It’s clear that continuous delivery and Agile are the way of the future for software development. The problem is that while dev teams have managed to keep up with the demand so far, software testing teams are struggling to maintain output quality. A survey of software development professionals conducted by the Centercode Product Team showed 3 out of 4 believe the quality of their releases could be better.

We asked these same professionals how they’re measuring success in software development and what they’re doing to improve their software testing practices. Their responses (unsurprisingly) lined up with how organizations judge the effectiveness of their software testing programs. These are the top 3 objectives software testing teams are focused on achieving, based on our research.

1) Covering More Test Cases with Less Manpower

With faster release times and more releases, software testing teams are relying on automation to pick up the slack. But a study by Capgemini revealed that automation only generates 25% of the required test data. This means QA testers still perform the lion’s share of work through manual testing. Professionals are looking for ways to maintain speed and increase coverage without sacrificing quality.

2) Accelerating Bug Fix Times

In keeping with the first trend, 1 in 3 said they don’t have enough time to guarantee the quality they want to see. Software development teams are looking to adopt practices that surface bugs earlier in development, making for quicker fixes at lower costs.

3) Caring About Customer Satisfaction

The customer-centric mindset adopted by more and more companies makes the Voice of the Customer a focal point for processes, practices, and decision-making in every department. As Agile shrinks the distance between customers and software development teams, satisfaction becomes a metric for gauging program success. Product functionality has a huge impact on customer satisfaction. Engineering professionals are well aware that the responsibility to provide that working software falls on their shoulders.

Addressing the Gap in Software Testing

So how are software testing teams turning their objectives into reality? Despite the compatibility between Agile methodologies and continuous delivery, reporting shows that Agile alone is not enough.

Software development professionals are reporting low satisfaction with software testing because they can see a problematic gap between speed and quality. Automation testing can pick up some of the slack, but even that has limits when it comes to increasing quality.

What Does the Future Hold?

Software development professionals are recognizing that they will need to make their Agile practices more flexible to balance quicker delivery with high-quality releases. Organizational goals are evolving to meet the demands of new technology and customer expectations. As a result, software development practices are morphing and changing as well.

What does this look like in practice? You can learn more about the tactics they’re taking to get there with the data in our new infographic, Software Testing in the Age of Iterative Development.