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Waterfall methodology emerged from the industrial world of assembly lines and specializations. With few known alternatives, the methodology was also applied to software development. Over time, however, frustrations from its many disadvantages, such as the inability to go back and change something or the length of time to get a working prototype up and running, led developers to lean toward more agile processes.

Testing has always been an important stage of the software development lifecycle. Teams that do it well clearly understand the benefits and are often the strongest advocates for the practice. Unit tests should be a given in any web application’s code base. Automated functional testing takes this a step further and allows application testing on the user-interface level, which adds another layer of protection that helps catch mistakes before they reach production.

In this article, you’ll learn more about how cloud-based automation testing tools help software development teams reduce costs, create higher code quality, and increase velocity so they can move forward quickly.

If you already have Jenkins as your build server and want to take advantage of services in Azure DevOps without fully switching over, you may find yourself with an existing Jenkins infrastructure, a source control repository, an Azure DevOps subscription, and a lot of questions. Fortunately, there are many extensibility points you can use to tie these solutions together in a way that works best for your business and team’s skillsets.

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the 2018 DevOps Enterprise Summit (DOES) in Las Vegas. While conferences tend to make me fearful of getting sucked into a big sales show, DOES restored my faith (in the value of conferences, not Vegas!). Notably, it was extremely well-attended, impeccably run, and there was an elite cast of speakers throughout the event. From large talks to small group sessions to book signings, the event offered seemingly endless opportunities for interactive education.

In Agile, items selected for development come from a backlog, a list of prioritized features describing functionality for the desired product. The inspiration for new features can strike at any time, but ideas may not be fully flushed out and can change as more is learned about the product. In this article, I’ve outlined 3 key elements of a healthy agile backlog that facilitate creativity, simplify ongoing development, and create a more valuable and profitable product over time.