Delivering high-quality solutions is an essential part of Value Stream Management (VSM). After all, substandard solutions don’t deliver value to customers or shareholders. That’s why software testing is a central component in VSM, and it’s now easier than ever with the powerful and user-friendly OpenText ValueEdge testing tools.
This is the third and penultimate article in my series on VSM. The previous two articles looked at how to reduce costs with VSM and how to implement Agile and Test Management within VSM landscapes.
This week, I’m focusing on test execution, why it is important, what you need to consider, and which tools to use.
Why Testing Is More Important Than Ever on VSM Projects
Software professionals know how essential software testing is for Agile projects; by integrating testing into sprints, you ensure that everything you build delivers customer value.
VSM is similar to Agile in this and many other ways. Both focus on delivering solutions that add value, foster cross-functional collaboration, and place a high degree of importance on early and continuous software testing.
We all know that the earlier you catch an issue, the easier and cheaper it is to fix. This has positive knock-on effects throughout the entire project or value stream. It’s easier to focus on delivering value when you’re not trying to pinpoint and unpick defects in a highly integrated system.
In VSM, Software Testing Must Be Fast and Effective
Traditionally, software testing was seen as the last step in waterfall projects. The developers would throw the code over the fence, and the testers would plough through weeks or months of integration, end-to-end, and regression testing.
This approach generally relied on extensive manual testing, with no automation, and probably a performance project at the end, to tick that box. It’s slow, cumbersome, and inefficient.
It adds months to project plans, overwhelms development teams with mountains of defects in a very short time, and tends to create an adversarial relationship between testers and the rest of the project.
Also, project timelines were often fixed, so solutions were put live with a significant number of known and potentially serious defects.
Clearly, this is not an optimal way to test, but it is often the only option when you’re working with older (or non-existent) tools.
You Can Test More Efficiently With The Latest Tools
Modern projects, like those within VSM frameworks, use modern tools to rapidly build and execute functional and performance tests.
Whereas in the past, automation was reserved for regression testing, modern tools make it effective and efficient in earlier integration and system testing phases. There’s even a strong case for automated unit testing these days.
These tools leverage advanced features like model-based and codeless testing to allow non-technical resources to create automated tests. AI further enhances the automation process, reducing build time and slashing maintenance effort.
On the performance front, cloud-based tools have revolutionised approaches and truly democratised performance testing. These tools come with incredibly low setup times and built-in infrastructure, so you can spin up performance tests quickly and easily without having to source, build, and configure load injectors or controllers.
Open-Source Solutions Don’t Cut It
These days, many people are looking at open-source test tools in the hope of reducing costs. But do they really save money?
Sure, they are free to download and install, but the associated effort costs can make open-source test tools an expensive option. They take much more time to configure, maintain, and extract useful information.
You need to take time to understand the total cost of ownership before considering open-source.
Even if you somehow manage to save a few pennies with open-source tools, you would potentially jeopardise the effectiveness of your VSM project for other reasons.
To get the value out of VSM, your test tools must be easy, user-friendly, and quick to deploy.
You need to create and execute tests rapidly, leveraging AI to reduce build and maintenance effort. You also need to democratise test creation and not be reliant on a few expensive experts.
The ValueEdge VSM solutions work together to efficiently deliver the value stream, allowing waste to be identified and eliminated.
How ValueEdge Test Tools Help You Accelerate Testing and Drive Quality
In 2022, OpenText launched ValueEdge, an end-to-end, cloud-based Value Stream Management (VSM) platform. This platform includes two SaaS-based software testing solutions, ValueEdge Functional Test and ValueEdge Performance.
Because they’re hosted in the cloud, they are both incredibly convenient solutions. They are easy and quick to set up and generally cause fewer headaches than on-premises solutions.
They are always up-to-date and eliminate virtually every hidden or associated cost, such as installation, annual support fees, and the people-cost of ongoing support from your infrastructure team.
These tools integrate seamlessly with the rest of the ValueEdge suite, delivering results and providing valuable data to the Insights module.
That being said, if you’re not ready for VSM yet, don’t worry. Both ValueEdge Functional Test and ValueEdge Performance can be used as class-leading standalone solutions. You’ll have a head start If and when you move to VSM.
ValueEdge Functional Test
ValueEdge Functional Test is a functional testing tool complete with codeless scripting and Model-Based Testing.
ValueEdge Functional Test consists of the following 4 modules:
- Design: Create codeless scripts using AI-based object identification
- Model-Based Testing: Generate test cases based on a graphical model
- Digital lab: Provision cloud infrastructure to run your tests for both cross-browser and mobile testing
- Execution: Execute tests in OpenText’s cloud environment.
ValueEdge Functional Test is highly scalable, from team to enterprise, because it is a SaaS test tool. There are licencing options to suit every business.
ValueEdge Performance (aka LoadRunner Cloud)
LoadRunner Cloud is a comprehensive, scalable, and user-friendly performance testing tool that will significantly enhance your testing capabilities.
Whether you’re testing a small web application or an extensive enterprise system, LoadRunner Cloud can quickly scale to meet your needs. You can test from 1 to 5,000,000 users to understand how your application behaves under various load conditions without compromising performance or accuracy.
As well as perpetual Vuser licenses that you can use all day, every day (unlike some tools that limit the number of hours you can use it), you can also purchase LoadRunner Cloud Virtual User Hour (VUH) licenses. With VUHs, you can:
- Add additional virtual users to your main licence to get to peak or season numbers
- Test different applications not covered by your main licence
- Have a project-specific license rather than an ongoing license for ad-hoc testing
As a cloud-based tool, LoadRunner Cloud offers several benefits over traditional, on-premises testing tools.
For example, you don’t need extensive test lab hardware setups and maintenance, and you can access your testing environment from anywhere.
Why Software Testing Is Crucial For Driving Value in VSM Landscapes
When it comes to VSM, you need to deliver high-quality, high-value solutions, and you can only achieve this with effective and efficient software testing.
Modern tools like OpenText’s ValueEdge Functional Test and ValueEdge Performance streamline and enhance your testing processes, making them faster, more efficient, and more effective than ever before.
By integrating advanced features such as cloud-hosted infrastructure, model-based, and codeless testing and leveraging the power of AI, these tools transform the testing landscape, ensuring that quality is built into every step of the development process.
Are you Ready to Elevate Your VSM Projects With Top-Tier Software Testing Tools?
Whether you’re looking to enhance functional testing with ValueEdge Functional Test or boost performance testing capabilities with LoadRunner Cloud, these solutions offer scalability, convenience, and unmatched efficiency.
Get in touch to discover how OpenText’s ValueEdge platform can revolutionise your testing approach.
