Traditional manual software testing practices are too time consuming, complex, and resource-intensive to support federal civilian, defense, and health agencies as they increase the pace of their IT modernization efforts. The Department of Defense’s (DoD) Software Modernization Strategy will enable defense agencies with the ability to develop and deploy software at the speed of relevance. To achieve this, these agencies need to implement solutions that optimize speed, quality, and security. A recent webinar hosted by FCW focused on how automated software testing acts as a force multiplier for IT modernization efforts.  With automated testing solutions, agencies can see up to a 40 percent reduction in testing costs and improve test cycle times by 10x the speed.  

Watch the Webinar Here

In the webinar, Jennifer Swanson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army at the U.S. Army (Data, Engineering, & Software), discussed the role that automation plays in the Army’s modernization efforts. “Automation is critical to all of our digital transformation work,” Swanson said, “We [aim] to align with industry best practices [by leveraging] agile software development coupled with DevSecOps, which really is about 100 percent automation. It’s automating everything that we know we do manually, like testing, cyber scanning, [and everything] that we need to do to make sure that our software is high quality.“ 

Swanson explained that the Army is using automation to streamline policy governance within architecture, enable more agile cybersecurity practices, ensure software compliance, and determine the impact of modernization changes in the digital environment before development processes begin. By automating manual tasks like testing, Swanson’s team can spend their time on tasks that enable better end user experiences, such as integrating human-centered design practices and providing employees with upskilling opportunities.  

In the webinar, Adam Rosenbaum, Director of Strategic Alliances at Tricentis, explained that every agency’s modernization strategy shares a common mission: to improve outcomes for the end user. “[Agencies] are shifting, modernizing, and utilizing more common tools, that’s freeing up options for different agencies … to make their own decisions … The real challenge is – with the different systems of record and the different tools – there is no silver bullet. But at the end of the day, all those things have to work together to achieve [the desired] end state,” he shared. 

While integration is a challenge, automated software testing can help ensure that different technologies work together when first integrated and as they are updated over time, while minimizing the resources needed for manual testing. Rosenbaum went on to say that agencies are “constantly balancing the requirements of talent management [and] the evolving operational environment” when trying to develop and deploy new capabilities. Automated testing can help agencies to meet those requirements while developing and deploying software at the speed of relevance. 

Automated testing of software applications, processes, and data helps to improve efficiency and time management, while removing the margin of human error and integrating multiple technologies. Combining the power of automated low-code and no code testing and DevSecOps enables agencies to develop and deploy resilient software capability at the speed of relevance.  By automating the software testing process, agencies can use the time saved to focus on higher priority, more complex tasks like improving end-user experiences and cybersecurity. 

To learn more about how automated software testing acts as a force multiplier, watch the full webinar here.