Each minute of our life is a lesson but most of us fail to read it. I thought I would just add my daily lessons & the lessons that I learned by seeing the people around here. So it may be useful for you and as memories for me.
The QA (Quality Assurance) and the Software Testing industries have observed rapid evolution in the recent past. This accounts for the emergence of several new & disruptive processes and technologies. To keep pace with the ever-changing trends and advancements in the QA and software testing fields, the businesses have the need to adapt to these rapidly shifting demographics as soon as possible.
As our world continues its digital transformation with excitement in the advancement and convergence of so many technologies- from AI, machine learning, big data and analytics, to device mesh connectivity, nor should we forget VR and AR- 2017 promises to be a year that further transforms the way we work, play and take care of ourselves through product innovation. We have already seen the application of these technologies in robotics, digital assistants, self-driving/autonomous vehicles, wearables, IoT’s, drones, etc.
The applications are everywhere, from family, kids, fitness, to gaming and education, and a lot more. What does it mean for software testing? I believe testing will continue to help fuel new and disruptive product innovation for years to come. The rising user demands and adoptions for accessing data and decision-support analytics anywhere, anytime, on any device, coupled with smart things, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are stimulating fresh changes to the testing world.
As these trends keep changing, here are some predictions that we believe the QA and Software Testing industry might have to face in the coming times: 
Manual Testing not Dead
While test automation coverage continues to be critical to rapid product releases, hence time to market, with the continuation of digital transformation user experience, an area that is more challenging to automate, manual testing continues to be the key to success. Hence, human/manual testing will continue to be in demand. IoT testing requires testers to possess additional technical knowledge beyond domain expertise. Intelligent things, as Gartner has predicted to be part of 2017 technology trends, such as intelligent IoT’s, robots or drones will need testing by human testing beyond automation. Furthermore, with complex testing, humans must test to give it a green light before bots take over. In-sprint testing, agile development will continue to be manual. Gartner also predicts that Augmented Reality (AR) rather than Virtual Reality (VR) will begin to gain traction. AR applications will need manual testing for visual validation until automation advances and takes over.
Security Testing
As the technology industry is pacing forward with a whopping speed, there is a significant increase in the amount of information as well. As such, information security and continuous integration testing becomes a matter of concern to the larger companies to ensure the effective data flow without any leakage or breaching of confidential information. Therefore, security testing is another domain that the technology world is going to observe in the upcoming times.
Looking Forward to Agile & DevOps
Several organizations across the globe are adopting the agile and DevOps in their software creation & development. Involving programmers or the testers during the early stages of development and delivering a product in the market at a rapid rate is one of the biggest trend prediction. With help of agile testing, the testers might be able to respond to the upcoming challenges faster and in a better manner.
The DevOps technique calls for delivery of seamless integrations as well as collaboration between several departments. As such, this engages the developers into the QA processes and thus, increases the speed of deployment and promotes higher ROI.
IoT Testing
With IoT growing in leaps and bounds, more and more customers rely on IoT Testing before using the products. If the products are not tested, their functionality, security, and effectiveness – all will come under scanner. According to a HP study, 70 percent of devices in the Internet of Things are vulnerable to security problems.
Performance Engineering is replacing Performance Testing: A good user experience is the key to a successful product. Consistent performance across diverse platforms, OSs, and devices defines how much of a market can a product really capture. The need to provide the best experience to users is making organizations change their strategy. Organizations move from just Performance testing to Performance engineering is going to be swifter and the user experience is going to play a major role in that.
Digital Testing
With a majority of organizations making a foray in the digital world, the need for digital transformation will require a huge shift of focus towards digital testing. Robust strategies for digital assurance will be required for focusing on optimizing functional testing across channels. Digital assurance strategy should focus on optimizing functional testing across 
channels. It is more likely to mimic a user’s behavior in today’s world.
Cloud & Mobile Applications will be on the Mainstream
The application store approval method is becoming more simplified and straightforward nowadays. As such, the world will observe a boom in the hybrid applications, including both cloud & mobile applications, which would require the users to stay online & offline equally. The QA and Software Testing industry would observe more frequent testing of the mobile & cloud applications on a larger scale. These applications can be tested by the release of a beta version and then, followed by receiving a good feedback.
The applications that interact with the cloud environment will also be a part of the hybrid application and will thus, play a major role in shaping the development of the QA and Software Testing industry. In the recent years, the world has observed substantial investments on the cloud-architecture based platforms with the help of AWS (Amazon Web Service) and Cloud Test Lab of Google. With the presence of such big names, there is expected a pressure built-up among the hybrid application developers & testers to deliver excellent applications.
BigData Testing will be BIG
We are sitting atop an explosive amount of BigData today and need to have a very strong strategy around BigData Testing. Testing datasets requires highly analytical tools, techniques, and frameworks, and is an area that is set to grow big. BigData is no more a “Fad” and the amount of data is growing with each passing day at an explosive rate. A strategy around Testing Big data is strongly needed given the rate at which it data is growing. Testing of these datasets involves various tools, techniques and frameworks to process and is going to be one of biggest trend to watch out for.
Automated API & Micro services Testing
The world has observed the evolution of API & Micro Services as a result of the digital disruption. Several large-scale companies are asking for effective API & Micro Services testing strategies. The major issues in the current times are limited tool sets that offer capabilities to test API & Micro Services. The main question here is how to setup automated verification for data completeness, ensure quality and responsiveness. As such, the QA and software testers needs to be highly surgical with respect to API testing with a light & careful approach.
These were some of the important trends in the QA and software testing industry.
Kindly do let us know what do you think about these or share your thoughts related to any other trends you feel are not included.
Please feel free to share your story and any lessons you learned, you experienced, you came across in your life in the comments below.
Thoughts To Inspire 