In order to ensure a smooth release management process, software engineering teams often face several challenges that can potentially hinder the delivery of high-quality software applications. Effective release management involves a series of steps including planning, coordinating, and executing the release of a new software version or update to deliver value to customers and stakeholders.
To achieve a well-ordered release management process, it is crucial to have a robust test automation process in place. In this context, we will discuss the impact of test automation on ensuring smoother releases and outline some best practices for effective release management.
One of the key benefits of test automation is that it reduces the risk of failures. In organizations with rapid release cycles, the risk of failures increases with every release. If new code changes or versions are pushed into production without significant testing, it can lead to immediate application failures, bad customer experience, or lost revenues. Test automation practices ensure that every code is tested thoroughly before deployment, automating unit, functional, and non-functional tests.
Moreover, a well-established test automation process improves the quality and reliability of software releases. While it may seem that testing derails or delays the release management process, a comprehensive, efficient, effective, risk-based, and AI-based software testing practice ensures that only high-quality applications are pushed into production. A bad deployment can lead to bad customer experience, security and compliance risks, unresponsive applications, or malfunctioned features.
Test automation also accelerates the time-to-market for new features and updates by identifying bugs and errors early in the software development lifecycle (SDLC). Reports show that it is easier and cheaper to fix bugs early in the SDLC than later. Therefore, testing at every stage of development is recommended to ensure faster feedback loops and prevent delays in the release management process.
In addition, test automation increases customer satisfaction and loyalty. When continuous testing is integrated into the release management process, codes are tested throughout the lifecycle, and this adds value to every step when codes are getting prepared for releases. A successful release helps enhance customer experience, improves customer satisfaction and loyalty with better features. Therefore, having continuous and integrated testing processes is crucial to prevent bugs from slipping into production, which can compromise user experience and application failures.
Another advantage of test automation is better communication and collaboration between technical and business teams. A successful release management process involves bringing in business users, customer-facing teams, technical, and C-suite together to ensure complete transparency about how the release is going to affect the product roadmap. With integrated test automation practice, it is easier for release managers to communicate any delays, potential bugs, or new features to other teams, removing silos and bringing more stakeholders to the table.
Test automation also helps prepare dashboards for business users to understand the impact of testing and bug identification early in the SDLC. By achieving more test coverage, better quality, and low maintenance test suites with automated execution of tests, test automation ensures repeatability and minimizes manual testing efforts, enabling smoother releases.
Test Automation for a Better Release Management
Tech leaders believe that there’s just an enormous need for improving application release velocity without compromising on the quality. Software teams are trying out various ways to speed up releases but the complexity of SDLC is only making it worse. This is where test automation can help in managing releases better by avoiding any unnecessary bugs pushed into production. After looking at benefits of having test automation in release cycle, here are some features of test automation that ensures smooth software releases –
- Automated execution of tests – Test Automation achieve more test coverage, better quality, and low maintenance test suites with its automated execution of tests and ensuring repeatability. In any release management cycle, it is important to run maximum number of tests automatically without any human intervention or reduce manual testing efforts to make sure releases are done on time. This feature of test automation practice ensure that release managers and engineering teams are confident of every new code pushed into production.
- Test Data Management and Release Cycles – Often, test data is an overlooked release for delayed release cycle or improper testing. Lesser do teams realize that outdated test data management practices are today the cause of release delays, costly bugs, and major security breaches. Test data usually are insufficient or lack in quality making it tough for testers to tests the applications properly.
Highly successful test automation teams adopt test data management best practices like localization and globalization environments, generating test data for every automation run using synthetic test data generation tools, and on-the-fly data allocation. This helps in having the test data ready before every automation run and ensuring smooth releases.
- Testing Environments Consistency and Release Management – A successful release is a result of well-coordinated process at each phase. As an integrated part of release management, automation of testing environment is an essential step. Quite often, new code and versions work fine in the testing and lower environments but turn into severe production issues after deployment. In such scenarios it is highly advisable that before every release, codes must be tested thoroughly. Reports suggest release team with automated testing environment practice have a greater number of successful releases than their counterparts.
- Bug Cycle Tracking and Release Management – Release management is an ever-evolving process and can be improved continuously by tracking right metrics and making changes in the release management process. Having a robust test automation practice helps teams in better management of bug cycle, a highly important component is having successful releases. With a test automation practice, the journey of the bug cycle can be tracked and improved for better releases. The objective of tracking bug cycle in test automation is to help teams release the new codes and updates without any defects and make the defect-remediation easy and efficient. All and all, it leads to better and smoother releases.
- Release Management and QA Documentation – Release cycles can be abrupt and with human brain drain it can be tough for new employees to manage the release cycle smoothly. Test Automation focuses on creating documentation right from requirements gathering to test cases documentation upto metrics level. This documentation can be repackaged to create release cycle notes and repurposing them into test automation workflows for better management of software deliveries.
Make your Release Management Process Fluid
Software development processes and releases continue to evolve and getting more complex in an increasingly technological environment. Hassle free release management is important for software engineering teams to deliver frictionless digital updates. For fluid and smooth releases, engineering teams must have a strong test automation and software testing foundation in place. Test Automation helps in doing more with less and removing unnecessary manual process replacing them with more managed and efficient automation.
In addition to this, test automation brings in the discipline of quality engineering among whole team including business stakeholders. This helps in better release workflows and releasing high-quality applications.
At Enhops, we believe Test Automation brings in better ROI for the technical investments made in the software development lifecycle. We have the reputation of working on the front foot to collaborate with our clients, understand their technological needs, and prioritize critical areas such as test automation, quality engineering, quality assurance for better software releases.
If you are struggling with your software releases, we can advise you in how to improve it. Talk to us – marketing@enhops.com.
