5 Things Companies Miss Out While Aiming For a Top-notch Product
With a strong desire to deliver a flawless software product faster, companies do their best to introduce a quality assurance function in the project.
However, not all of them know how to do it the right way. Many companies hire QA engineers once the development starts (or even later), entrust them with testing, and expect them to contribute to delivering an impeccable software to the market.
Does this sound like you? Then don’t be surprised by the possible failure of your product.
Why? Because quality is not only about finding and fixing defects in the application but also about validating the requirements and design and looking for possible bottlenecks and preventing them.
With the Shift Left QA approach, the idea of testing has changed. It is no more about finding mistakes; it is about ensuring project team members don’t make them in the first place.
Sounds idealistic and complicated to implement, right? It’s not.
Companies don’t have to innovate all the time and create brand new technologies, they just need to find the missing pieces and put them together.
Let’s go through some things companies forget about when they introduce QA in their projects.
#1. Requirements testing
Comprehensive requirements cover all the desired pieces of functionality and help you avoid work duplication. When different people are tasked with requirements preparation, it can lead to inconsistencies.
However, even one business analyst can overlook some aspects, especially when documenting different functionalities. A thorough QA view can identify all possible bottlenecks and inconsistencies and make sure the development kicks off on a solid basis.
#2. Customer experience testing
With a complex system, it is vital to ensure everything is planned properly. The later you find discrepancies in the design, the more they will cost you.
Usability is also a key parameter in business success. End users might leave the application despite the fact that it’s of value to them.
If your software design looks pretty, but the buttons are hard to tap, pages are hard to navigate, all essential info is hidden in a small area of the screen, and it is challenging to follow the scenarios that the business needs, there is no surprise clients want to close it and go to a competitor.
Prototype and usability testing will help you avoid redesigning at the development or release stages and keep your customers.
The last but not the least thing to do is to live the customer journey, which can help QA specialists understand the software product from the customer’s point of view and provide accurate results.
#3. Acceptance testing
Acceptance testing is an important part of the release process. Even if all the features have been thoroughly tested manually, it is vital to take a bird’s-eye view from the end-user perspective and make sure that there are no missing pieces.
This testing can be performed by the internal management team or real users, based on user acceptance testing (UAT) scripts, or ad-hoc.
Acceptance testing allows exploration of the software not as a part of the development process, but as a real application. Without this stage, the big picture can be missed and even though the software may have passed the QA checks, it might not comply with user expectations.
#4. QA approach customization
Each project has its specifics: Domain, end users and their expectations, deadlines, complexity, etc. Without taking these aspects into account, you’re risking getting a distorted view of the quality, overpaying for the QA services, and missing critical defects.
Does a mobile game need security testing? Does an internal CRM system need performance testing? Is it needed to cover UI tests by automation scripts, and what is the ratio? Will emerging technologies (like AI, ML in test automation) bring value or make QA solution overpriced?
You already have the answer, I believe.
It all depends on the mobile game, CRM system, and the banking software, so don’t be in a hurry. There is never just one right answer until you study your product properly.
#5. Thorough QA team selection
Let’s imagine you know exactly what types of testing your software product needs. Let’s assume these are test automation, security, usability, and functional testing.
What comes next?
You may think it’s better to hire separate teams for each testing type or even multiple teams from different vendors.
But what is the bottleneck here? No customization. Yes, again!
If you bring separate teams, you’d have to get all of them to dive deeply into the product and spend time on investigation. If this stage is not performed rigorously, you may get a standardized testing service without any attention to the specifics of your software.
How do you avoid this?
Find a team that is dedicated to your project and can perform all types of testing. They will know your software inside out, so they’ll be able to customize testing solutions and make a test plan that suits you well.
Full-cycle testing to complete missing pieces
It may seem problematic to define the scope of QA activities, introduce testing at every stage of the development process, find a suitable QA team, and customize the QA approach. However, all of this can be resolved with a single solution.
Full-cycle testing combines QA activities required by your product. It is based on the team’s dedication towards and deep knowledge of the software, combined with introducing QA throughout all SDLC stages. With this focus, it becomes possible to find the right solutions for the QA plan and build a tailored set of services for the product’s needs.
The main advantage of full-cycle approach is that responsibility for the quality of the product is fully handed over to the QA team, whilst you can focus on business goals and values.
The dedicated team thoroughly studies the product, decides which activities to introduce and when, and controls the status of the product throughout all preparation, development, and release stages. It makes testing cost-effective and assures there are no missing defects, be it a wrongly built system architecture or bad navigation on the website.
However, it is always hard to entrust your product quality to a single team. To increase the transparency and be able to hand over all QA activities to the full-cycle testing team, make an agreement on the types and frequency of test reports. It can be a specific testing type report, build/release report, daily/monthly status, or whatever else that will make you feel confident that your software is moving in the right direction.
To better control the results of testing, oblige your team to share KPI reports. It will show you the progress, ensure that the team is constantly improving processes and their work and that quality assurance aligns with the business goals.
Introducing full-cycle testing to your project and finding the right partner to perform QA activities, you will get painless rollouts and be sure your software is built as it was intended to be.
