Over 85% of organizations with mature TCoEs achieve over 90% test automation coverage. As software testing becomes complex, organizations need a strategic approach to manage their testing efforts. An Agile Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE) can provide the governance, processes, tools, and skills to maximize test coverage and software quality. Building a Testing Center of Excellence can be a long-order task.
To show organization leaders how to create a roadmap towards a TCoE, we hosted a 30-minute webinar, “Roadmap to Build a Testing Center of Excellence (TCoE).” Murali Pyla, our Director of Delivery and Practices, shared how TCoEs help move away from traditional and outdated testing practices and the components of a successful TCoE.
Keep reading for some of the key takeaways from the webinar or click here to watch the recording or download the webinar slides.
Our experts have put together a comprehensive guide for better understanding around Software Testing Center of Excellence. Give it a read here.
Why is the Testing Center of Excellence needed?
Organizations are running multiple software development initiatives, requiring testing teams to catch up with the pace of development. But with a limited budget and skills, there’s a lack of needed momentum. Moreover, without testing practices, it is impossible to gain complete visibility around application quality and customer experience. Other risks are associated with lousy customer experience, delayed time-to-market, and cybersecurity breaches, to name a few.
“A Test center of excellence is a framework that defines the testing to be maintained in a centralized and shared manner across the organization. At a granular level, it means defining and implementing the standard processes and best practices that enable clients to achieve process maturity.”
“Traditional quality assurance practices have many gaps, including lack of consistency and visibility. It further goes down to lack of coordination and collaboration between different teams, meaning a development team, business team, and a QA team.” Murali said that with the testing center of excellence, we can have consistency and standard processes in place and strong collaboration and coordination between various teams. It also improves the efficiency and quality of product delivery.
Critical Areas of TCoE Transformation
People, Processes, Tools, & Technology are the critical areas of TCoE Transformation. For any organization to get started on the TCoE journey, it is recommended to take off their current testing practices, review the current quality engineering strategy, and develop a roadmap of initiatives that will help align the QA strategy with the organization’s goals.
Roadmap to build a Testing Center of Excellence
Organizations on the journey to build a Testing Center of Excellence must look at these steps to ensure success.
- Define Vision and Objectives Outline clear quality and business objectives, such as improving test coverage, streamlining best practices, enhancing quality assurance practices, reducing product time to market, and lowering overall testing costs.
- Assess Current State Conduct a thorough analysis of the organization’s current testing programs, skillsets, number of testing professionals, testing tools, challenges, inefficiencies, and overall quality issues.
- Design Governance Structure Develop a governance framework that defines the organizational structure, roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships within the TCoE.
- Implement Best Practices and Tools Implement quality assurance standardized testing practices and methodologies with relevant test automation tools and frameworks to streamline testing practices, improve test automation coverage, and accelerate the testing process. Implement standardized testing processes and methodologies that promote consistency and efficiency across projects.
- Build Team and Skills Build a strong team of manual and automation engineers with expertise in testing and test automation while fostering a culture of collaboration, learning, and continuous improvement within the TCoE.
- Establish Metrics and Measurement Create benchmarks and targets for quality, test coverage, defect detection rates, and relevant metrics.
- Promote Adoption and Engagement Engage with project teams, development teams, and business units to promote adopting TCoE practices and methodologies.
- Continuous Improvement Establish continuous quality assurance feedback loops and ensure multiple checkpoints to understand the common pain areas and how to resolve them.
TCoE and TMMi Relation
The Testing Center of Excellence supports TMMi’s evolution by bringing significant improvements in product quality. These improvement areas range from user satisfaction to reduced product risks and a decreased number of defects. At a practice level, TCoE brings complete tool and technology expertise while driving their adoption across various teams.
In more context, TMMi—Test Maturity Model is a framework designed to assess an organization’s testing capabilities and maturity.
“So recently, we have implemented a center of excellence for one of our clients. During our assessment, our experts identified that the organization is at level two. Enhops was then engaged to implement standard testing processes, templates, and tools, enabling every QA person to follow the consistent process and templates. We have implemented the metrics and dashboard and frameworks,” Murali said. “And we have implemented an automation center of excellence and a performance center of excellence. So, the organization is now moving from level two to level three. It will move to level four in the next couple of months.”
Wrapping-Up
Organizations can assess their capability maturity models using industry approved frameworks. But this requires expertise to understand various tools, technologies, and benchmarks. At Enhops, we help our clients assess their capability models and work with them to improve their levels. Contact us to start your journey of TCoE and improve organization’s capability maturity.
Watch the webinar to learn how establishing a Testing Center of Excellence can elevate software testing best practices.
