Has the Need for Performance Testing Been Assessed?

Type: Structure, DeepDive
Category: Test
Audience: QA engineers, performance architects, and reviewers of high-traffic or complex systems

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🔍 What This Perspective Covers

Performance is not a trait.
It’s a commitment—and must be proven.

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⚠️ Common Omissions

• No test plan for API under load, despite expected concurrency
• “Performance” assumed because staging was fast
• DB load patterns not simulated (e.g. long tail, batch updates)
• No thresholds defined: what is “slow”? what is “acceptable”?

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✅ Healthier Performance Design

• Decide: is perf testing needed? when? what endpoints or flows?
• Define load shape: bursty? spiky? sustained?
• Prepare test data to mimic real-world skew
• Measure tail latency and failure rates—not just averages
• Include perf test outcomes in release Go/No-Go

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🧠 Key Principle

Latency isn’t a number.
It’s a contractual boundary that must be honored under pressure.

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❓ FAQ

• Q: Isn’t CI/CD enough to detect slowness?
  A: No. Load must be synthetic, controlled, and scenario-aware.

• Q: What if we can’t test full scale?
  A: Test bottlenecks under partial load with extrapolation.

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🔗 Related Perspectives

• Is Impact Analysis Performed for Critical Changes?
• Is Load Behavior Under Stress Explicitly Tested?
• Are the Acceptance Criteria Clearly Defined?
• Is a Rollback Strategy in Place for Critical Changes?