Software Testing Solutions

How does SkyePoint’s Approach to Agile Testing Deliver Innovation and Speed to ATO?

Agile/Scrum Approach to Development

Our Scrum Masters, Engineers, and Developers apply requirements engineering, design and implementation to collaboratively create minimally viable products, and then repeat through sprints to continuously refine and test until the requirements and user needs are met. We deliver by valuing individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and responding to change over following a plan.

Testing Metrics

Within Agile teams, test metrics provide feedback on testing efforts, areas that need improvement, and whether the testing processes achieve the vital Agile aim of high-quality software with frequent releases. Our approach typically uses Defect Cycle Time since quick software release times are important, Defects Found in Production to find defects early in software testing when they are cheaper to fix, Code Complexity metrics such as cyclomatic complexity that measure the risk inherent in any build, and Cumulative Flow through a cumulative flow diagram showing work-in-progress, completed tasks, testing, velocity, and the current backlog.

Cloud-Native Tools

Our developers and testers use the loosely coupled services native to the AWS and Azure environments to rapidly incorporate user feedback for continuous improvement and to speed up the development of new applications, optimize existing ones, and connect them all. We have experience leveraging these tools to provide a consistent development, testing, and an automated management experience across multi-cloud environments.  Our goal is to help the development teams build and run responsive, scalable, and fault-tolerant apps anywhere – be it in public, private, or hybrid clouds.

Quality IV&V

SkyePoint delivers Quality IV&V through proactive review of governance, project management, and product development. “Getting it right the first time” reduces costly rework, and our Quality IV&V’s risk-based approach can help identify conditions within the project or lessons learned from similar efforts that might cause problems, bring them to the attention of the project manager or scrum master, and focus efforts on preventing the areas of highest risk. This risk-based, forward-looking approach helps ensure that stakeholder requirements are being addressed early, risks are identified before they become full-blown problems and can help identify the root causes so mistakes are not repeated.

Test Automation

SkyePoint looks to integrate automated software testing into our Continuous Delivery pipelines. It is the only way to ensure that releases occur at both a high frequency and with a high level of quality. In order to integrate continuous testing effectively into a DevOps toolchain, we look for the following essential features in an automated testing platform: support for a variety of languages, tools, and frameworks; on-demand cloud-based testing; the ability to scale rapidly; highly automated (most notably the CI and collaboration tools); and Security (enterprise-grade features). Our approach to test automation maximizes the agility, scalability, and continuity of software delivery pipelines.

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning (AI/ML)

At SkyePoint, we recommend exploring AI/ML capabilities to improve code coverage increase decision quality for integration, performance, and UI test cases, and using techniques like machine vision to automated UI regression testing.  Machines are very adept at discovering unintended changes in the placement or appearance of visual components in a web UI.   AI/ML performs better than humans in detecting accidental/unapproved UI changes that otherwise go unnoticed.  Additionally, AI/ML can be used to select tests to run when code is changed, reducing regression testing time.  Models can be trained to understand which tests should be run to cover a given set of commits.  By focusing on only the requisite set of tests, builds complete faster allowing faster feedback and iteration, and ultimately faster delivery. Similarly, by linking code to testing, a model can determine which region(s) of code may be responsible for a given error.  Models can correlate output from logs, as well as workflow or data flow pathways to suggest a starting point for developers to debug and fix errors, reducing the time required for the team to find and fix bugs.

The SkyePoint Difference in Software Testing
(Agile Agency)

As a trusted Federal Government provider, SkyePoint Decisions provides the best people, modern capabilities, and best-in-class processes to deliver job success and customer satisfaction. We partner with other industry providers as appropriate to fill testing technology niche experience and scale in areas such as Test Automation, AI/ML, and cloud-native tools. We know where we excel and where our Industry Partners can best support to help us realize mission-focused success. Above all, we deliver what we promise as demonstrated at DCAA and the IRS.

Benefits to Customers

  1. Small Business innovation and responsiveness
  2. Cost effective use of resources appropriate for Agile testing
  3. Enhanced security and functionality designed into the development process
  4. Enhanced application security and velocity to ATO
  5. Enhanced internal and external collaboration
  6. Deep relationships with Large and Small Busines Vendors to deliver niche testing capabilities and proven commercial applications

To learn more about how SkyePoint can address your Agency’s Software Testing needs please populate and submit the form below and we will send you our Enterprise Testing Support Case Study from our work supporting the IRS and set up a call to discuss your requirements.

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