Future Strategies in Engineering Quality with James Vignoles (Part 2)

Within part 2 of this discussion around ‘QA and Digital Transformation’ in partnership with a1qa, James Vignoles (Director of QA – Labs at Sophos Ltd), discusses what an optimised testing infrastructure looks like. 

According to James, an optimised testing infrastructure needs to be easy and frictionless. There are 3 key areas that organisations need to look at:

1. Testing – It has to be able to do tests for a single change and support the deliverables from the dev team. Their quality deliverable will be the automation, organisations need to ensure they maximize coverage with every release. Organisations cannot have releases going out where the coverage is static, it has to improve every time.
2. Compliance – more and more individuals are getting compliance. As part of the compliance, if something is not met, the system needs to stop. This is important for the pipeline, as
3. Lifecycle and investment – it has its own lifecycle and investment. It has to be considered as much a product as it is itself. 

The conversation then moves on to what 3 aspects of a digital transformation should QA professionals be heavily involved in and at what stage. 

James discovers 3 key aspects of involvement where QA can add the most value:

1. What does success look like for the digital transformation for the project – asking that question of what does the success of the product looks like for the customers, quality, automation, and getting those success criteria defined. 
2. The devil’s advocate role – thinking about whether this is the right thing to do for the customer and for the operation. 
3. The process repeatable – is the process repeatable, effective, efficient, simple, and frictionless. Are you automating the right things and the right process? 

About a1qa

a1qa is a next-gen software testing provider offering a full range of QA services for 19+ years. The clients of a1qa ― global enterprises, including the Fortune 500 companies ― obtain business and operational benefits while reaching the desired outcomes with professional QA. a1qa has successfully delivered 1,500+ projects across various industries: eHealth, eCommerce, telecom, BFSI, M&E, IT and software development, real estate, utilities, and energy, among others.