The Strategic Alignment of Testing and Development

Strategic alignment between testing and development is vital for successful systems development. Missing, however, have been actionable, how-to approaches for assessing and enhancing this alignment. Jasbir Dhaliwal and Dave Miller present STREAM, the Software Testing Reassessment and Alignment Methodology, a systematic approach used to achieve this alignment at both strategy and execution levels. STREAM incorporates a step-by-step procedure that can be used to: 1) identify symptoms of developer-tester misalignment, 2) analyze and understand the misalignment, and 3) formulate action-plans for fostering stronger developer-tester alignment. In addition, Jasbir and Dave identify specific mechanisms and tools for ensuring that the execution capabilities of testing groups are aligned with their stated strategies. This represents a natural pre-requisite for successful developer-tester alignment. STREAM extends ideas commonly used by corporate CIOs for ensuring business-IT alignment to the realm of ensuring alignment within the corporate IT unit as well. Take away a practical framework for thinking strategically about the testing function and its collaborative relationship with development.