Test & QA still the biggest bottleneck in DevOps, but why?

QA and test teams 'speak a completely different language' to rest of DevOps, finds research

The testing and quality assurance (QA) stages are by far the biggest cause of holdups in the software production process, according to new research by Computing.

In a questionnaire filled out by 250 IT professionals, 63 per cent fingered Testing / QA , twice the number that selected the planning and review stages of the lifecycle. Interestingly, these proportions barely changed when we singled out DevOps practitioners.

The position of QA and testing as the main cause of delays will not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with software production. One of the main goals of DevOps is to automate the repetitive testing stages in order to speed the flow of code through the pipeline. However, in most of the organisations we spoke to, this process is only partially complete, whereas others said that automation can only go so far. There is also the issue of two separate cultures emerging.

"Two or three years ago we were talking about Dev and Ops and DevOps. Now we talk about DevOps and testing. They have become two separate departments, two separate fields," said a product director in a technology company.

The head of application services at a media company reported a similar situation at his firm.: "the test teams are much more integrated with QA than they are with development," he said, while a network security architect added: "They speak a completely different language."

Some mentioned the difficulty in recruiting and retaining good quality testers and QA staff, a role which tends to have a lower status than other operational and development positions, saying that the quality of QA engineers tends to be "variable".

Others mentioned the toolsets: "I think the testing toolchain hasn't matured as much as much as other things," said a DevOps lead for insurance.

All of this paints an interesting picture of new factions emerging within software production teams as a result of bringing roles together. The problem of certain DevOps roles becoming highly specialised was another factor brought up during our focus groups and interviews, making the team spirit harder to maintain, particularly in smaller firms.

The full results of our research will be presented at the Computing DevOps Summit 2017 on 22 March. Entrance is free for most delegates.