice, VP and principal analyst from
Forrester and Kalyana Rao Konda, President NA
East, Cigniti Technologies.   Read Full Blog at
https//www.cigniti.com/blog/digital-transformati
on-continuous-agile-devops-testing/
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