The Importance of Performance Engineering in an Agile Team with Jeannine Gonyon

This week, Dan Neumann and Justin Thatil are joined by the first-time guest, Jeannine Gonyon, a Performance Engineering Practice Lead at Agile Thought. This episode explores the differences between performance testing and performance engineering, emphasizing the crucial role of Performance Engineering in mitigating unnecessary risks and protecting the Organization’s reputation.

 

Key Takeaways

• Performance Testing and Performance Engineering test:

• Performance testing is the process that follows manual testing. After ensuring the application is working, testing for “non-functional” takes place, which is called performance testing.

• Performance engineering tests go to an extra step of analysis to find out exactly where any kind of optimizations are needed.

• Some Organizations are hesitant to invest in Performance Engineering.

• Some organizations consider Performance Engineering to be a “luxury.”

• Would you take a risk with your reputation? You will if you don’t perform performance testing on your product. Knowing the facts before production is priceless!

• The earlier you do Performance Testing, the more you have the maneuverability to make any changes.

• The costs of Performance testing:

• Performance testing does not happen in a shared environment, which adds a cost.

• There are ways of reducing the costs. You can spin the environment when you need it.

• The cost is manageable if you do it earlier.

• If you do performance testing, the earliest is the best way to mitigate risk (better than spending much money later).

• What is the relationship between Performance Testers and the rest of the Team involved in developing a product?

• Performance testers are technically aligned with manual testers because they need to know when the product is ready for testing.

• Performance testers work closely with the development Team, must be involved with the product owners, and be present at every step of the workflow.

• Performance testers need to know as much about the application as those using it.

• Performance Testing and AI:

• Currently, the engineering part can benefit from using AI tools for analysis in a more casual manner.

• A quick growth of AI tools applied to Performance tests is expected.

• Testing in Production versus Performance Testing: