Author: Yogesh Kumar Gupta

Testing an application is a hectic task. Irrespective of pre-discussions with stakeholders and working on issues like testing the functionality and performance, there are several things that delay the software development process. In order to make sure that there is no impact on the overall user experience.

4 top challenges that prohibit testers from performing at their best.

1. Setting unclear goals or making last-moment changes

It’s one of the major hurdles faced by the quality team when product managers change the requirements mid-sprint without considering the consequences.

Challenge – Not defining the measurable success criteria in the first place makes the team frustrated.

Consequence – New requests or changes lead to restarting the testing process from the beginning, killing a lot of time.

Truth – The slightest change can lead to retrying the whole extent of testing and makes a delay in deadlines to deliver the best results.

Resolution – Setting clear goals with measurable success criteria beforehand would help the testing team to run the process smoothly without any unwanted delays.

2. Lack of Communication

Communication gaps between the testing team and product managers/stakeholders are another major concern that creates turbulence in the testing process.

Challenge – Inadequate communication while conveying the software requirements, roadmaps, business challenges, hurdles, etc.

Consequence – These gaps can create confusion in the software development process and delay accurate testing. Eventually, such delays will hamper the client’s business success.

Truth – A communication gap can happen due to several reasons such as differences in time zones between the client and service provider, sudden role changes in the stakeholders or product managers, etc.

Resolution – The managers and stakeholders need to understand the working of quality engineers as they can formulate adequately unless they are clear about the technical and business requirements.

Hence, development and testing teams need to collaborate at regular intervals keeping the preferred time zones in mind in the presence of the product head and client to ensure everyone is on the same page.

3. Delays in decision-making from client/stakeholders

It’s one of the biggest hurdles experienced by the testing team.

Challenge – Whenever an issue is raised in favor or against the development of the software, the response (final decision) from the stakeholder takes longer than expected time.

Consequence – Delays in accurate and quick decisions create unnecessary additional risks in testing issues and impact the development of the application.

Truth – Quick decision-making skills help to settle matters that arise with developers and negotiate with stakeholders on the testing scope, deadlines, costs, and priorities.

Resolution – The product managers and stakeholders should contribute to ensuring quick, active, and effective decision-making with regular meetings along with the quality and testing teams.

4. Bringing the testing process too late in the game

The biggest challenge occurs when the testing team gets last-minute requests from clients.

Challenge – Most of the time, clients request us to perform application testing quite later than ideally, it should be.

Consequence – Bringing us late in the testing process makes the software testing process a time constraint, making it difficult to give 100% desired results. When tester get a short time frame to test the development of an application, it can go against the business specifications.

Truth – The client and stakeholders must understand that testing and debugging time can never be underestimated. Testing and debugging take 50% of the development process. Sometimes it takes more than expected.

Resolution – It’s important to have a plan in place to deal with such time constraints. Ideally, the testing must be introduced in the first phase of its development process.

Final words

There are several other challenges that could hamper the testing process. Resolving the above-mentioned challenges would not only make the process of testing easier but it will streamline the software development process in everyone’s favor. By adhering to the right practices and understanding the concerns of the testing team, it would be easier for us to ensure the clients that their products meet all business needs and functions in the best possible way.

Read also Uncover the hidden bugs with Non-Functional Testing.

1. Not having a strategy in place. Keep it simple but have it in place.

A test plan outlines the scope, strategy, approach, and resources of a software testing project. Starting without specific strategies or a test plan in place can prove to be detrimental to the entire venture since a test plan brings organization and order into the testing project.

While beginners mainly focus on the execution part rather than the preparation, veterans can vouch that a test plan makes the layout infinitely easier to grasp. A clear strategy will allow you to have an accurate route of the testing project in mind, and also to keep track of the test cases you need to execute. It is, fundamentally, the game plan of the entire project.

2. Not outlining the scope in clarity

In starting, it is often easy to overlook the need to specify the details. Software testing is a process with a lot of variety nested in it. Different kinds of software testing practices have particular utilities and scopes of operation. Therefore, it becomes essential for a software testing plan to delineate the scope of the software testing, to make the utility of the operation more specific.

The idea behind specifically defining the scope is to ensure that everyone on the software testing team is on the same page. A pivotal role in this is played by the clear definition of an objective and a strategy.

3. Timeline Vs Quality tradeoffs.

No matter what the nature of the software is, certain tradeoffs are inevitable to balance out the product and the resources available to construct it. For example, the timeline, the features that can be put into the product, the quality of said features, and the product overall, everything should be balanced when it comes to prioritizing. Failing to accurately gauge the weight of each product element, and the consequent revisions to the product will mean an overall decrease in the product’s utility and quality.

4. Making testing Non-functional aspects an afterthought or letting go because of budget constraints

The objective of software testing services is to find and rectify as many rectifiable elements as possible. Not testing non-functional aspects and only concentrating on one section of the software can become a huge impediment in carrying out a comprehensive software testing project. If the objective is clear, it becomes obvious that repeating the same test cases will not yield any innovative results.

Leaving the Non-functional aspects to be tested later will mean that the testing is skewed in a partial direction and is missing a wide-ranging assessment. To gauge how the tested software would pan out in real-world usage, both Functional and Non-functional aspects need to be tested with equal emphasis.

5. Not factoring in your target audience’s ecosystem

When you are designing a software testing project, the test cases you include can often be representative of a single aspect of software operations. So, for example, while you may know how the product behaves in a certain environment, correctly gauging the product’s behavior in the user’s environment is going to be a different ball game altogether. Therefore, overlooking the specific environment of your ultimate target audience can be a grave mistake that beginners are prone to.

Ideally, what you can do is integrate UAT, or User Acceptance Testing, in the software testing strategy. UAT is a terminal-stage software testing process, where a sample of the target audience tests the ultimate usability and behavior of the product in a real-world environment.

6. Not baselining and/or updating your regression suite and strategy

While the entirety of the software testing process holds equal importance in delivering the perfect product, missing out on the most fundamental steps can certainly hinder the efficiency and output of the process. Baseline testing is one such fundamental process in software testing, which can resolve several preliminary issues before you launch the actual software testing process. It functions as a referral point for subsequent testing.

Post the baseline test, the baseline and the test results are analyzed comparatively. The objective is to figure out whether the product is functioning as per expectations. Without a baseline test, the development team will probably move on without correctly gauging the pre-existing problems. Besides, it is not uncommon for the User Acceptance Test to redline many easily avoidable issues in case of a skipped-over baseline test.

7. Believing all/most documentation is unnecessary

While excessive documentation can often act as a cumbersome addition to a software testing plan, not all documentation and records are unnecessary. Designing a comprehensive test plan or a baseline strategy are both primarily documentation-oriented software testing operations. However, these are vital steps in the software testing process that can prove extremely detrimental to the quality of the product if neglected.

A common mistake for beginners is to consider all kinds of documentation to be dead weight in a software testing environment. But giving in to this misconception can be counterproductive in terms of the quality and functionality of the product.

8. Not measuring the quality of your testing

The objective of the software tests is to ensure that the end product is of the expected quality, and the software test combines many steps and processes to ensure that. However, a common rookie mistake is to blindly trust the textbook infallibility of the software testing process itself.

Engaging QA experts in the software testing process alone does not necessarily mean that the test itself has a completely comprehensive design. Quality checking your test plan is an integral part of ensuring that the test results come out as exhaustive and dependable. Designing a high-quality software test is key to delivering high-quality software.

Read also software testing practices you need to quit now!

1. Sticking to the 100% test case coverage. Need to follow risk-based testing/ exploratory testing.

Although test case coverage and exploratory testing are complementary to each other, sticking to test case coverage wholly can dilute the effectiveness of software testing. Whereas test case-based testing uses a specific condition set to run the software, exploratory testing is highly adaptive.

Exploratory testing allows the test team’s functional involvement in creating a test charter so that specific areas of the software can be explored. Moreover, test case-based testing is only efficient when test cases are replicated, making it difficult to troubleshoot in many generalized contexts. Hence, unlike the test case, exploratory testing is risk-based, drawing attention to high-defect portions that need to be examined.

2. Not evolving the traditional STLC and adopting Agile Testing

Agile Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC) is emerging as the more competent alternative to the traditional STLC software development packages. The new Agile STLC model follows a non-sequential software development model that prioritizes efficiency and quality. Traditional models such as Spiral, Iterative, V-shaped, or Waterfall models, follow a fixed and inflexible flowchart that necessitates hierarchical stages.

Agile testing enters the picture as an upgrade on traditional STLC testing. Circumventing rigidly defined testing models, it invests more resources into pair testing and unit testing automation. Hence, testing what is ready as and when available instead of waiting for the sequential green signal will prove substantially more productive.

3. Need to drop formal communication and adopt cadence-driven communication

The software development process requires the coordination of a number of moving bits and pieces. Fostering a smooth communication flow between the software development team and the software testing team is key to avoiding delays in the development or testing processes.

The traditional practice of raising a ticket on a bug found in the software can restrict the smooth operation of the coordinating parts, and what is necessary is cadence-driven communication instead of technicality-driven communication. Smooth formal communication is essential to the entire software development and testing infrastructure, and adequately communicative written conveyance is often the most effective means of it.

4. Not every testing artifact may be important and should opt for leaner, simpler, and project-specific artifacts

Bulky test plans and convoluted to-do lists can end up causing more confusion than they solve. The software testing process requires leaner and simple plans to make it clutter-free and time-saving.

Simplifying the intermediate processes, by letting go of redundant document production like dependency log allows the entire process to shrug off a lot of unnecessary dead weightage. In turn, it speeds up the testing and corrective process. Clear identification of the necessary paperwork, meticulous updating of the status, and continuous monitoring of the output are possible with a leaner project design specialized in heightening efficiency.

Read also 8 Rookie mistakes in software testing that should be avoided.

What is “Knowledge,” and How should you save it?

Knowledge has always been one of the most significant components in the performance of any organization. It is a critical strategic asset for organizations to maintain a standard of delivery and competitive advantage. Knowledge is a fundamental organizational resource that should be saved and harnessed.

Organizations utilize Knowledge Management (KM) strategies to identify, generate, and disseminate knowledge for reuse, awareness, and learning within their business.

In the testing lifecycle, certain stages heavily benefit from having a KM in place:

• At the start of a project, acceleration, preparation due to pre-existing test plans, a list of risks, and to-dos written for similar applications are saved with relevant tags in your repository.
• With every resource transition, an onboarding and off-boarding kit are to ensure easy knowledge transfer as well as capturing for retention.
• At critical junctures, market releases, production issues, etc., have a repository of lessons learned and testing strategies at your disposal.

We need to identify the above scenarios to know what knowledge we need to tag, collect, and effectively share across the organization with an efficient cadence.

Here are some critical aspects of Knowledge Management

With knowledge management, users can quickly respond to interaction records and look for issues in connected interactions. Organizations need to:

• Determine which team members can manage the knowledge base and create a RACI matrix.
• Discuss the customer’s requirements, the framework’s structure, and folders with all other internal stakeholders.
• To control knowledge base access, add new records produced throughout the testing process, such as execution reports and defect reports.
• To regularly review and update current documents, such as test metrics.
  To check the knowledge base frequently to prevent the addition of any undesirable information removing duplicate records.
• To get the updated papers approved by the client team.
• To offer suggestions for enhancing the repository.

What are the Obstacles in Knowledge Management?

In the Strategic Knowledge Management Handbook, Arun Hariharan, CEO of The CPi Coach and a knowledge management practitioner, claimed that the main problem is organizations’ misconception that KM is solely about technology. Some of the main obstacles are as follows:

• Lack of Culture

The absence of organizational culture and framework to support KM is one of the main obstacles.

• Lack of Awareness

The process of knowledge management is intricate. A lack of understanding of knowledge management can make it difficult to define, gather, and distribute internal knowledge.

• Lack of Process

The goals of KM are to collect, organize, and share knowledge. The fact that knowledge management doesn’t interface well with other business operations is one of its issues. This issue may result in a lack of visibility, making it challenging for businesses to reap the benefits of their efforts in knowledge management.

• Lack of Structure

How to assure consistency is one of knowledge management’s most challenging issues. Wasted time and effort might result from the absence of a framework and standards.

What are the Pillars of a decent Knowledge Management framework?

Arun Hariharan continues his study by saying that four categories of factors or the four pillars of knowledge management could produce significant and long-lasting benefits. They are as follows:

• Leadership, people, and culture
• Keeping KM relevant to your business
• Measurement of KM
• Standardized KM processes and technology.

What is the Classification of Knowledge Management?

For engagement, two types of knowledge need to be recognized and saved.

1. Technical: The testing artifacts produced throughout a project.

E.g., Test cases, plans, analytics, risk registers, and issue logs.

2. Functional: Expertise in the application’s domain and core functions.

E.g., Knowledge-sharing sessions, query logs, and operational requirements.

Let’s look at the must-have knowledge in your repository

Onboarding Kit

Create an onboarding kit for employees. It should contain all the functional and technical knowledge articles of a project for quicker onboarding of resources.

Test Plan

The test document is the foundation upon which the QA team’s actions are carried out and organized. It can be viewed as a guide for carrying out any necessary testing to ensure the procedure is operating as intended. It is a carefully constructed dynamic document that adapts as the project moves along and is always guaranteed to be up-to-date.

Testing Objectives and Priorities.

The test strategy, objectives, timetables, projections, deadlines, and resources needed to complete the specific project are all included in the test plan, which is a thorough documentation of all of these elements.

Test Metrics

State Test Metrics Clearly, such as information on testing equipment, technology, and browsers.
Examples of test data are Usernames, passwords, and input data.

The team can develop RACI Matrix and perform Risk Analysis. The unit can create a carefully constructed dynamic document that adapts as the project moves along and is always guaranteed to be up-to-date.

Steps to Implement a Knowledge Management Program at an Organization

The procedures listed below will assist a company in making plans for typical problems while lowering risk and increasing benefits.

Step 1 – Set up Objectives for Knowledge Base

It is essential to establish the objectives and procedures for selecting knowledge, updating it, sharing it, and developing the KM before deciding on a project’s optimal knowledge management strategy. So, set up the objectives for the Knowledge Base.

Step 2 – Prepare for Change

When businesses establish a new knowledge management base, there may be strong opposition to change. Thus, it’s crucial to have the workforce ready for a change to avoid negativity. Be inclusive of setting up a RACI.

Step 3 – Establish and Prioritize Technical Needs

The knowledge management tool industry is massive; hence, establishing the team’s technical needs with the right KM tool is essential.

Step 7 – Implementation and Share

Collect, save and tag the knowledge in the repository as per the current state and initiate the sharing processes according to the agreed-upon cadence.

Step 8 – Maintain and Measure effectiveness for Knowledge Management

Constantly upgrade the KM and check the efficacy periodically.

Final Thoughts

Although knowledge management can help promote information transfer across teams and individuals, its success also depends on user adoption. As a result, businesses shouldn’t undervalue people’s role in knowledge management success.

Defect management is one of the most crucial elements of any procedure or project. The best defect in the world of defect management is the one that never materializes. The adage “prevention is better than treatment” is quite well known.

However, organizations should consider how they can easily manage defects until they reach perfection in their product development teams, tools, and processes. Understanding a defect in the software testing industry is essential to know how to handle and manage one effectively.

What is a Software Testing Defect?

A software defect is a coding mistake that results in inaccurate or unexpected outcomes from a software program that doesn’t adhere to the specifications as intended. A change or deviation of the software application from the end user’s demand or the original business requirements is referred to as a “defect” in software testing.

These two names are similar and sometimes used interchangeably by testing teams because both represent defects that need rectification in the industry.

A Defect Management Process: What is it?

The cornerstone of software testing is the defect management procedure. The most important task for every firm when problems are found is to address them. These are addressed to everyone involved in the process, not just the testing teams.

The defect management process is where most organizations manage defect identification, defect elimination, and process improvement. Nobody can create software without errors; hence, a defect management procedure must always be in place.

Defect prevention, early defect detection, and impact mitigation are the three main objectives of the defect management process.

What is the Significance of Reporting Defects?

Defect reporting facilitates more transparent communication, detailed tracking, and an explanation of defects. To get feedback on the defect management procedure and the status of the shortcomings, software testing managers frequently produce and deliver defect reports to the management team. The management team reviews the problem report and offers as-needed feedback or additional assistance.

All management teams should know the fault status. They must be familiar with the defect management process to help their teams with the project. As a result, to receive feedback from them, a manager must inform them of the current defect situation, which is an additional way to ensure that your team and management are all on the same page.

What are the Objectives of the Defect Management Process (DMP)?

The objectives of any defect management procedure are as follows:

• Eliminate the flaw
• Early recognition
• Reduce the effect
• Correction of the flaw
• Process optimization

Defect Management Life Cycle

One step in tackling the issue is understanding what a flaw is and how the defect cycle operates. The second and most crucial step is ensuring everyone on your team is committed to finding a solution. It cannot be very comforting to manage different people at different levels of work. At that point, keeping everyone informed of what is happening and at what stage becomes crucial.

To establish a sound defect management procedure while maintaining team cohesion, follow these steps:

1. Identification of the Flaw

Before it is delivered to the client or end-user, your project team will go through this process to find as many flaws as possible. What would you do as a manager in this situation, where the tester confirms a flaw, but the developer disagrees?

This scenario’s wisest course of action is keeping the command in your hands. This strategy is for managing and resolving a potential dispute among team members. Whether or not an issue or flaw exists should be determined by the team.

2. Categorization

When a defect is classified, it makes it easier for the software developer to prioritize tasks, which is essential for addressing any critical or urgent shortcomings. The test manager should always be in charge of this phase. A test manager would be the best candidate to recognize and communicate which defects require immediate and additional attention.

3. Correction of Errors with Prioritization

Defect resolution in software testing is the practice of gradually fixing problems. A developer is first assigned a fault, given a priority schedule for rectification and fixing, and sent a resolution report to the test manager. The tracking and resolution of issues are made more accessible by this process.

To avoid misunderstandings, you should pay close attention to each step in this process and label it appropriately. For instance, you should immediately update the defect’s status from assigning to responding after it has been given to the developer. Similarly, change its status to the next level when the following scheduling step is finished.

No one would need to rely on a single person for updates because the status will be changed and updated, ensuring that the entire team knows what and how the defect management process is operating.

4. Verification

The testing team would be notified of the issue and asked to re-verify it when the development team, or the developer, has resolved it. If the flaws are fixed in this situation, the process continues to the next phase; otherwise, you might need to repeat the previous procedures.

5. Closure

If all goes according to plan and the issue is fixed, the defect will be designated closed. Remember, as a manager, to only mark it resolved after double-checking it; otherwise, it would be much more troublesome if the fault reappeared after the ticket was closed.

Quick Wrap Up

It would be great to evaluate your defect management process and work toward a zero-defect goal during some of your team’s free time.

• The defect management process would increase trust that you ask your employees to check everything before it moves on to the next stage and someone else figures it out.

• The defect management process would keep your employees busy, so they would work together to solve problems more efficiently and effectively.

All clients do have a foremost and pertinent question- How soon can Crestech start the partnership journey?

We at Crestech have developed an environment to move fast and start the journey as soon as the next day. Our multiple departments work in sync and in parallel to fast-track the alignment of the right people for your testing needs.

We constantly deliver on our promises by offering experts, who are adept in their respective domain and are not learning at the cost of the Client, reacting beforehand to the foreseen or expected roadblocks in the journey ahead.

Legal Formalities

We understand that when our client is ready to take the next step, the legal formalities for initiating the Project has to be completed to the satisfaction of the client and full compliance to the law of the land.

The processes & resources at Crestech have gone through this journey multiple times and we quickly and mostly without any issues/concerns, get these in place immediately by aligning with our client’s legal terms. This journey is initiated beforehand so as to ensure that the Client’s requirements and Crestech obligations are expressed unambiguously and fulfilled at the earliest.

Project Initiation

Project journey initiation at Crestech is from the very first step when the client contacts us. While the client is still discussing the details of the engagement, we, working in the background, are silently planning and identifying the processes & resources and their scheduling, acquiring the project management infrastructure so that the Project is completed expeditiously to the satisfaction of the client. Crestech strongly values creating stakeholder alignment so as to successfully deliver the Project within the deadline.

Core Team on Boarding and Kickoff

While the legal formalities are being taken care, we are already working on onboarding the core team for detailed understanding on the requirements of the client and allocating different milestones to the core team so that by the time Kickoff happens we are already are deeply involved in the Project. The core team will expend resources and time creating stakeholder alignment. Core team typically begins with the identification of the team members and ensuring that the project team has sufficient information to begin developing a detailed roadmap, schedule and a detailed budget for efficient tracking

Scaling Up and Down

The knowledge, skills, and experience needed on the project varies at each stage.

With an effective demand management framework which predicts the skill and volume requirements based of the long and short term testing strategies, we are able to scale up or down dynamically.

We make sure we are fully aware of the Project dynamics all the time hence ensuring resources allocation/ ramp down well in time.

At Crestech, all departments work in collaboration to ensure that our client’s requirements are clearly understood and the understanding disseminated to all concerned resources while simultaneously on-boarding and aligning them. Our speedy response ensures that the client’s internal processes such as vendor on-boarding, project initiation etc. never waits for inputs from Crestech. We make sure that the ball is never in our court for longer than a few hours.

Here are the 3 essential ways a testing team contributes.

A tester’s role in the development of software has always been well established. But their pivotal and much bigger role as team integrators often goes unnoticed. In fact, the tester has to play multiple roles which are much wider than the on-ground testing to ensure that the product meets the satisfaction of clients, and a synergy is maintained within the team on “what client wants”.

The testers are the advocate of the Product Owner, liaison of the development team, and share the vision of the business team whilst understanding the technical hiccups of the development team.

Hence they are the best people to ensure that technology is able to meet the required functionality by addressing issues related to people, processes and tools.

To ensure that the Integrated QA works well, there are 3 essential points where your QA teams need to integrate well.

The 3 important roles played by QA teams

As A Bridge between BAs and Developers

QA team has the unique advantage of being at the cusp of technology and business. Although it is the role of the BAs to translate the business team’s needs to technical specifications for the developer team, the QA team can support them by bridging the communication gap between the BAs and the developers and bringing everyone to a common understanding of the requirement. Eg. When is considered to be done? What is its acceptable way of working and filling any gaps in the user stories which might leave room for misinterpretations technically?

Below are some ways this can be achieved i.e when the QA Team plays an important role in the following:

• Defining the Definition of Done: The Definition of Done (DoD) will include the criteria and conditions that a software feature has to meet so that it is acceptable to the consumer. When the feature reaches that stage of ‘quality’, it would mean that it can be released without further development or testing. QA testers understand the DoD from the BA, help developers to understand and assess it as feature details, and finally ensure during testing that the DoD is satisfactorily met.

• Setting the Acceptance Criteria: Setting Acceptance criteria would mean setting the lowest level of functional as well as non-functional requirements. They are the unique conditions that the software product must meet for each user story. They are the definition of acceptable feature behaviour from the business, customer or user perspective. QA Testers have an understanding of this perspective and while testing the product they ensure that the acceptance criteria are met. 

• Determine the Definition of Ready: As QA Testers have an understanding of business needs better than the developers, they are in a position to determine if the product is complete and ready for testing. As the bridge between the BA and the developers, even before the testing is started, they ensure that the functionalities required are met. Only when they feel that the product is done and ready for testing is it when they start their testing process. 

Guard Quality: Play End User’s Representatives

The most overlooked features of the software product may actually be the defining factor of user experience!

QA Tester plays the role of the representative of the end user and understands what is important for the customer and thus avoids the above from happening. Users do not care about how many rounds of testing have been run on the software product, they only care about the product experience they get. Few things the QA testers do to ensure alignment with end customers include –

• Understanding real-time scenarios that customer is likely to face to comprehend the user behaviour and implementing testing as per that.
• Adopt the perspective of the end user to understand what can lead to their satisfaction by attempting to explore situations where users are prone to face errors. This will help in effective error identification.
• Walk in the shoes of the customer to come across the real “environments” of the end user under which the application might be used and test the software product accordingly.

SME on the Product & its Functionality

Great QA Testers evolve into being the one-stop shop for every functional knowledge about the product:

• How the product works,
• Each business rule and the probable impact of making any change to it,
• Each repeated issue and its history.
• Which build caused chaos after release and why vs which had the highest quality index?

The key difference between a good tester and a great tester is “ownership”. And hence, the tester who owns the quality of the product tends to dig deep and attain extensive knowledge about the product and its lifecycle. This gives them the unique role of being an Advisor to the Product Owner/ Manager or the knowledge SME whenever needed.

Now let’s look at some best Ways a tester can ensure that they are able to integrate this well:

• Have Consistent Communication with all stakeholders to ensure that all the teams have a clear idea of the expectations and the business expectations are correctly and completely translated into technical requirements. Gap Analysis, Static Testing and establishing RTMs are some great tools to do this.
• Ensure that the BA/ Product Owner, the testers and the developers are aligned with the priorities at all times. This can be established by regular discussions on bottlenecks and status. The teams can also meet periodically for further planning, clarification and discussion of stories to help the m be on track.
• Knowledge exchange between the teams is also vital between teams. There are several ways of doing this such as project artefacts, periodic sessions and more.

Conclusion

The need of the hour is Integrated QA. Successful integration can only happen if the QA testers play the 3 crucial roles that they are supposed to play in this integration and perform their best in their role to create a high-quality product that will match the requirement of the customer, leading to satisfaction.

Read also Knowledge Management and QA.

5 Ways to track quality and trust the delivery

Your relationship with your Quality Partner will only meet with success if you are able to trust their delivery. This is especially true in the current era where quality is at the core of how your customers will perceive your product. When you hire a partner to gatekeep quality of your product, you will not only expect them to take care of the basic responsibilities but also look for a defined level of commitment which allows you to put your trust in them.

So, how do you establish that your Quality Partner is trustworthy?

As a customer, you would like to get the maximum success of your product and would look for a partner who will help you achieve this. So a partner should give you more for your buck. They should give you valuable suggestions and feedback. They should be sensitive to your timelines, budgetary requirements and goals. And most importantly should have an open line of communication with your company.

Mentioned below are 5 ways in which you can measure the above key factors of partnership.

1. Understanding your end objectives and being able to translate them to measurable success criteria

Needless to say, when you partner with any company, you will have an end goal in your mind. It is crucial for your partner to be able to understand the goal and be able to list out the objectives which need to be achieved to optimize your product’s chances of success.

A few basic parameters which they will need to focus on are:

• Defining the short term, as well as the long term goal. E.g: Increase automation coverage/ Faster roll outs/ Reduction in production leakages.

• What will make this engagement a success? At least 80% automation coverage/ 40% reduction in time to market etc.

• Key challenges in achieving the short term and long term goals and mitigation plans.

• And adherence to timeline and budget.

Once they understand the above, then the partner can craft a solution catered to your needs specifically and translate the objectives into measurable success criteria to be able to monitor, evaluate, and optimize delivery performance. E.g: Understanding that poor end user experience due to deteriorating quality of shipped builds is caused by inadequate device coverage or lesser than optimal regression coverage etc.

2. Establishing metrics and tracking work against the success criteria of the product and project

Depending on your specific product and engagement type, you will want to set some metrics that will help in measuring success criteria. Some of the type of metrics which you may want to monitor includes:

Focused on Product Health

Focused on Engagement Health

• Scope and Time Variance
• Test Coverage Per Release/ Sprint
• Defect Relevance Per Release/Sprint
• Total Cost of Testing/ ‘defined period’
• Time to Market Reduction etc.

3. Agreeing on an initial Service Level Baseline

While defining the metrics is of paramount importance, it is also essential to set a value for the corresponding indicators and know if the desired state of health is being achieved or not. This can only begin if we establish the baseline values. To be able to do so, an initial baseline Service Level Agreement (SLA) is agreed upon.

A Baseline Service Level Agreement will let you specify the delivery objectives in relation to historical measurement data available or establish new ones in collaboration with your Quality partner.

E.g. : Forward requirement traceability is at 90% currently (baselined) and desired state is 100%.

4. Optimize on SLAs continuously

While a partner may perform well against the baseline a partner should look at improving and optimizing the SLAs continuously. A Quality Partner should review an SLA and include changes that can result in improving desired objectives. This is essential to be able to meet service level targets and avoid non-compliance with SLA. The IDEAL model defined below can be used then for implementing the process improvement:

I: Initiating the implementation process

D: Diagnosing what it is currently

E: Establishing a new plan for testing

A: Acting on implementing the plan

L: Learning from the process improvements implemented

5. Ensure the “Total Cost of Testing” is reduced while optimizing.

During the optimization process, an important aspect that can be looked into is reducing the total cost of testing. The cost and time associated with QA software testing services are very valuable and hence it is important to figure out ways of optimizing software testing to reduce cost. There are several ways by which this can be achieved such as:

• Detecting bugs as early as possible to minimize defect leakage reduces fix and remediation costs.
• Automate testing wherever it is possible.
• Effective utilization of tools.
• Simplifying Test Reports.
• Continuous integration by all stakeholders on a daily basis can help in the early detection of defects.
• Setting and measuring metrics that measure quality deliverance.

Conclusion

A trustworthy partner goes along on the journey of building a great product with you and proves their intent time and again. This partner has a clear understanding of expectations, is committed to certain delivery standards and is completely transparent in their delivery.

Let’s face it, the web and application development industry is continuously pushing thousands, even millions of products each year. Not a lot of these undergo testing! Thankfully, there are companies that value the quality of their products and solutions and hire application testing agencies. For those that don’t know, application testing is done to enhance your app, save development time, etc.

At Crestech Software, we deliver happy experiences for our clients and team with our quality Software Testing services. 16 years in business, 1600 successful projects, 400 customers, and a team of 200 good people. We have built our legacy on the foundation of positive experiences and customer satisfaction.

Today, our team is honored to share with you that Clutch has recently named us as one of the game changers in India’s application testing space. It is always great to be featured as one of the best on Clutch. For those that haven’t heard of them yet, they are an established platform in the heart of Washington, DC, committed to helping small, mid-market, and enterprise businesses identify and connect with the service providers they need to achieve their goals.

Apart from being named as a game-changer by Clutch, we are also proud of the reviews we’ve received from our clients on this platform. Here are some of our favorites:

“Together we delivered 2 new product launches and multiple mini-projects during the period of 18+ months of the engagement tenure. We worked together and remained flexible to make sure both the parties succeed and the end goals were achieved. Their ownership mentality and focus on quality are impressive.” QA Manager at XSEED Education, Kaushal Mishra

“We identified many bottlenecks which helped us in improving user experience and planning for future scalability. The project manager was a single point of contact. There were defined meetings and a communication plan. We like the project management and technical expertise of the team.” CTO of pCloudy, Avinash Tiwari

We wouldn’t be here without our clients! These awards and accolades wouldn’t be possible without your support. Thank you for believing in us and in our ability to deliver incredible solutions and services for your business. 

Lastly, we would like to extend our gratitude to our team. Thank you for always bringing the best services to our clients. Your passion and dedication have been the hallmark of our services.

Get in touch with us! Let us know how we can help you today.