Smoke tests are efficient way to ensure that the most important functions of the software are working as expected. However, the question of who should own and maintain the smoke tests can be a source of confusion in the team.
In our previous blog post, we discussed how to make smoke test more effective.
Once you have an effective suite of smoke tests, the team may encounter some confusion around its ownership and maintenance responsibilities. In my past experience as a QA consultant, at many instances I have been asked by developers to fix or extend smoke tests. While it is common that developers seek help from QAs in such cases but it is important to establish a clear boundary and responsibilities to ensure an effective collaboration between QA and development teams and also allowing QAs to focus more on other kind of testings.
In this blog post, we will see a complete journey of smoke test and we will address the most important question of "Who should own and maintain smoke tests?"
1. Identifying test scenarios - Team's ownership
The journey of smoke test begins from collaborative decision making, the entire team (QAs, Devs, PO, BA) should identify the most critical functionality to cover in smoke test. This ensures that your smoke test is effective from business aspect and sets correct foundation for testing.
2. Setup and Integration - QA's ownership
Once the scenarios are identified, QA takes the ownership and develops the automated smoke test. As we discussed in our previous blog post, smoke test must be integrated in CI/CD pipeline for efficient test execution. This ensures that smoke tests are integral part of the delivery process. QA may seek help from developers to integrate the tests in pipeline.
3. Ensuring test health - QA's ownership
Initially for few days (10-15 days), the QAs keep an eye on the health of smoke tests in pipeline. This helps them to address the false positives or flakiness in the tests, making sure that tests are reliable and remains a key indicator about the build stability.
4. Shifting the ownership to Developer
Once the smoke test has achieved a stable and healthy state, the responsibility for its upkeep shifts to the developers. If a developer breaks the smoke test, it becomes their responsibility to fix it. This is done to minimize the burden on the QAs, allowing them to focus on other testing activities. Given that smoke tests run very often in the pipeline, it is more efficient for the developer who introduced the issue to rectify it promptly.
Conclusion
We all agree that smoke tests play a pivotal role in efficient testing and setting up the right foundation for further quality checks. In order to make the smoke test efficient, it needs decision making from entire team, developing a reliable and robust automated tests by QAs and slowly transitioning the ownership to developers. This streamlines the testing efforts and provides room to QAs to focus on other kind of testing in the process.
Remember, effective smoke testing is a shared responsibility that leads to more efficient testing processes and ultimately results in a superior end-user experience.
Partner with us, the experts in QA consulting, to master the art of effective and efficient testing in your software development process. With our collaborative approach and industry-leading expertise, we can help you optimize your testing efforts and achieve exceptional software quality.
Remember, quality starts with the very basic step of setting up right foundation as smoke test.
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