Capgemini’s Sogeti recently introduced a new TMAP book, Quality for DevOps Teams., which is a direct successor to its TMAP NEXT book published initially in 2016. TMAP NEXT has remained one of the methodology bibles that guide QA practitioners in structuring their testing projects.

Sogeti has added regular updates around agile/scrum development, IoT, and digital testing that complemented TMAP NEXT. Now, with Quality for DevOps Teams, Sogeti highlights it has a complete revamp of TMAP in the context of agile and DevOps projects.

Moving to cross-functional teams

In writing the new book with agile and DevOps projects in mind, Sogeti has introduced a significant change in targeting the entire software development team and not just QA professionals. The company argues that in the context of DevOps, development teams need to go beyond having diverse skills (BAs, developers, testers, and operation specialists). The individual team members must be able to perform other team members’ tasks if required (which Sogeti calls cross-functional teams).

The impact of this approach is significant; it goes beyond tools and training and also includes change management. As part of this culture shift, team members have overall responsibility for their projects and are also required to learn new tools, and this might be outside of their comfort zone. To support this cultural change, program managers need to support team members and provide continuous testing tools and frameworks.

With this cross-functional team approach, Sogeti points to new practices in agile projects. Clients are currently implementing continuous testing strategies, and re-skilling their manual testers toward technical QA activities.

Despite its popularity, the adoption of SDET has remained a vision more than a reality: SDETs have remained focused on their activities to QA and are not able to swap jobs with other roles such as product owners, scrum masters, developers or business analysts.

Sogeti, therefore, points to an entirely new approach to agile and DevOps that will require further delivery transformation and investment among clients. The benefit of the Quality for DevOps Teams book, therefore, is in providing guidelines on how to structure delivery in the far future.

Aiming to make reporting easier

Another guiding principle of Quality for DevOps Teams is the VOICE model, which defines what the client wants to achieve with a project (value and objectives) and measures it through qualitative and quantitative indicators.

Sogeti’s approach goes beyond the traditional go/no-go to release an application to production based on UAT and improvement in KPIs, such as the number of defects found. VOICE also closes the loop with end-user feedback and experience and operations by incorporating their feedback.

Training at scale

Sogeti’s efforts around DevOps and continuous testing do not stop with the new book; it has relaunched its tmap.net website which it wants to turn into a testing community site providing resources and knowledge for agile and DevOps projects, along with more traditional approaches such as waterfall and hybrid agile.

Alongside this effort, Sogeti has refreshed its training capabilities and designed three new training and certification initiatives, working with specialized examination and certification provider iSQI. The company has created a one-day training class for testing professionals already familiar with TMAP, and three other three-day specialized courses.

Sogeti is rolling out the training, targeting teams beyond QA, including business analysts, developers, and operations specialists. Sogeti is also rolling out the program internally with the larger Capgemini group, targeting organizations involved in agile projects. The initiative is of scale since Capgemini has a NelsonHall estimated 150k personnel engaged in application services.

Sogeti’s new book provides a view of what agile will look like next

Sogeti’s Quality for DevOps Teams book provides a long-term view of what agile teams and continuous testing will be like in the future. Its benefit is that the book offers a structured approach. It is reassuring to see Sogeti deploying it through certifications so that it shows that the transformation to cross-functional teams can be a reality. NelsonHall is expecting the rollout to bring feedback and fine-tuning of Sogeti’s approach. We will continue to report on how Sogeti implements Quality for DevOps Teams.