Continuous Improvement with TMMi

Every organization will conduct testing in a different way based on the specific environment that testing is being delivered in. However, one thing that all enterprises should agree upon is that it is vitally important to continually improve test processes to align with evolving business objectives. For example, the push towards Continuous Integration/DevOps.

Improvement activities should be gradual and driven by a clear objective framework of what a good process looks like. Without understanding what you are aspiring to achieve it is near impossible to improve processes in an effective fashion. Test Maturity Model integration (TMMi) can support this as it provides:

  • A clear list of overall process areas to review e.g. test policy and strategy, test environment.
  • Specific goals and practices to perform well in these areas e.g. establish a test policy, specify test environment intake test procedure.
  • Sub-Practices that provide details on the activities required to achieve the defined specific goals and practices e.g. define and establish ownership for test policy, review the test environment intake test procedure specification with stakeholders.

What is TMMi?

TMMi can be generally defined as a framework used to objectively measure the maturity of an organizations test process. It is a staged model so improvement is measured using maturity levels which range from 1 (worst) to 5 (best). Each maturity level contains a number of process areas which are specific groups of activities that can be evaluated together to determine their overall effectiveness.

The model recognizes that not all organizations work in the same way so it is specific enough to cover all test activities but generic enough to apply to all delivery life cycles.

Structure of TMMi

TMMi consists of a number of different components which are broken down into different categories. The two most important categories are:

 Required Components – What an organization must achieve to satisfy a process area.

Expected Components – What an organization will typically implement to achieve a required component.

The different components in the diagram above can be described as follows:

Maturity Level – Degree of process improvement achieved across a pre-defined set of process areas

Process Area – Related practices in an area that are considered important to achieving improvement in an overall area of delivery

Specific Goal – Characteristics that must be present to satisfy a process area

Generic Goal – Characteristics that must be present to institutionalize the processes that implement a process area e.g. establish organizational policy, train people, etc.

Specific Practice – Activities required to achieve specific goals of a process area

Generic Practice – Activities required to achieve generic goals and institutionalize processes associated with a process area

Quickly Achieve Success with TMMi

TMMi can be a long and detailed process where a high amount of effort is required to achieve important long term benefits. However, the model can be used to achieve success quickly by picking out particular process areas that are causing the most challenges within the test process. These process areas can then be assessed individually with improvements identified and implemented in a short space of time.

The specific practices for each process area can be used as a starting point for reviewing maturity in that particular area. The sub-practices then define further actions that can be taken to assess and improve maturity. Once that assessment has been completed it is simple to see which areas you can start to improve and what activities you can implement to achieve this.

Process Area – Test Environment

Specific Goal 2 – Perform Test Environment Implementation
Specific Practice Sub Practice
Implement the Test Environment Implement the test environment as specified and according to the defined plan
Adhere to applicable standards and criteria
Perform testing on test environment components as appropriate
Develop supporting documentation, e.g., installation, operation and maintenance documentation
Revise the test environment components as necessary
Create Generic Test Data Create generic test data required to support the execution of the tests
Anonymise sensitive data in line with the policy when ‘real-life’ data is used as a source
Archive the set of generic test data
Specify Test Environment Intake Procedure Define a list of checks to be carried out during the intake test of the test environment
Develop the test environment intake test procedure
Document the test environment intake test procedure in a test procedure specification, based on the test procedure specification standard
Review the test environment intake test procedure specification with stakeholders
Revise the test environment intake test procedure as appropriate
Perform Test Environment Intake Test Perform the intake test (confidence test) using the documented intake test procedure to decide if the test environment is ready to be used for testing
Document the results of the test environment intake test by means of a test log, based on the test log standard
Log incidents if a discrepancy is observed

Full TMMi Assessments

Certain organizations are accredited by the TMMi Foundation to be assessment service providers. These forms can provide a full, independent assessment of your company’s test maturity using TMMi. Following a review, they can also provide suggestions on what is required to help achieve the next level of maturity.

Conclusion

IT teams should always be looking to improve the way they deliver value to business stakeholders. Within the testing space TMMi can provide an objective framework that can be used as the basis for:

  • Understanding the maturity of current test processes
  • Understanding the tasks/activities that need to be in place for processes to be mature and effective

TMMi provides a huge amount of information but the model can be used in a flexible way to suit your needs. One option is to review the full test process and identify solutions to overhaul/improve the whole process. The other option is to use components of the model to review specific areas that are causing the most challenges, for example, the test environments, or test strategy. From there it is then possible to achieve quick improvements by focusing effort on maturing/developing processes within that area.

You could be doing things better and TMMi can help guide you with that improvement process. With a consistently improving and effective test process your projects have a much higher chance of delivering success.

Written by Daniel Horan, Product Owner of Testing Services at FDM.

 

 

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