Holidays Ahead: What should be on a Tester's checklist?

??? Ho Ho Ho!

The holidays have arrived!

While Santa is on his way, we bring you a special edition of Sigma Scoop, Testsigma’s community newsletter.

We all know that testing is a 24/7 gig ??, and even at the peak of our testing prowess, we need occasional breaks to recharge our debugging superpowers!

But wait, what if a critical bug surfaces in your absence?

So, before you hit the pause button ??on your testing efforts, here are some resources that can help you make a smooth transition from bug-hunting to holiday-hopping.

Santa brings this edition of Sigma Scoop all the way from the QA pole! ??

How about we start with a checklist?

Automation Framework:

• Scheduled Test Runs: Set up automated test suites to run at scheduled intervals to ensure continuous testing.
• Monitor Stability: Regularly check the stability of your automation framework, resolving any issues promptly.
• Update Dependencies: Ensure that all dependencies and libraries in your automation framework are up-to-date.
• Setting alerts with a quick retry button for failures

DevTestOps Best Practices:

Continuous Integration (CI) Pipelines:

• Verify that CI pipelines are running smoothly and efficiently.
• Check for any failures in the CI pipeline and address them promptly.

Continuous Deployment (CD):

• Review the CD process to guarantee a seamless transition from testing to deployment.
• Implement automated deployment strategies to minimize manual intervention General Best Practices:
• Documentation: Ensure that all testing processes and procedures are well-documented for reference.
• Backup Plans: Have contingency plans in place for potential system failures or unexpected issues.
• Communication: Clearly communicate your holiday schedule with the team and any stakeholders. Areas to Check:
• Test Environment: Confirm that the test environment is stable and ready for use.
• Test Data: Ensure that the required test data is available and up-to-date.
• Critical Test Cases: Identify and run critical test cases to verify essential functionalities.
• Alerts and Notifications: Set up alerts for critical issues and ensure notifications are reaching the right stakeholders

Miscellaneous Checklist:

• Delegate Responsibilities: Assign tasks and responsibilities to team members in your absence.
• Emergency Contact: Provide an emergency contact in case of critical issues.
• Out-of-Office Response: Set up an out-of-office response to manage communication expectations.

Holiday cheers from the community tradition we are starting!

The testing community shares with us some strategies to use from one tester to another!

Watch Video

How do you streamline your continuous testing and delivery pipeline?

This talk by Akshay Maldhure should be all that you need!

Watch Now!

Reflections of a Tester – Testsigma Blog Contest

Unveiling the champions of our holiday series contest. Testers relive their 2023 experiences!

Read Now

Holiday rush

“For entrepreneurs, this weekend is their Super Bowl,” mentions Shopify.

Shopify merchants claim they mark a record-high $9.3 billion in Black Friday-Cyber Monday sales. But how do they do it without a dedicated QA department?

Check out this blog on how their engineering team prepares for the holidays.

Cool right?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could forecast the number of users on our website?

We can’t, so we prepare by Load Testing.

Check out some good resources to know more about it here and here.

??The Shark Tank Effect: How to Prepare Your Website for a Traffic Influx

A podcast on sites crashing? James Pulley and special guests analyze globally crashing websites and system failures while he reviews the “disastrous sins” of the evildoers in the IT department.

Speaking of crashes..

Debate time!

In 2023, which is the bigger performance problem for most teams, the frontend or the backend?

How to test when you go globally with a fleet of thousands of machines(a video)

?? What are the chances that ALL of these services would start experiencing an increase in reported outages on holidays? A Common source – Hosted in a common cloud provider!?

12 software areas to test ahead of the holidays – a PDF.

A breakout Black Friday Testing Checklist (for the holiday rush) for you!

And one more!

How early should you test for holidays?

Happened to hear this discussion between Jason Baum and Marcus Merril on Black Friday testing as early as July with a 4-month code freeze and how they release major features behind feature flags. Check it out!

Everyone does code deploy freezes, but we rarely talk about it. Why?

Here are 3 good and 3 bad things about code freezes.

And for more scoop on code freezes, check this blog by Gergely Orosz, where he discusses the approaches of big companies like Meta, Amazon, Apple, etc (though the full read is for subscribers only.)

What are your plans ahead of the holidays?

If you’d like to spend some time learning, Krystian Kubowicz gets creative and comes up with an Advent calendar for testers.?

How about setting milestones such as these, we say!

Dennis Martinez shares some tips like fixing a broken test among other suggestions to make the most out of your downtime.

Here’s an exhaustive list of books you could read curated by Gergely Orosz – for Software Engineers, Engineering Managers, and Product Managers!

?? We are curious, how do you cope with task build up after the holidays?

Here are some QA tips for coping with task buildup and emergencies during holidays.

When you are back, how do you manage and prioritize projects and slow delivery? Maybe focus and navigate to a collective goal?

It’s fun when the QA community comes together!

MOT shares the perfect way to celebrate joyous QA holidays!

We wish you a great start to 2024, dear community.

Keep fueling our rocket ship with more feedback and love; they make great recipes for what we are building at Testsigma!

See you next year!

Cheers,

Testsigma Community ??