Four Strategies for Faster Releases: How to Streamline Your Testing Workflows

The high-stakes world of software development is a race to deliver quality features, faster. When the testing phase of the development lifecycle is slowed by inefficient and error-prone processes, it’s impossible for teams to meet their deadlines. How can they keep up? By taking a smarter approach to test management that prioritizes efficiency without sacrificing quality.

By implementing these four test management strategies, teams can work smarter and shorten their release cycles.

Strategy 1: Leverage Reusability Features

Reusability is key to eliminating redundancy and boosting efficiency in test management. When you leverage reusable components, you dramatically shorten your testing cycles and improve consistency across projects.

Different types of reusability capabilities include:

• Modularization: Break down tests into reusable components to eliminate duplicate efforts across projects, releases, and sprints.
• End-to-End Traceability: Link test cases to user stories to provide a clear connection between requirements and testing, enhancing overall visibility.
• Versioning and Test Data: Version control ensures data integrity and eliminates the need to recreate test data for similar scenarios.

To get started building Reusable Test Cases:

1. Identify Common Functions: Look for functionalities that appear across multiple projects. Common UI elements, login processes, or database interactions are good starting points.
2. Focus on Core Logic: Write test cases that target the core functionalities rather than project-specific details.
3. Maintain Granularity: Break down functionalities into smaller, reusable steps. This allows for broader application across projects.
4. Leverage Parameterization: Use parameters to account for variations within the functionality. This allows a single test case to handle different scenarios efficiently.

Implementing these reusability features allows you to streamline your test management process, navigate project complexities, and efficiently scale your testing.

Strategy 2: Embrace Automation

Leveraging test automation tools is another tactic to reduce repetition in your testing workflow. Test automation empowers you to streamline these tasks, freeing up valuable resources for more strategic efforts. Recent advancements in test automation make it easier to implement and use than ever before, the biggest of these innovations being no-code test automation.

Exploring No-Code Automation:

Zephyr Scale is the only Jira-native test management tool that offers built-in no-code test automation. These capabilities turn manual tests into automated ones in seconds without scripting. This makes automation easily accessible to everyone on your team.

To automate a test with no-code automation in Zephyr Scale:

1. Target Your Test Case: Navigate to a test case with a “step by step” script type.
2. Configure and Run: Within the test script tab, you’ll find an option to “run automated test.” This opens a panel where you can easily configure the test by specifying the website URL and choosing the device profile (desktop, tablet, or mobile). Hit “run test” to kick things off.
3. Refine: The AI analyzes your test steps and offers suggestions for improvement. These might include splitting lengthy steps or correcting grammar for better clarity. You can review and accept these suggestions before the test runs.
4. View Results: Once the test is complete, you can view the recorded execution to see exactly how the automation interacted with your application.

Take out a free trial of Zephyr Scale to try no-code automation for yourself.

Getting Started with Traditional Automation

Another path to automation is by integrating a traditional BDD or CI/CD automation framework with your test management platform.

Here’s an overview on how these frameworks work:

1. Create the Automation Task: Define the test execution steps within your test management tool. This can be triggered manually or through a continuous delivery tool upon code changes.
2. Understand Output Results: Identify the format (XML for Cloud, JSON for Server/Data Center) and location of the generated test results after execution.
3. Send Results to your Test Management Platform: After execution, the results file needs to be uploaded to your test management tool for processing. This can be achieved using APIs.
4. API Selection: The specific API endpoint depends on which test management tool you have (Zephyr Squad or Zephyr Scale) and hosting type (Cloud vs. Server/Data Center). This blog post provides links to relevant API documentation.

Strategy 3: Build High-Impact Tests

The sooner you identify defects in the development process, the less rework you face later. Crafting robust test cases that catch problems early is crucial for streamlining your development lifecycle and achieving faster releases.

To ensure that your tests are high-impact:

• Focus on Critical Functionality: Prioritize testing core functionalities that directly affect user experience and system stability.
• Test Boundary Conditions: Test the system’s behavior at the edges of its defined parameters. This helps uncover potential failures under extreme conditions.
• Negative Testing: Include test cases that deliberately provide invalid inputs to expose potential security vulnerabilities or unexpected behavior.
• Integrate User Stories: Derive test cases from user stories to ensure functionalities meet specific user needs.

By following these steps and leveraging tools like Zephyr Scale’s generative AI-powered test step suggestions, you can craft a high-impact testing strategy that minimizes bugs.

Strategy 4: Establish a Streamlined Workflow

A streamlined workflow encompasses the entire test management process, from planning and execution to reporting and analysis. Identifying bottlenecks and fostering collaboration allow you to move towards predictable releases where quality meets speed.

Optimize your test management workflow through:

1. Early Collaboration: Involve testers early in the development cycle to understand project goals and requirements. This allows for proactive test case creation.
2. Shift-Left Testing: Integrate testing throughout the development process, not just at the end. This facilitates early defect detection and faster remediation.
3. Real-Time Reporting & Analysis: Utilize reporting tools that provide real-time insights into test results. This allows for quicker decision-making and course correction during the development cycle.
4. Invest in Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): Implement CI/CD pipelines to automate builds, test execution, and deployments. This enables faster iteration and continuous delivery of high-quality software.

Strategy Recap

Implementing these four strategies will accelerate your software releases without sacrificing quality. As you enact these updates to remember to embrace reusability and leverage automation, this will lead to high-impact tests and streamlined workflows.  

Ready to leave your competition in the dust? Start optimizing your testing processes today with Zephyr Scale.