How Can a Testing CoE Boost Testing Efforts and Help Gain QA Maturity?

Software Testing and Software Quality Assurance can be done smartly, but there are no shortcuts in the process. Tools and frameworks are being built to accelerate the testing efforts and achieve higher turnaround time. With growing technology challenges and complications in software/application testing, it is becoming increasingly important for enterprises to set-up dedicated Center of Excellence (CoE) for software testing. A Testing CoE (TCoE) is a one-stop solution for testing frameworks, testing methodologies to eliminate redundancies, and to bring down the risks for an organization.

Enterprises today are gearing up to adopt new and emerging technologies, which will enable them to stay relevant in the competing consumer space. Adopting these technologies and making them relevant for the contemporary business needs is equally important. This needs rigorous testing and constant quality check. Consequently, it is important for enterprises to sync in the concept of quality within the DNA of the organization.

A Testing CoE takes everything into perspective – People, Process, Technology, and Enterprises landscape. In terms of people, TCoE helps establish and nurture automation skills within the organization, while with processes, it helps alter and establish a standard testing competency. Technology is effectively deployed to boost competency within the system. In the overall enterprise landscape, a CoE helps establish unique challenges, projects, and initiatives that the company plans to take up.

There are quite a few large initiatives that fail or get disrupted due to varying reasons. That’s the very reason many companies hesitate to initiate the project unless it brings real value. The best proven strategy is to carefully set-up a TCoE to proceed with confidence and streamline the testing and development activity with effective quality control. For instance, some projects or applications might need more of manual testing, while some might need more of automation, and some might need the right combination of both.

This can be experimented and done with the right tools and frameworks, methodologies and infrastructure in place. Testing CoE is an aggressive but confident step towards providing thought-through and tested steps towards servicing your customers. It can help you deal with software glitches or failures in a much more methodological way.

Organizations have been able to streamline their test assets and deal with their quality issues by setting up a testing CoE or leveraging services of a testing CoE. They realize how a TCoE can help set-up standard testing practices, consolidate testing tools, bring down the costs, determine testing areas, and facilitate specialized testing services. However, it is very important to establish your testing objectives and needs before conceptualizing and setting up a TCoE.

Ultimately, a TCoE helps implement processes to deal with business goals and the interests of the customers, monitor the development process, control budgets, and control related quality hiccups. This also implies that not every organization can be successful in leveraging a TCoE unless it is thoughtfully done with all objectives and testing perspectives in place. In the end, a TCoE must help accelerate your journey by enabling enhanced testing and quality.

Building a TCoE to boost Quality maturity

Enterprises need to consider the following points while setting up a Testing CoE. This will help them achieve a higher RoI and other desired objectives as well.

Set a clear vision for your testing efforts

It is important to communicate and set a vision and roadmap to enhance quality across the organizations. This is the only way a TCoE will function and achieve results as expected. Moreover, it needs the required amount of support from across the organization to be successful and functional. In this way, the entire team speaks the same language for ensuring quality and abiding by the quality metrics.

Set-up a robust team of quality practitioners and trainers

Every organization builds and nurtures its own culture and every new aspect gets imbibed within the system through various functions and its work culture. While setting up a Testing CoE it is important to build a team of QA experts and practitioners who can spread the idea of quality across the system and ensure that it is followed diligently. A robust team of trainers and QA experts can make a whole lot of difference while adopting TCoE best practices.

Independent voice ensures maturity of the QA process

Independent QA practitioners help ensure that QA processes are adopted and followed consistently. They are free to deliver bad news or failures in adoption of processes which can prove to be an effective third-party moderation for the organization. In this way, TCoE can be implemented effectively with required checks on a consistent basis.

Our Take

At Cigniti we have worked with a diverse set of clients to successfully set-up a TCoE and establish required practices for long-term results. During one of its projects, Cigniti’s Advisory & Test Management Services and experience in TCoEs helped UK’s leading Global Healthcare Group to create 65 Process Assets that streamlined testing and improved QA maturity. The Client was a global healthcare group engaged in the creation and discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines, over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, and health-related consumer products.

The Client needed support in the proper assessment of QA processes, people, and technologies/tools across the organization to establish a TCoE and Governance Model. With expertise in setting up TCoEs for clients across regions and domains, Cigniti team standardized processes and procedures, optimized the application quality and performance, operated with a consistent and focused testing approach and adapted to new changes in technology and delivered the application fast.

The team even centralized independent QA infrastructure for on-demand provisioning and optimization, increased the QA efficiency by leveraging existing QA budgets, tools, environments and people, and improved the alignment between business and IT systems with aligned SDCL and STLC approach.

Cigniti has performed more than 50+ quality transformation and implementations of Managed Test Centers governed by a dedicated TCoE. Connect with our experts to ensure that your testing efforts are effectively streamlined and they offer you the required RoI even in the long term.