As we progress into 2020, software testing continues to be top of mind across many industries, and there are a lot of exciting innovations facilitating improvements. Growth in automation, machine learning, and AI coupled with improved testing methodologies will make 2020 a year to remember.
The High Stakes of Testing
Proper software testing undoubtfully is a chief concern for all industries today – within banking and beyond. The recent barrage of software testing failures seen in the news has placed quality and governance under a microscope, as boardrooms and stakeholders have taken notice. At TSB Bank in 2018, an IT upgrade mishap was responsible for an online banking outage causing an account lockout for millions of customers which lasted for months. In 2019, construction work at a Wells Fargo data center tripped off a fire-extinguisher system leading to the disruption of online and mobile banking applications for hours. Wells Fargo faced tremendous scrutiny from regulators and their customers due to this incident which could have been avoided by the proper testing of backup procedures and systems. In the aerospace sector, regulators are pushing Boeing to prove that proper testing is conducted on its Boeing 737 MAX flight control system prior to its return to service. The crisis continues to mount as production has halted with roughly 400 completed jets awaiting delivery worldwide. Preventing testing miscues will help achieve targeted business outcomes and accelerate product time to market, and in the case of Boeing, it will prevent the loss of lives!
An Endless Stream of Challenges
To proficiently keep up with the endless and rapid change in technology and regulations, it is critical for financial institutions to acknowledge and address the testing challenges faced by their business. Some of the top challenges include: hiring and training practices, communications between testers and developers, and testing under time constraints which causes the focus of testing to shift from test coverage and quality to task completion. While we have experienced significant change since the days of manual testing in the 80’s, let’s turn our attention to the top trends for 2020 and beyond that are expected to drive transformational improvements.
2020 and Beyond
DevOps and Agile Testing Continue Expansion
DevOps and Agile have been fully or partially adopted by 97% of IT and software practitioners, according to Forrester, which has catalyzed significant software testing improvements across the last decade. DevOps is moving away from the waterfall methodology where testing is conducted at the end of the development cycle, as the more efficient practice is to conduct testing simultaneously with development. Continuous iterations of testing while development is in progress may generate a higher number of initial defects compared to the waterfall methodology, but additional test scripts that will gradually pass as code is improved during the Sprint delivery cycle. These code coverage checks ensure that a large majority, if not all, functionalities are thoroughly tested.
While Agile is on everyone’s mind and agenda, Waterfall or an Agile-Waterfall hybrid approach to software delivery has maintained its ground across industries for various reasons, including organizational, cultural, and regulatory requirements. The target outcomes of Waterfall or Agile testing are fundamentally similar in terms of achieving business benefits through user satisfaction and customer adoption thanks to thoroughly tested software. What is dramatically different is time and effort to achieve these outcomes, which goes back to the third Agile principle: “Deliver working software frequently.” This principle drives the need for efficient, repeatable, and configurable testing methodology for which DevOps is known.
Automation Will Remain Paramount and the Cloud Can Help
The worldwide cloud services market was projected to grow 17.5% in 2019 to $214 billion, according to Gartner. With substantial growth in cloud computing services and digital transformation, the demand for cloud-based automation testing tools will also increase. Cloud based automation tools offer a wide range of testing capabilities from performance to security testing, and offers the advantages of scalability and cost efficiency.
While testing automation has existed for as long as software development, its use goes beyond the traditional regression testing or load testing cycles. For instance, automation can help create self-generating test cases using model-based tools, which immediately benefits testing coverage. Rather than looking for ways to quickly repeat test cycles, the emphasis is on running a single iteration and ensuring accuracy.
As testing automation and cloud services evolve, performance testing will become a key factor for overall quality and success of a product. Performance testing will evolve to encompass factors such as convenience and practicality of use, configuration quality, and customer value.
Big Data Dominates the Database Market and Testing Will Follow
It is projected that within the next few years Big Data will continue to grow its database market share and ultimately surpass traditional relational-based data models. Big Data refers to the processing of extremely large data sets that are analyzed to derive patterns and trends. The large amount of data impacts the processing functionality of an application as well as the quality of the data, thus requiring more resources for testing. The focus had been on testing data integration, data processing, data migration, and data storage, while the future focus will move towards analytical reports and dashboard validation. Big Data testing tools replicate and reproduce the behavior of an application, leading to more efficient processes, continuous import of new data, and reduced installation time.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and the Internet of Things
Looking further into the future, we can expect that deployment of artificial Intelligence in development and the use of applications will significantly grow in the financial services industry, with machine learning solutions likely dominating the testing domain. It is expected that by 2025, the AI market will reach $190 billion, while machine learning is expected to grow from $1.4 billion in 2017 to $8.8 billion by 2022, according to Forbes.
QA testers must perform a new set of tests each time a development team expands existing code, yet conducting these manual regression tests is both time consuming and less than 100% accurate. AI empowered testing will focus on improving this process by providing unique code checks, creating test configurations based on previous tests and human patterns, and conducting defect analysis by identifying application pain points through continuous regression testing.
The explosion in smart devices, dubbed the “Internet of Things” or IoT, is highly relevant for banking apps where confidential data is being accessed from remote locations throughout the world on an array of smart devices. According to Gartner, there will be 20.8 billion smart devices by 2020, up from some 6.4 billion in 2016. Additionally, with the growth in both the accessibility of public Wi-Fi and IoT devices, demand for usability, compatibility, data integrity, and security testing will also increase. Studies show that mobile apps will witness a 14% annual increase in customer adoption and banks are coming to the conclusion that digital services help in maintaining long term customer relationships and boost sales due to convenience. As such, banks are now offering user friendly applications for loans, mortgage payments, account management, and even financial planning. Additionally, the IoT also helps in tracking customer behaviors which can be used to create improved user experiences.
Why Monticello?
Monticello Consulting Group is a trusted management consulting firm advising clients in the global financial services industry, partnering with them to achieve their vision of excellence. Monticello’s Testing Governance team provides the insights that can spot trends, isolate risks, and help make informed decisions. Our consultants skillfully leverage the processes and tools in our testing methodology to help organizations achieve the highest level of quality in their programs.
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