How AI-Based Testing Fits into Your Software Testing Maturity Model

Software testing is a rapidly advancing field. Digital transformation, cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure are dominating boardroom agendas. Software, big and small, is being developed, tested and delivered at breakneck speeds.

If you play an active role in software testing for your organization, you have likely used a Software Testing Maturity Model (TMM) or two to make sure your testing is optimized and primed for performance. 

Traditional Testing Maturity Models

There are many industry-standard models that help you assess your organization and determine how well-mapped your testing ecosystem is to industry best practices. 

The TMMi model, for example, has a staged architecture for test process improvement. It contains levels through which an organization passes as its testing process evolves from one that is ad hoc and unmanaged, to one that is managed, defined, measured, and in optimization mode.

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A software testing maturity model is a useful way to assess your organization’s maturity and help work out what you need to get to the next level of optimization. In general, the model should help you do all or most of the following:

• Reduce costs
• Improve quality 
• Accelerate time to market
• Prevent defects (rather than only detect defects)
• Organize activities, roles and processes

With automation, machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) changing the way applications are being developed, we have adapted the traditional maturity models and created our own. 

The Functionize Testing Maturity Model

Whether you are making the first leap from manual testing to automation or you are a sophisticated organization looking to incorporate AI into your DevOps journey, this testing maturity model will help you navigate present day testing challenges along your maturity journey.

1. Ease of Test Creation

Whether you are testing 100% manually today or have adopted automation in your testing (and aiming to adopt more), quality is driven by the number of people contributing to testing. 

Quality is richer when a wider array of skill sets is utilized. For large enterprises, it’s helpful to have an automation tool that’s designed for all resources, including those with advanced programming skills as well as those with none. Rather than using a specialized tool designed for manual testing or an automation tool that requires developers who know how to code, use a tool that is inherently designed for the entire spectrum.

The types of tests your testing solution can design will also help you assess your testing maturity. For example, your testing tool should be able to create:

• Functional tests so that you can create repeatable tests that check the end user functionality of your application. This can range from simple tests to complex, end-to-end scenarios.
• Visual tests so that you can visually compare different elements and sections of your page to make sure it appears as expected.

2. Scalable Test Execution

Organizations that are just starting their automation journey may rely on a homegrown Selenium grid. More mature organizations may replace the Selenium grid with a hosted Selenium grid, such as those from providers such as Sauce Labs and BrowserStack. However, these advanced solutions are expensive and need considerable effort for setup. 

Regardless of the platform, your test infrastructure needs to be scalable. Today this is done with cloud computing. Your testing solution should have test cloud infrastructure so that you can run your tests at-scale in the cloud as your applications grow.

3. Aligned with CI/CD Goals 

Digital transformation requires that testing be done earlier and more often. This means that your test automation suite needs to integrate with CI/CD pipelines. It also means less reliance on time-consuming test scripts.

It is crucial to set up test automation that can keep up with changing applications. More mature organizations don’t waste time creating automated tests only for them to break soon after. Rather, they create resilient tests that stay up-to-date and dynamically self-heal using big data and machine learning.

Needless to say, all organizations need to balance cost and complexity, no matter their level of testing maturity. Testing solutions need to be easy to set up and low-cost. They should be easy to integrate into your existing testing ecosystem.

Building your Testing Maturity Piece by Piece

Current testing solutions require many integrations with legacy test automation tools or specialized solutions or both. For example, you may be using 3rd party tools like Applitools for your visual testing or cloud providers such as Sauce Labs or Browserstack for your testing environment infrastructure. Or you may be using legacy tool providers such as Tricentis and SmartBear that have multiple products in their suite to fit different testing platforms (e.g., web, mobile, desktop).

However, these solutions are bound to run into problems because they are not designed for modern ever-evolving omni-channel applications and have a steep learning curve.

You may also find that legacy testing tools are not scalable. They make it difficult to run tests in the cloud and require heavy IT setup. And if you take on that setup, you need skilled cloud specialists to set up virtual machines in your internal cloud using a cloud provider like AWS, Azure, or GCP, or maintain a cumbersome Selenium grid on local machines.

These solutions may be best suited for testing legacy desktop applications or commercial apps like SAP. If you are creating applications that need to be scalable and resilient and continuously delivering on the ever-changing needs of today’s customers, your testing needs to be up to the task. 

Functionize is an All-in-One Testing Solution 

Functionize is the leading provider of intelligent testing solutions that fit the needs of testing for organizations at any level of automation maturity. We offer the best tool for:

• Modern functional E2E testing with easy low-code/no-code tests that combine end-to-end, functional, and visual tests.
• Test execution at scale with micro kubernetes auto-scaling in the cloud.
• Cost-effective and self-sufficient test environment, without the need for IT or DevOps engineers to setup and maintain cloud infrastructure.
• Multitude of CI/CD integrations and Functionize product roadmap to help you build up your testing maturity.

Wherever you are in your test automation maturity, we can help you create tests that don’t break and run at scale in the cloud. Functionize uses AI to empower testers to eliminate test debt and release faster.

‍Book a demo today to find out more about how Functionize can help you assess your testing maturity and help map your testing solution to your strategic objectives.