School Of Basics | What is POC | 5 Steps to do Proof of Concept

hello and welcome to this episode of school of basics today i'm going to discuss about poc or proof of concept now if you have heard this term you may have some idea what exactly is poc and i will tell you five steps how you can actually do a poc and if you have no idea about this term do not worry i'm going to tell you exactly from scratch what is poc now poc stands for proof of concept now what exactly it is whenever we have a new idea new solution or we are thinking about some solution it can be anything if we have to implement a project or we have to start a project we have to start looking for some testing solutions for our project it can be anything let me take a very very simple example suppose you want to do and you want to start automation of your application and you have lots of options you want to see what option will work best for you in that case you can do a poc or proof of concept so in very very simple words we do a analysis on the options or solutions or the ideas we have and we test the options ideas or solutions on four or five basic areas and these are feasibility so i will say feasible viable applicable and practical now these are like synonymous or synonym words so when i say feasible i mean to say whether it is a possible so we look at what is the possibility of this solution or idea when i say viable we talk about workability so how efficient or are we ready to work on the solution or how workable is the idea or the solution based on our current needs our current environment infrastructure all these things then applicable is relates to relevancy or how relevant it is now it can be like sometimes uh we see some solution we see some product or a framework which looks very good it has so much so many features and when we see a demo we we get amazed and we think that this is going to be so much useful for us but then we have to see exactly what are our applications what are what is our platform is this solution be helpful exactly to our user scenarios let me give you a very simple example suppose you are doing web ui testing and you are looking for solutions and platforms or tools for web automation testing now you can see and find so many tools today and you may find some tool or platform with so many good features and options but then you have to think and analyze what is your actual user scenarios it may happen maybe today or down the line that during your testing during your web testing in the middle of the test you may have to go into the database and take out some values from there or check something there you may have to call our api or you may have to do a ftp upload or download during the process does that platform or tool have this feature or capability suppose you want to make some changes or enhance it later on or you want to use your own custom scripts does that solution have the option for you to create your own custom functions or scripts you have to check all this for that solution to be applicable or relevant now when we talk about practical it is more of resources infrastructure application everything comes here so suppose you find a very good solution but is it practical for you do you have the resources who can work on it do you have the people who can maintain it and then the application wise the infrastructure wise everything you have to see so if you see all these are kind of synonymous with each other but these are the basic things that you have to check in a new solution or a new idea or anything that you are discussing or trying to implement now coming to the steps that you will do to create a proof of concept or design a proof of concept step number one will be prove the need so suppose you have found some solution or you have an idea the first thing you have to prove is the actual solution or the idea how much it is needed are we discussing something which is actually not needed and we spent lots of time and effort maybe months of time and effort and then we find out that this is something which we did not actually need or want proof of concept can also be done for new software ideas for example some team or some organization is trying to create some solution or some software before they actually start on it they have to prove the need that this is actually what is required in the market or by the people or by their customers so after we design it will there be people who will use it and will it actually solve the problem so we have to prove the need that is step number one now step number two is problem solution mapping so after you have proved the need for the solution or the idea or the design or whatever you are proposing you have to map the pin points or the problems with the solutions that your idea or the solution will provide so you have to be very specific that this is what i am proposing and these are the pin points these are the problems and this is how it will map to the solution so the solution or idea should have some answers to all the questions or all the problems that you are trying to solve now step number three is prototyping or prototype creation now let us take a very simple example let me come back to our automation testing and here let us say after the first two steps you have finalized one or more solutions or platforms or tools now the next step that is very important will be that you create a small prototype and how do you do that you can take a sample user scenario an actual user scenario which is not very simple and not very complex may be somewhere in between and you try to automate that user scenario with the solution you are proposing or with the platform you are proposing and that should be a good scenario where you can highlight and you can showcase that this solution can take care of all these needs it can go to the ui it can go to the database it can do the api testing or whatever is your need and as per your application and your user scenario so that is a very important step which is prototype and this will actually answer a lot of questions after you build a prototype you can call a team meeting of all the stakeholders and you can showcase the prototype a working solution a small working solution and then they can be question and answers and feedbacks and this will give you so much more clarity and this will make it very very sure that the solution that you are going to use will be a long term solution or not so that is step number three and very important now step number four is create mvp that is minimum viable product and this can be an optional step suppose you are doing an automation framework then this may be uh maybe not required but if you are actually designing a software which will be used by millions of users it can be a very good practice that you create a minimum viable product it is also kind of prototype but it has only the most essential features of the product of the solution and you can actually release it for a small group of people to actually use it now this becomes this may be optional for some projects but can be a very very important steps for large projects and especially if you are creating a software that will be consumed by masses it is a very good idea to first check with a small group the actual group of users that will this be a good solution will it actually help what can be the improvement so that you know exactly what you have to do and then step number five is learnings and roadmap so the last step will be you will take down all the learnings from the earlier steps what you need to change what you need to improve what will be the changes in the solution should you consider some other solutions and what should be the improvements what should be the change based on all the earlier steps what are learnings you have you can document it and then you should also document the roadmap it can be in phases that this is how we plan to do it this is what we will first do design and release and what is the actual roadmap of the entire project this will make so many things clear it will bring a lot of clarity and then after you do this poc and after you complete this proof of concept process you will have so much more clarity everyone in your team will be exactly knowing what we are doing what we wish to do how we have to do it and then also you will find the right solution the right idea and then you can take it forward for a long term success so this is what is all about poc and this is how we do poc or proof of concept i hope this was very useful for you and what is the next topic i should take in the next episode of school of basics you can write it down in the comments section and i hope this was very useful share your knowledge with everyone and never stop learning

Channel: Automation Step by Step

Views: 9,576

Rating: 4.9847908 out of 5

Keywords: what is proof of concept with example, proof of concept sample, how to do proof of concept, stages of poc, how to use proof of concept for test automation, test automation beginner basics, what a test automation engineer should know, role of test automation engineer, role of dev and qa in poc, how to start project, things to check before starting a software project

Id: S05Ha9mTW60

Length: 9min 58sec (598 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021