Expo

Are You Really Agile? Self-Asses If Your QA Team Is Truly Agile

March 31, 2025 by Aishling Warde

Adopting Agile practices doesn’t automatically mean your QA team is working in an Agile way. Many teams follow the structure of Agile like sprints and retrospectives, but still struggle to fully embrace Agile principles. True agility in QA is about flexibility, continuous improvement, and deep collaboration to ensure quality at every stage of development.

Many teams find themselves wondering: Are we really Agile, or just following a checklist of Agile rituals? That’s the exact question explored in our ebook, “Are You Really Agile? A Practical Guide for QA Teams.”

In this article, we’ll explore key insights from the ebook to help you assess your QA team’s Agile maturity and share practical strategies to strengthen your processes.

Signs That You’re Not Truly Agile

These are the most common indicators that suggest your team is not Agile:

1.Inflexible Processes
Agile is meant to be iterative, yet some QA teams still rely on rigid, step-by-step workflows that don’t leave room for adaptation. If your testing approach isn’t flexible enough to accommodate changing requirements, it may be limiting your agility.

2.Communication Silos
Agile emphasizes ongoing collaboration, but if QA and development teams rarely interact outside of sprint reviews or retrospectives, valuable discussions may be missed. Continuous alignment is key to delivering high-quality software efficiently.

3.Lack of Continuous Feedback
In Agile, testing and feedback should happen throughout the sprint, not just toward the end. If your team is catching defects late in the cycle rather than identifying issues early, your process might be more reactive than proactive.

4.Testing as a Separate Phase
Testing should be seamlessly integrated into development, not treated as a final step before release. If QA still operates as a standalone phase rather than being part of the sprint’s workflow, it’s a sign that your team hasn’t fully embraced Agile testing.

Take This Self-Assessment to Know If You Are Truly Agile!

To help you evaluate how Agile your QA processes really are, we’ve designed a straightforward self-assessment questionnaire. It allows you to analyze your workflows, collaboration, and testing practices to see where your team stands on the Agile spectrum.

How it works: Rate your team on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “Never” and 5 meaning “Always.”

Category	Assessment Question	Score (1-5)
Flexibility in Processes	Do your QA and development processes allow frequent changes?
	Are test cases and schedules adaptable as features change?
Early Involvement of QA (Shift-Left Testing)	Is QA involved from the beginning, refining user stories?
	Are test cases planned in parallel with feature development?
Collaboration Between QA and Developers	Do QA and developers work closely together during sprints?
	Is there ongoing communication between QA and developers?
Continuous Feedback Loops	Are feedback loops frequent during the sprint?
	Is feedback (and bugs) from the testing team assessed and addressed quickly?
Automation in Testing	Do you generate automation for the stories being developed during the sprint (vs automated on later sprints)?
	Are automated tests run for each significant code change?
Test Case Reusability and Maintenance	Is your test library modular and easy to maintain?
	Are automated tests regularly updated?
Defect Management and Prioritization	Are defects prioritized and resolved within the sprint?
	Are there clear criteria for classifying defects?
Continuous Improvement and Retrospectives	Are QA processes included in sprint retrospectives?
	Are metrics used to drive continuous improvement?

After completing the self-assessment, review your total score to understand where your team stands in Agile maturity:

35 – 40: Your QA team is highly Agile, effectively embracing flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
25 – 34: You’re heading in the right direction, but there’s room to improve. Identify lower-scoring areas and apply the strategies in this guide to strengthen your Agile approach.
15 – 24: While some Agile practices are in place, there are noticeable gaps in your QA processes. It’s time to rethink your approach to collaboration, feedback loops, and integrating testing throughout the sprint.
Below 15: Your team may be Agile in name only. Consider revisiting Agile fundamentals and restructuring your QA processes to align with core Agile principles.

3 Key Strategies to Maximize QA Efficiency in Agile

Shift-Left Testing

A core Agile principle is embedding QA early in the development process. However, many teams still follow outdated habits, treating testing as an afterthought rather than an integral part of the sprint. This delay often results in defects being discovered late, leading to costly rework, missed deadlines, and misaligned expectations.

Best Practice: Establish a continuous feedback loop between product owners, developers, and QA from the initial requirement discussions. Ensuring clear acceptance criteria and well-defined testable requirements helps prevent last-minute surprises.

Practical Tip 1: Use tools like mind maps or flow diagrams to visualize user journeys, dependencies, and potential risks during requirement gathering. This helps teams proactively identify edge cases and improve test coverage.

Practical Tip 2: Implement Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) to foster collaboration between QA, developers, and product owners. Writing test scenarios in plain language ensures shared understanding and helps translate requirements directly into test cases.

Defect Management & Resolution

In Agile, defects should be handled as they arise, not postponed to future sprints. Without a structured defect management process, teams risk becoming overwhelmed, delaying essential fixes, or failing to address critical issues in time. Effective defect management is all about prioritization. Not every defect requires immediate attention, so it’s important to classify and address issues based on their impact.

Best Practice: Hold regular triage meetings to review, prioritize, and assign defects. This process ensures that the most critical issues are addressed first while maintaining transparency around defect resolution. A well-defined triage system keeps teams focused on resolving blockers before handling lower-priority fixes.

Practical Tip: Use a defect-tracking tool to maintain full visibility into defect status and ownership. Set up automated notifications for high-priority issues to ensure they are addressed immediately and don’t get lost in the backlog.

Post-Sprint Retrospectives

A sprint’s conclusion is a great chance to reflect, improve, and refine processes. Retrospectives play a key role in Agile, offering teams the opportunity to analyze what worked well, what didn’t, and how to enhance efficiency in future sprints. QA is often overlooked in retrospectives, with discussions focusing primarily on development progress and sprint goals. But reviewing testing metrics such as defect resolution times, test coverage, and testing bottlenecks, can provide valuable insights into areas that need improvement.

Best Practice: Make testing a core part of sprint retrospectives. Review key QA metrics, including defect trends, risk assessment, and testing efficiency. Encourage all team members to share their insights on refining QA processes for the next sprint.

Practical Tip: Track and analyze sprint metrics to drive improvements. If defect resolution times were longer than expected, identify the root cause and adjust workflows. If test coverage was insufficient, explore ways to improve automation or optimize manual testing to focus on critical areas.

Take Your Agile QA to the Next Level

In this article, we outlined some key Agile strategies like Shift-Left Testing, Defect Management and Resolution, and Post-Sprint Retrospectives, which are essential for QA teams looking to optimize efficiency and improve collaboration. But these are just a few ways..

In the complete ebook, “Are You Really Agile? A Practical Guide for QA Teams,” you’ll find even more actionable insights and strategies designed to maximize QA impact in an Agile environment. From test execution to reporting, this guide is filled with practical recommendations to help you align your QA processes with true Agile principles.

Author

PractiTest

PractiTest is an end-to-end SaaS test management platform that centralizes all your QA work, processes, teams, and tools into one platform to bridge silos, unify communication, and enable one source of truth across your organization.

With PractiTest you can make informed data-driven decisions based on end-to-end visibility provided by customizable reports, real-time dashboards, and dynamic filter views. Improve team productivity; reuse testing elements to eliminate repetitive tasks, plan work based on AI-generated insights, and enable your team to focus on what really matters.

PractiTest helps you align your testing operation with business goals, and deliver better products faster.

PractiTest are Exhibitors in this years’ EuroSTAR Conference EXPO. Join us in Edinburgh 3-6 June 2025.

Integrate Xray Enterprise with Popular CI/CD Tools for Automated Testing

March 7, 2025 by Aishling Warde

Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) have become essential for delivering high-quality software at speed – automating testing processes ensures that new code changes are thoroughly validated before reaching production. However, managing these automated tests across multiple CI/CD tools can be challenging.

This blog post explores how Xray Enterprise can be seamlessly integrated with popular CI/CD tools to enhance your automated testing workflows. The tool offers powerful capabilities to help you automate test management, track results, and ensure the reliability of your software releases. Let’s dive into it!

Why CI/CD

CI/CD is a set of practices and tools that automate and speed up software development, testing, and deployment. Continuous Integration (CI) automatically merges code changes into a shared repository multiple times a day, ensuring early and frequent testing. Continuous Delivery (CD) takes this further and automates the process even more, deploying every change that passes all pipeline stages directly to end users.

Benefits of CI/CD Integrations:

Faster, more efficient development cycles: automated testing and deployment pipelines accelerate the release of new features and updates, freeing up developer time;
Quality engineering: immediate detection of issues, ensuring high-quality code and reducing bugs;
Consistent delivery: automation ensures that deployments are consistent across different environments, minimizing the risk of human error.

Xray Enterprise: Enhance Efficiency of CI/CD Pipelines

It is important to have visibility into your test results as they directly impact the status of your requirements. To achieve this, you must link your tests with requirements and report automated test results from your CI/CD environment, ensuring you can evaluate requirement coverage at any moment.

Xray Enterprise allows you to manage manual and automated tests in the same way, making it an ideal tool for teams that require consistent test management across different types of testing

To maximize the benefits of automated testing, you can integrate Xray Enterprise with CI/CD tools for:

Improved synergy: trigger tests from a Jira-native test management tool and/or import the results back via a CI/CD task;
Result consolidation: collect and track test results directly within Xray Enterprise;
Robust reporting: generate reports on test results, coverage, and trends, aiding in decision-making and continuous improvement.

Let’s explore the process of integrating Xray Enterprise with popular CI/CD tools in more detail!

Part 1 – Launch execution from Xray Enterprise

This part is optional (i.e. you can still launch the execution from the CI/CD platform itself and only consider Part 2) but crucial if you’re looking to expand test automation triggers to more teams and even non-technical users.

The common workflow involves:

Test execution: the tests are executed, the report is generated in the format supported by Xray with the appropriate attributes;
Importing results to Xray: the results report is imported into Xray.

RJT allows you to configure and launch remote jobs in various CI/CD tools directly from Xray Enterprise, enabling you to execute specific actions such as validating changes, deployments, or running automated tests without leaving the Xray interface.

Benefits of Remote Job Triggering

Improved efficiency: streamline testing workflows by managing and triggering jobs directly from Xray;
Centralized control: manage and monitor all testing activities from a single interface;
Flexible integration: adapt the process to the CI/CD tool of your choice.

You can integrate Xray Enterprise with CI/CD tools like Jenkins, Bamboo, GitHub, GitLab, and Azure DevOps to trigger remote jobs from Xray entities such as Test Plans, Test Executions, and Test issues, including viewing logs, job status, and results.

Taking a closer look at the Jenkins example

Jenkins is supported by Xray through the “Xray for JIRA Jenkins Plugin” plugin and REST API, enhancing the functionality by providing tasks that facilitate actions like importing test results.

Prerequisites include Jenkins server setup, Xray Enterprise for Jira installed and configured, and necessary permissions on both sides.

In this example we will define a job in Jenkins and invoke it from Xray. This job will execute the Playwright tests and generate a JUnit report.

First, you will need to complete the configuration, which would look like this on the Xray Enterprise side:

Next, you will find the corresponding trigger option on one of the Xray entities, for example, a Test Plan.

Lastly, we need to send those results back to Xray for full visibility.

For complete examples, make sure you check the following resources:

Part 2 – Prepare the report and import the results to Xray

For the avoidance of doubt, this part is not limited to Xray Enterprise – regardless of where you launch the execution from, you can import the results to Xray and enjoy the test management benefits we mentioned earlier.

The common workflow involves:

Test execution: the tests are executed, the report is generated in the format supported by Xray with the appropriate attributes;
Importing results to Xray: the results report is imported into Xray.
A. If the corresponding Test issues do not exist, they will be created automatically by Xray.
B. Otherwise, the existing Test issues and, if you choose so, Test Executions will be updated.

In addition to JUnit, TestNG, and NUnit, Xray supports other popular frameworks and report formats, including:

Robot Framework;
Behave;
xUnit;
Ranorex;
Xamarin.

XML is the most popular overall format, but JSON is also supported in Cloud.

For the import, you can utilize specialized plugin support (e.g. “Xray – Results Import Task” from our plugin for Jenkins) or command line methods. We have more dedicated integration instructions for tools like CircleCI, Travis CI, TeamCity. Please check the following resources:

Once the import finishes, we can review the specific execution results and the overall status on the, e.g., Test Plan issue (the screenshot corresponds to the RJT example from part 1, where we also added the “XrayImportBuilder” step to the Jenkins pipeline definition).

Tips for Smoother Implementation

In this section, we have collected useful pieces of advice from across our extensive documentation. If you prefer a more structured learning approach, we encourage you to check the “Test Automation with Xray” course in our Academy.

Generic vs Cucumber tests

you can make an informed decision about which one works best for you.

First, Generic Tests in Xray serve as an unstructured abstraction layer, allowing to report on the execution results without enforcing specific constraints on how the tests are implemented on the Xray side. It is often used when only Part 2 is implemented as the popular default for Test issues automatically created after the report import.

The Generic Test Definition field is used to provide additional identification details, such as the class and method that implements the test code or the automated script file name.

Second, Gherkin, primarily used in Behavior-Driven Development (BDD), is a language for writing test scenarios in a way that is understandable by all stakeholders, including non-technical ones. The corresponding issue type on the Xray side is “Cucumber Tests”.

Xray’s comprehensive support for Cucumber tests includes the following capabilities:

Creation and editing: supports Scenario, Scenario Outline, and Background entities;
Automated steps library: Centralized management and refactoring of Gherkin steps;
Bulk import/update: handles .feature files using the REST API or CI plugins;
Export: allows exporting of .feature files containing Scenarios and Backgrounds through the UI, REST API, or CI plugins.Tests”.

There are several nuances when it comes to utilizing the Cucumber tests in your CI/CD process. For more information, please see the following articles:

Cloud vs Data Center CI/CD integration differences

Depending on your Xray deployment, you need to pay attention to the corresponding API documentation and the overall import process, which is why we provide the reference links in pairs.

For instance, Cloud requires you to first obtain the token, then proceed with the import call, whereas you can do the import straightaway in the Data Center. Also, make sure to leverage the documentation specifically for your API version of choice (1 or 2). Check the following resources:

Report Customizations

Depending on your automated framework/report format and the import method, you may be able to add custom attributes that further enhance the synergy between the CI/CD tools and Xray. For instance, you can link the results to a requirement and a test plan automatically during the import, rather than manually after the fact. Check the following resources:

Also, please keep in mind that the API endpoints on the Xray side can be different depending on the report format.

Please refer to the tutorials we linked above to learn about the specific options for your tools of choice.

Elevate your game

The efficient approach of automated testing and the speed of CI/CD implementation ensures that any new code integrates smoothly with the existing codebase, maintaining the overall quality and functionality of the software.

Xray Enterprise is a leading enterprise test management tool that seamlessly integrates with Jira, offering a solution for managing both automated and manual tests in a centralized manner. With support for various testing methodologies and integration with multiple CI/CD tools, Xray Enterprise stands out for leveraging these capabilities. It results in comprehensive test coverages, accurate results, and your ability to manage your test cases and test plans with unmatched efficiency.

Author

Ivan Filippov

Ivan Filippov is a Solution Architect for Xray. He is passionate about test design, collaboration, and process improvement.

Xray are Platinum Partners in this years’ EuroSTAR Conference EXPO. Join us in Edinburgh 3-6 June 2025.

Thought you couldn’t automate that? Think again.

March 5, 2025 by Aishling Warde

As testers looking to increase automated coverage, we often encounter parts of the user journey – such as when an email notification, SMS alert, or multi-factor authentication workflow is involved – that on the surface appear difficult or outright impossible to automate. This leads to reliance on manual testing, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error, affecting the speed of your testing process or likelihood of regression.

However, with the right tools, even complex test scenarios can be automated effectively, improving test coverage and accelerating release cycles. Let’s dive into some common challenges and how they can be tackled with automation.

Transactional emails or SMS alerts

If you’re responsible for testing a modern customer experience, for example a hotel booking system, the emails or SMS messages sent by that system are as critical to the user experience as the screens with which a user interacts.

Whilst it’s possible to pull together a solution reliant on a public email service like Gmail, or self-host and maintain an open-source solution. You’ve got better things to be spending your time on! Most now solve this by integrating a managed service like Mailosaur to access email testing functionality, and international phone numbers for SMS, to capture and perform assertions against every message a product sends.

Mailosaur facilitated easy email testing, streamlined QA automation … and provided crucial support for evergreen projects.” – Manager of Software Quality Engineering at Domino’s.

Authentication workflows

Whether you’re responsible for a fintech application, healthcare portal, or a secure ecommerce platform, you’ll almost certainly be responsible for securing access to key areas of your product. That means the introduction of anything from email verification on signup, password reset workflows, and the increasingly essential two-step verification processes.

Sure, if you’re a ‘one-man band’ you can use your own phone to set up 2FA/MFA at least, but not only does that not work for automation, it also falls apart as soon as you’re working at any kind of scale – whether that’s more QAs around you, or a product that supports sending SMS messages in more than one country.

Things have moved on, and there are now solutions that not only give businesses access to phone numbers internationally, but there are also solutions that can mimic apps like LastPass and Google Authenticator to test “auth app” functionality. Here’s a snippet showing how this is done using our platform:

// Get a one-time password (OTP) from an SMS 
const sms = await mailosaur.messages.get(inboxId, { 
  sentTo: ‘123456789’ // phone number 
}); 
 
console.log(sms.text.codes[0].value); // e.g. “654321” 
  
// Get a one-time password (OTP) from a ‘security device’ 
const currentOtp = await mailosaur.devices.otp(sharedSecret); 
console.log(currentOtp.code);  // e.g. “123456”

Email rendering bugs and blind spots

The way an email looks to your customer can differ wildly, depending on which email client they are using. While it might look perfect to you on Gmail or the latest edition of Outlook on Windows, there are a ton of email clients outside your organization.
With Mailosaur’s email preview functionality, you can instantly see how your email will look for any recipient, no matter what email client they use, so there are no nasty surprises.

Come and see us at EuroSTAR 2025!

We required a solution that could provide multiple servers, allow us to generate test email addresses, and support extensive email testing. Additionally, the ability to automate and perform high volumes of email testing daily was critical to our operations’’ – Sr. Director, Quality Engineering at Malwarebytes.

Automating traditionally difficult test scenarios is easier than you think, with the right tools, those “impossible” tests become straightforward and we’re here to show you how at EuroSTAR this June.

Stop by the Mailosaur stand for live demos, practical advice, and a chance to chat with our team about simplifying your toughest tests.

Author

Louise Buckmaster

Digital Marketing at Mailosaur, crafting content and resources for QA testers.

Mailosaur are exhibitors in this years’ EuroSTAR Conference EXPO. Join us in Edinburgh 3-6 June 2025.

The Power of Live Demos: Why 6 Minutes Can Make a Difference

January 30, 2025 by Lauren Payne

At EuroSTAR, we know that engagement is everything. The EuroSTAR Conferences EXPO Hall is a hive of energy, networking, and innovation, making it the perfect place to connect exhibitors and sponsors with software testing and quality engineering professionals. But in a bustling conference environment, how do you ensure your brand stands out? The answer: A Live Demo.

The Impact of a 6-Minute Live Demo

Six minutes may not seem like a lot of time, but in the right hands, it can be a game-changer. A well-executed live demo captivates an audience, sparks meaningful discussions, and showcases your solution’s real-world impact. It’s not just about explaining your product—it’s about demonstrating its value in action.

Here’s why these six minutes can make a difference:

Instant Engagement: Live demos create an interactive experience that draws attendees in and keeps them invested in your product or service.
Showcase Thought Leadership: Demonstrating your expertise and innovation positions your brand as a leader in software testing and quality engineering.
Drive Booth Traffic: A compelling demo generates interest and directs attendees straight to your booth for deeper conversations.
Boost Brand Awareness: Stand out from the crowd with a dynamic, hands-on presentation that leaves a lasting impression.

Huge Interest from Attendees

We’ve seen an incredible response from attendees to these Live Demos, with over 150+ participants attending these sessions during the Lunchtime break of the conference. It’s a fantastic opportunity to engage with a highly interested audience in a relaxed, interactive setting.

To add even more excitement, at the end of each demo, we run an attendee prize giveaway organised by the EuroSTAR EXPO team. All you need to focus on is what you wish to present—leave the logistics and incentives to us!

Expanded Access in 2025

Last year, Live Demos were exclusively available with the Platinum packages. This year, we’ve expanded access, allowing all Gold Sponsors to purchase a Live Demo as an exclusive package add-on. This gives more brands the opportunity to leverage this impactful tool and enhance their presence at EuroSTAR.

Whether you’re launching a new product, demonstrating a cutting-edge feature, or showcasing an innovative testing solution, a Live Demo is your opportunity to make an impact. Don’t just tell your audience about your solution—show them why it matters.

Secure Your Slot

According to the Freeman Trends Report 75% of attendees want to make the most of in-person learning with hands-on demos and activities. Incorporating live demos into your event strategy can offer dynamic, interactive experiences that resonate with the EuroSTAR Conference attendees. By showcasing your solutions in action, you not only demonstrate value but also position your brand as a thought leader in the industry.

Live Demo slots are limited, and demand is high. If you’re looking to maximize your exposure at EuroSTAR, this is your chance to shine. Book your Live Demo today and make your six minutes count!

For more details on how to secure your slot, reach out to our team or visit the EuroSTAR Conferences EXPO website.

Let’s make innovation visible—one Live Demo at a time! To find out how you can achieve your marketing goals and more at a EuroSTAR Conferences EXPO, speak with Clare Burke.

Clare Burke

EXPO Team, EuroSTAR Conferences

With years of experience and a passion for all things EuroSTAR, Clare has been a driving force behind the success of our EXPO. She’s the wizard behind the EXPO scenes, connecting with exhibitors, soaking up the latest trends, and forging relationships that make the EuroSTAR EXPO a vibrant hub of knowledge and innovation.

t: +353 91 416 001
e: clare@eurostarconferences.com

How to Measure the Value of Software Testing EXPO Trade Show Participation

September 11, 2024 by Lauren Payne

Participating in trade shows like the EuroSTAR Software Testing EXPO can be a significant investment of time, money, and resources. However, the potential benefits, including increased brand visibility, lead generation, and networking opportunities, can be substantial. To ensure that your participation is worthwhile, it is crucial to measure the value derived from the event. This blog post outlines Clare’s recommended key metrics and strategies to help you evaluate the return on investment (ROI) from participating in the EuroSTAR Software Testing EXPO.

Set Clear Objectives

Before delving into metrics, it’s essential to define your goals for participating in the trade show. These goals should align with your overall marketing strategy. Common objectives include:

Lead Generation: Capturing contact information of potential clients.
Brand Awareness: Increasing visibility and recognition of your brand.
Networking: Building relationships with industry peers and potential partners.

Setting clear objectives when participating in an EXPO helps us ensure we are enabling you to focus efforts, measure success, allocate resources effectively, and enhance overall strategic alignment with business goals. Clear objectives are helpful when we are helping you pick an EXPO package that best suits your business goals.

Pre-Event Preparations

To measure the value effectively, start tracking metrics before the event:

Budget Allocation: Document all expenses related to the event, including booth costs, travel, accommodation, marketing materials, and promotional items.
Marketing Reach: Assess your pre-event marketing efforts, such as email campaigns, social media promotions, and blog posts. Depending on which EXPO package you have opted for there may be pre-conference marketing activations that will also help boost your brands attendance and visibility.

Lead Generation

One of the primary reasons for attending the EXPO is to generate leads. Collecting leads is a very important part of exhibiting as well ad forging connections and networking. Key metrics to track include:

Number of Leads Collected: Count the total number of leads gathered during the event.
Lead Quality: Evaluate the quality of leads based on criteria such as job titles, company size, and level of interest.
Lead Conversion Rate: Track how many leads convert into actual sales or follow-up meetings, this is dependant on the actions taken post event.

Brand Awareness & Engagement

Increasing brand awareness and engagement is another crucial objective. Things to consider:

Booth Traffic: Monitor the volume of visitors to your booth each day, try different initiatives to encourage footfall and get involved in the EuroSTAR EXPO Passport around the EXPO. Some other ideas include running a competition or have a testing challenge.
Social Media Engagement: Track mentions, shares, likes, and comments on your social media posts related to the event. Always be sure to share your participation in the event. This helps build awareness and visibility for your brand
Media Coverage: Monitor any press coverage or mentions in industry publications resulting from your participation.
Swag: Keep your brand at the forefront of attendee’s minds with a cool piece of conferences swag for them to take home. Our attendees love conference swag.

Market Research & Networking

Understanding the software testing industry trends and building relationships can be invaluable. Things to be conscious of:

Competitive Analysis: Mingle with other exhibitors in the EXPO. Having conversations helps gain insights about other companies products and services, challenges, successes, pricing, and strategies.
Partnership Opportunities: Count the number of potential partnership discussions initiated.
Feedback and Insights: Collect feedback from conversations with attendees and industry experts to identify trends and areas for improvement.

Post-Event Follow-Up

Effective follow-up is critical to maximising the value of EXPO participation:

Timely Follow-Up: Ensure that leads are contacted promptly after the event.
Nurturing Campaigns: Implement nurturing campaigns to keep leads engaged and move them through the sales funnel.
Feedback Surveys: Conduct surveys to gather feedback from attendees and improve future participation.

Conclusion

Measuring the value of your participation in the EuroSTAR Software Testing EXPO requires a systematic approach and a focus on relevant metrics. By setting clear objectives from the beginning, tracking key metrics, and continuously improving your strategy, you can ensure that your investment in the EuroSTAR Software Testing EXPO will deliver substantial returns. With diligent measurement and follow-up, you can leverage EXPO participation to boost your brand, generate quality leads, and drive business growth.

To find out how you can achieve your marketing goals and more at a EuroSTAR Conferences EXPO, speak with Clare.

Clare Burke

EXPO Team, EuroSTAR Conferences

t: +353 91 416 001
e: clare@eurostarconferences.com

7 Common Test Management Challenges AI Can Solve

June 5, 2024 by Lauren Payne

Test management is an integral part of software development that ensures that your software meets quality standards, is bug-free, and performs as expected. Unfortunately, there are some challenges in test management systems, causing significant issues while impacting application speed and quality. As software complexity grows, so do the difficulties in managing testing processes efficiently. To deal with the evolving challenges related to test management and software complexity, artificial intelligence (AI) plays a vital role. AI offers innovative solutions to many of these challenges. In this blog post, we’ll explore seven common test management challenges and how AI can solve them.

Navigating Key Challenges in Test Management

Efficient test management, improved productivity, increased ROI, and faster time to market are the things that every organization expects from its test management solutions. There are many aspects that stop companies from achieving the best results from their test management processes. They may experience inadequate test coverage, resulting from a lack of thorough testing across all possible scenarios, compromising the product’s quality and introducing the risk of undetected defects.

Similarly, inefficient test case prioritization leads to a misallocation of resources, with critical areas receiving insufficient attention. Thereby prolonging testing cycles and delaying time for the market. Moreover, insufficiently realistic test data fails to accurately simulate real-world scenarios, hindering the effectiveness of testing efforts and resulting in potential oversights. In case of having flaky test cases in test cycles, testers may experience inconsistency and uncertainty in the testing process. It can delay product release and affect ROI. These challenges collectively contribute to inefficient productivity, as valuable time and resources are wasted on ineffective testing methods. Efficiency suffers as testing cycles become prolonged and repetitive due to the need for rework and debugging. Consequently, ROI is impacted negatively as the cost of rectifying defects increases. Plus, the time to market is delayed, leading to missed opportunities and potential revenue loss. It is crucial to address these challenges effectively to optimize productivity, efficiency, ROI, and time to market in the software development lifecycle. Let’s learn how AI-powered solutions can address test management challenges.

1. Difficulty in Test Case Prioritization

In simple words, test case prioritization (TCP) refers to arranging test cases based on their significance, functionality, and potential impacts on the software and running them in the correct order. However, prioritizing test cases effectively is a challenging task in test management. With limited time and resources, it’s essential to focus your testing efforts on the most critical areas of an application.

Test Case Prioritization can help in efficient test management

Integration of AI in your test management solutions can help you with efficient test case prioritization. It analyzes factors like code changes, historical defect data, and business impact to automatically prioritize test cases. Machine learning algorithms can adapt over time, continuously improving prioritization based on past results and changing project requirements. By leveraging AI for test case prioritization, teams can optimize testing efforts and identify high-risk areas early in the development cycle.

It helps to Improve efficiency and reduce time to market as resources are allocated more effectively, ensuring that high-risk areas are thoroughly tested early in the development cycle.

2. Incomplete Test Coverage

Achieving comprehensive test coverage is essential for identifying potential defects and ensuring the overall quality of the software. In a traditional test management system, when test creation is a manual aspect, you may not have complete test coverage, leaving critical areas untested. This incomplete test coverage is a common challenge in software testing, leaving potential defects undetected. Besides manual issues, many other factors can lead to incomplete test coverage, such as time constraints, resource limitations, or oversight in test case creation. Incomplete test coverage increases the risk of releasing software with undiscovered bugs, which can lead to customer dissatisfaction, costly rework, and damage to the organization’s reputation.

Comprehensive test coverage can make test management better and improve productivity

To address the issue of incomplete test coverage, organizations can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that offer innovative approaches to test case generation, prioritization, and optimization. AI-powered test management tools can analyze application requirements and usage patterns to generate test cases automatically, ensuring comprehensive coverage across various scenarios and edge cases. By using AI for test case generation, teams can enhance the effectiveness of their testing efforts and minimize the risk of overlooking critical functionalities.

3. Availability of effective Test Data

Realistic and diverse test data plays a crucial role in effective software testing. It allows testers to simulate real-world scenarios and ensure comprehensive coverage of the application under test. However, generating and managing test data manually can be time-consuming and error prone. Plus, manually generated data may not always represent the diversity of data encountered in production environments. This can lead to insufficient test coverage and potentially overlook critical edge cases and scenarios.

Availability of effective Test Data improves productivity and reduces time to market

AI offers innovative solutions to address the challenge of test data availability by automating test data generation, management, and optimization. AI-driven test data generation tools can analyze application requirements and usage patterns to generate synthetic test data automatically. These tools use machine learning algorithms to simulate real-world scenarios, enabling thorough testing without compromising data privacy or security. Apart from synthetic test data generation, AI- AI tools can analyze existing data sources to profile and identify patterns, correlations, and anomalies within the data. Plus, AI-driven test data solutions can easily be integrated with existing testing workflows and tools, allowing testers to easily access and utilize generated test data within their testing environments. As a result, testers can conduct thorough testing without delays caused by manual data generation, improving productivity and time to market.

4. Bottlenecks Caused by Flaky Test Cases

A flaky test case is one that exhibits non-deterministic behavior when executed repeatedly within the same environment, resulting in intermittent results. Flaky test cases can cause delays and inconsistencies in test results and reduce the testing process’s reliability.

Flaky test case detection can help with efficiency and reduced time to market

AI-powered tools can analyze test scripts and execution logs to identify and address flakiness automatically. With machine learning algorithms, these testing tools can identify patterns indicative of flaky behavior and suggest corrective actions to ensure consistent and reliable test results. For instance, QMetry’s test management platform allows testers to gain control over flaky tests is identifying them using a “Flaky Score” derived from its execution history. With AI-powered flaky test detection and mitigation processes, testers can minimize disruptions in the testing process and improve the overall reliability of their testing efforts.

Flaky test detection not only increases efficiency and reduces time to market but also allows testers to focus on productive tasks without being hindered by inconsistent test results.

5. Unidentified Defects passing on final product

Detecting and resolving defects early in the development process is critical for delivering high-quality software. However, identifying potential defects among thousands of lines of code can be challenging, even for experienced testers.

Efficient defect detection helps with better test management, faster time to market, and improves ROI

AI-driven defect detection models can analyze code changes and historical defect data to identify patterns indicative of potential defects. Machine learning algorithms can predict which code changes are most likely to introduce defects, allowing developers and testers to focus their efforts on high-risk areas. By incorporating an AI-powered defect prediction system into their test management processes, testers can proactively address quality issues and minimize the impact of defects on the final product.

Therefore, AI-powered defect detection can help with better test management, faster time to market, and improved ROI as defects are detected and resolved before they impact the final product.

6. Managing Test Environment

Managing test environments with diverse configurations, dependencies, and constraints is a huge challenge for many development testing teams. When testers try to deploy and configure test environments manually, it can lead to inconsistencies, delays, and resource contention.

Better test environment management can Increase productivity and reduce time to market

AI-driven test environment management solutions can help testers to manage test environments in a better way. Using infrastructure as code (IaC) and configuration management tools, AI-powered solutions can automate test environment provisioning, configuration, and maintenance. Using machine learning algorithms, AI-driven solutions can optimize resource utilization, predict capacity requirements, and proactively identify potential bottlenecks or failures. By incorporating AI-driven test environment management into workflows, testers can ensure reliable and consistent test environments throughout the software development lifecycle. It influences increased productivity and reduced time to market as testers can focus on testing activities rather than dealing with manual deployment and configuration of test environments.

7. Test Result Analysis:

Test results analysis to identify trends or patterns plays a significant role in improving test coverage and reliability. In case of traditional test management systems, manually reviewing test results and logs is time-consuming and error-prone, especially in large-scale testing environments.

Efficient test result analysis can improve the efficiency and reliability of testing efforts

With AI integration, test result analysis becomes easy and more efficient. AI-powered test result analysis tools can aggregate and analyze test results from multiple sources, such as automated tests, manual tests, and performance tests. The application of machine learning algorithms enables these tools to identify correlations between test outcomes, code changes, and environmental factors. These tools can also perform root cause analysis and trend prediction. AI-driven test management tools allow testers to gain valuable insights into their testing processes and make data-driven decisions to improve quality and efficiency.

Key Takeaway

Test management can be complex and challenging with traditional methods and tools. However, AI offers innovative solutions to many of its inherent difficulties. AI-powered test management solutions offer technologies like machine learning, predictive analytics, and natural language processing to overcome common test management challenges and improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and reliability of their testing processes.

From test case prioritization to test environment management, AI-driven solutions have the potential to revolutionize the way software is tested and validated. AI can lead to faster release cycles, higher-quality products, and improved customer satisfaction. As AI continues to advance, its role in test management will only become more significant, empowering organizations to meet the demands of their users and sustain in a competitive software landscape.

Modern AI-powered tools like QMetry Test Management for Jira by QMetry can help you to manage all your testing activities through integrated tracking tools (e.g. Jira) and automation frameworks.

QMetry’s second-offering QMetry Test Management is designed for Agile and DevOps teams. These products are fully integrated into CI/CD pipelines giving testing teams and leaders full control over testing projects. These tools also manage manual testing seamlessly.

Both QMetry Test Management and QMetry Test Management for Jira offer scalable, compliant, and secured test management that allows you to deal with different testing challenges. Gen AI offerings of these tools have features like smart search, auto test case generation, and flaky test case detection making your testing super-efficient. These tools have potential of reducing time to market, improving ROI, and increasing efficiency.

Want to learn more about these test management products and how they can improve your test management experience? Schedule a call now!

Author

Deepak Parmar, Global Product Marketing Leader at Qmetry

QMetry is an innovative leader in AI enabled test management and automation products for Agile and DevOps teams that empower enterprises to build, manage, and deploy quality software at speed with confidence. QMetry is revolutionizing testing through AI-driven test authoring, test execution, and quality analytics for agile teams globally. Experience QMetry’s AI – enabled Test Management powered by QMetry Intelligence (Gen AI) delivering quality at speed and scale. It is a powerful, scalable, compliance driven quality orchestration platform that enables quality at speed with improved ROI.”

QMetry is an exhibitor at EuroSTAR 2024, join us in Stockholm.

Improving Test Planning by leveraging Quality Intelligence

June 3, 2024 by Lauren Payne

Test planning suffers due to poor requirements

Test planning is a critical part of an in-depth test strategy and includes the definition of the test objectives, scope, and the means and the schedule for achieving them, among other things.

Determining the extent of test coverage and prioritizing test cases are essential elements of a robust testing strategy, serving a crucial role in assuring the comprehensive validation of the software under test.

Unfortunately, testing teams face challenges due to ambiguous, changing, or incomplete requirements, making it difficult to establish a robust foundation for the test planning process.

This creates a cascading impact on the prioritization of testing efforts, resulting in resources being allocated to less critical test scenarios, potentially overlooking important issues, and ultimately leading to inadequate test coverage.

Approaches to address gaps in test coverage

As we discussed before, coverage gaps commonly occur when requirements are misunderstood, specifications are poorly defined or ambiguous and changes in the software are not appropriately incorporated into the test planning.

To tackle these challenges, test teams should embrace formal test design methods to guarantee comprehensive coverage of all aspects outlined in the requirements. Implementing a traceability matrix, linking requirements to test cases, further ensures comprehensive coverage.

Additionally, encouraging collaboration among development, testing, and business teams early in the process to clarify requirements helps mitigate the risks associated with poor requirements.

Yet, coverage gaps can arise when the requirements fail to adequately capture real-world user behaviors and preferences. Anticipating and comprehensively accounting for all user interactions and behaviors in written requirements proves to be a challenging task for product owners and business analysts.

Finding the needle in multiple disconnected tools

To boost test coverage and align the test prioritization with real-world usage, testing teams can analyze logs from both production and test environments, uncovering valuable insights and quality analytics.

Testing teams need to implement tools and processes to actively monitor, measure, and analyze user behavior when interacting with the live application. Additionally, it’s essential to observe how tests interact with the application during test runs to reveal disparities between how the application is used by real-world users and how it is tested.

In the market, tools like Google Analytics, Amplitude, SmartLook, Datadog, and others assist in collecting and analyzing telemetry from any environment. Designed with different purposes in mind, these tools serve various teams, such as Product and Marketing Analytics, Observability, and Application Performance Management. Despite their versatility, they may not be the optimal fit for testing purposes.

Considering this, a major challenge is that these tools aren’t designed to meet the specific needs of testing teams. This limits their ability to get the most out of the tools and stops them from seeing both how the software is used in the real world and during test runs and extract meaning from it.

Enhancing Test Planning with Quality Intelligence

Gravity is a unified platform designed to help testing teams monitor and leverage insights from both production and testing environments, enhancing the efficiency of the test strategy. It consolidates key data and insights into a single solution for easy access and analysis.

Its primary function is to produce “Quality Intelligence” by processing the ingested data through machine learning algorithms. This involves translating raw data into meaningful insights using techniques such as pattern recognition, trend and correlation analysis, anomaly and outlier detection, and more.

Gravity’s ability to monitor production and testing environments allows it to conduct a comprehensive test gap analysis. By comparing the paths taken by real user interactions in live production with the tests executed in testing environments, Gravity generates insights to enable testing teams to spot gaps in coverage, identify features that are either over-tested or under-tested, and recognize redundant testing efforts in less critical areas.

Gravity utilizes pattern recognition and AI (Artificial Intelligence) to automatically generate test cases for areas lacking test coverage, whether they are manual tests or automated scripts for test automation tools like Cypress, Playwright, and others. This feature not only reduces the burden of test case creation but also leads to a decrease in maintenance overhead.

Since it relies on real usage data collected from production environments, this enables data-driven test case prioritization, focusing test coverage on high-impact areas that directly affect the end user experience. By bridging assumptions from requirements with real-world usage insights, Gravity helps in optimizing test planning for improved efficiency and agility.

Conclusion

Understanding user behaviors in production not only elevates test coverage and prioritization by focusing on genuine user experiences but also acts as a powerful antidote to the limitations of the traditional requirement-based testing approaches.

It ensures that testing efforts are not confined to the rigid boundaries of documented requirements but rather extend to the dynamic and evolving landscape of user interactions, contributing to a more comprehensive and user-centric testing paradigm.

Gravity represents a remarkable advancement in the field of Quality Engineering, empowered by cutting-edge AI (Artificial Intelligence), with the aim of enabling testing teams to deliver higher-quality software products.

Author

Cristiano Caetano, Head Of Growth at Smartesting

Software testing authority with two decades of expertise in the field. Brazilian native who has called London home for the past six years. I am the proud founder of Zephyr Scale, the leading Test Management application in the Atlassian ecosystem. Over the last ten years, my role has been pivotal in guiding testing companies to build and launch innovative testing tools into the market. Currently, I hold the position of Head of Growth at Smartesting, a testing company committed to the development of AI-Powered testing tools.

Smartesting is an exhibitor at EuroSTAR 2024, join us in Stockholm.

Innovating quality: strategic approaches to complex software testing

May 31, 2024 by Lauren Payne

As the complexity of modern solutions increases, not only does the challenge for software developers grow, but so do the expectations for software testers. Although values such as ‘lines of code’ are not universally meaningful metrics, the following graph shows well where the journey is heading.

In the early days of computer technology, programs were relatively simple and straightforward. However, as technology advanced and software applications became more powerful, the size of code bases increased significantly. This is nothing wrong, of course, but it does provide new challenges.

Increased complexity – more bugs

As software has evolved, so has its complexity. Software systems now encompass complex architectures, sophisticated algorithms, and diverse integrations with various platforms and technologies. The demand for advanced functionalities, seamless user experiences, and robust security measures has led to the development of complex software applications. Managing this complexity requires careful design, modularization, and the adoption of architectural patterns to ensure maintainability and scalability.

While software has become more sophisticated and powerful, the presence of bugs remains a challenge. As software grows in size and complexity, the potential for defects and errors also increases. The sheer volume of code, coupled with interdependencies between modules and integration with external components, introduces a higher likelihood of bugs.

The need for faster product delivery can impact product quality

Companies are increasingly under fire to deliver software with new functionalities and improvements to stay ahead of the competition. This puts pressure on all involved roles to deploy new code rapidly, which often results in reduced testing efforts and even more bugs in production.

In today’s competitive business environment, a company’s reputation is also closely tied to the perceived and experienced reliability of its services. Even the smallest of bugs can have a significant negative impact on a company. In conclusion, testing is a crucial discipline to identify bugs before they are discovered by the end-users to secure the company’s reputation.

The crucial role of testers in product quality assurance

In this game, testers play a crucial role in safeguarding product quality by ensuring that the product meets the required standards in terms of functionality, reliability, usability, and more. This can’t be achieved just by clicking around in an application and reporting some “strange behaviors”. Testing should be a comprehensible activity based on specification, proven methods, and an overall understanding of the business context.

To ensure product functionality and quality, you need skilled people with a quality-focused mindset, who understand business processes as well as the implemented technologies and solutions. This work cannot be a “last minute” task that can be skipped in case of tight deadlines or done by any person “just available”.

Shift testing to the left and involve testers from the beginning

So, how is it possible to implement quality assurance in such a way that it does not delay the delivery date and still has an actual effect?

This requires involving experienced testers who have the capability to analyze the use cases and IT solution design. Even more crucially, they should be involved from the very beginning of the process. By challenging business ideas and identifying missed elements or flows early on and even without code, testers can help avoid wasting unnecessary resources on functionalities that may need to be changed later. This calls for close collaboration between business, testers, and developers as one team.

Starting testing early in the software development life cycle (SDLC) is known as the “Shift left” approach, and it comes from the idea of shifting test activities to the “left” in the development process timeline to ensure problems are detected as early as possible. Involving testers right away, starting with the requirements gathering stage, brings numerous benefits, such as early defect detection, faster feedback to developers, better collaboration between teams, and reduced business risk.

Efficient testing without excessive costs

In the realm of rapid code deployment, financial investments alone won’t solve quality issues. In addition to “Shift left” there are different methods that can ensure successful testing efforts without increasing the testing budget.

Testing isn’t just about speed; it’s a strategic blend of prioritization and disciplined collaboration. At Sixsentix, we advocate a disciplined testing approach centered on business-facing testing and business risk coverage.

With our risk-based methodology, we can clearly identify the processes and features with the greatest business impact, based on the frequency of use and potential damage that can occur as a result of failure. We perform a thorough analysis of the business, accurately determine specific business risks thanks to the combination of expertise and domain knowledge, and then prioritize testing of sensitive components.

This way, we make sure that key functionalities are swiftly checked and validated, and that the most pressing business risks are ruled out. Sixsentix combines this approach with the “Shift left”, which allows continuous testing and deployment after every change. This means that the latest updates are always released as soon as possible, without critical failures that could damage your reputation and business long-term.

Enhancing software quality through team dynamics

It’s also crucial to have a cohesive team composition, backed by a time-tested method. Our testing teams have been using our well-refined SWAT methodology, which enables them to use a systemic approach to testing.

Simultaneously, we abide by the “Tres Amigos” principle. It highlights the participation of three key roles: the product owner, the developer, and the tester, and emphasizes that these three roles are, in fact, one team, pursuing the same goals and priorities, which significantly boost the delivery of high-quality software.

Finally, in order to orchestrate and automate testing activities efficiently, we also designate a test architect for each project to define the overall testing strategy and framework and ensure they resonate with business objectives. This orchestrated effort significantly enhances the testing process, elevating software quality and ensuring a successful, reliable product.

Moving forward

Transforming quality assurance involves continuous improvement, robust collaboration, and the embrace of automation, propelling organizations towards a mature QA level where testing adapts to evolving requirements and aligns with changing organizational needs.

Let’s embrace efficient testing strategies and disciplined collaboration, striving for a future where software isn’t just fast and functional but also robust, reliable, and aligned with both user needs and business goals.

Author

Sixsentix

Sixsentix is a leading provider of Software Testing Services, QA Visual Analytics and Reporting, helping enterprises to accelerate their Software Delivery. Our unique risk-based Testing and QACube ALM Reporting and Dashboards, provide business with unprecedented quality and transparency across Software Delivery projects for faster time-to-market. Sixsentix customers include the largest banks, financial services, insurance, telecom providers and others. Sixsentix Onsite, and Nearshore (SWAT) services deliver optimized testing outcomes at significantly lower costs and help customers with scalability to keep pace with digitalization.

Sixsentix is an EXPO Exhibitor at EuroSTAR 2024, join us in Stockholm.