Nico Liedl is a Quality Engineer and Advisor with a focus on agile quality management, test automation, process improvement and organizational change. He has gained experience in various complex large-scale projects. As a team member, scrum master, test strategist, release manager and trainer, he has practical experience and theoretical expertise to offer and would like to share this experience with a wide audience. In addition, as a speaker at professional conferences and author of professional articles, he is always in lively exchange with the Agile tester community.
The software world is changing. Technological development is rapid and the working environment is also constantly changing. One thing is clear: both technology and the environment have a massive impact on the area of quality and software testing. Be it AI, AR, blockchain, quantum and co - or home office, agility, Digitalization and new work.
What challenges will software testing have to face in the future?
It's critical to get the agile transformation right and really shift to new working models. Most projects are in the middle of this process right now.
What ideas or solutions could address these challenges?
It is necessary to approach the topics in a meaningful way and to develop solutions for them. This is currently a topic where a great deal of personal effort is still required, as there are still no truly resilient assets for this.
The model of our HoaQ can help here. Initially, the focus should be on the basics. This is followed by the establishment of resilient structures and then the further development of Lean Quality Management, which deals with topics such as AI, AR, blockchain, quantum, etc., can follow. In my opinion, there is still a lot of potential here.
What does Future Testing look like? How will we test?
We will always be driven by technology and the speed that comes with it. Therefore, as testers, we will have to stretch ourselves further and further to be able to cope with all this with new roles such as SDET (Software Developer in Test).
The other area is coaching. Quality and appropriate methodologies must be rolled out to the overall teams via targeted coaching roles and associated training. Shared responsibility must be carried within the team and accepted as a matter of course.
When these roles are in place, then you can start your journey with the appropriate SMEs. How do you get there? There are fewer and fewer assets that can be reused. Solutions have to be adapted and developed more and more to the individual environment.
How can testers and test managers prepare for this today?
Living in a truly agile work environment is essential.
It is significant to eliminate projects that are "faking" the new way of working but are ultimately still trapped in the waterfall.
Test managers should be discarded, because you can't exemplify "New Work" with this wording. In my environment, quality engineers are the people who seriously strive for self-organized work and personal responsibility in the team.
Responsibility must be shared in the end and the Quality Engineer is responsible for ensuring that this sharing does not lead to additional work and duplication of effort. He must resolve overlap and lead the projects to the ideal through Continuous Improvement.
Book synopsis (enu):
Toni Morrison once said, "If there's a book you want to read but it hasn't been written yet, you have to write it yourself."
So that's what we did. Who hasn't had their fair share of trouble in the past combining quality assurance/testing with agile or even agile methods? Well, we have!
Since we saw this gap again and again in many different projects, we started developing the House of Agile Quality (HoaQ) concept. The field-proven, pragmatic HoaQ framework has already helped numerous companies overcome the challenges of Large Solution Delivery. HoaQ fills the gap between agile frameworks and test frameworks on the one hand, and bridges the strategic and tactical levels of lean quality management on the other.
Book Blog: