“Bugs in your product are a symptom of bugs in your process–if you focus on fire prevention, you’ll reduce the need to fight fires” – Henrik Kniberg, Lean from the Trenches: Managing Large Scale Projects.
QA is a non-negotiable aspect of software development that, if taken for granted, can lead to disastrous product releases. It is wrong to consider defect density as the only step that defines customer experience (CX). There are other test planning and execution elements that should also be carefully considered for cumulative quality assurance pertaining to the CX. These include choosing the right app testing techniques and agile testing tools such as Kualitee for deliberate review of your testing and QA plan -- but never without a highly diligent team.
Software testing teams work harder and smarter to deliver a highly functioning and quality-driven product that gets better after every iteration.
We shall now discuss testing methodologies and practices that inspire software quality assurance engineers (SQAEs) to test as a team and reflect the efficiency in the end-products public release.
Top 6 QA secrets for software testing teams
As a software testing team, you have to brainstorm and plan a lot. So let us help you determine some of the finest QA practices to expedite your testing process in the pursuit of a quality product.
1. Define testing requirements and set targets
Before starting a software testing project, QA professionals must derive the process requirements and end-user expectations. The process usually includes the following aspects:
Customer experience and expectations: Consider recognizing the CX problems your end-users may encounter while using the application, and create user acceptance criteria and a plan to mitigate any potential errors -- through quality assessment and the right testing techniques. This practice allows QA testers to establish the testing methodology centered around the customer’s requirements.
Testing priorities: QA experts should be able to deliberately prioritize the most critical functionality, customer, and business requirements that need integral testing. Moreover, test priorities are set according to the number of customers impacted and the level of urgency that requires prompt delivery of a certain requirement. However, any sort of priority should not neglect other or assumedly less important feature requirements. Agile testing tools are a great help to achieve the right prioritization for a successful testing process.
Defect reporting: The testing team should be clear about the appropriate use of information to report a bug, a code failure, or an undocumented feature for better communication and collaboration among the team.
Communication: There should be an organized communication channel between the QA experts and stakeholders/ clients for clarity of instructions and new information regarding the software development and testing project. For example, if there is a requirement change in the middle of a testing project, it should be communicated across the team right away.
2. Set a clear QA pathway
Determine a proper workflow determining the type of tools and techniques the QA team may use during the testing project. This sets the trajectory right for the team
3. Procure external quality assurance feedbacks
Obtaining second reviews and insights is crucial in software development. As a team lead or stakeholder you can always request another team of QA professionals to assess your software design and code and share their technical evaluation. These external QA experts highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the software in these areas:
- Documentation
- Tech haystack
- System architecture
- Code configuration and repetition
- Use of techniques and tools
- Productivity and pace
You will receive a broad survey and guidelines on what your QA team can do to improve test strategy and execution to deliver a bug-free user experience.
4. Apply multi-dimensional testing strategy
There are so many testing techniques in the lane serving important QA purposes. Do not deprive your business application by sticking to only one methodology. Instead, take advantage of all related QA techniques for bigger benefits and better results.
For example, integrate automated testing to control code quality and detect and fix errors before they sneak into the production stage. While load testing tells your QA team if the app is able to survive any app crashes and bear peak traffic hours.
5. Build a devoted security testing team
It takes one safety vulnerability on a software platform to immediately force out the end-user and abandon that app. To fight such a situation, put in place a team of QA champs for careful security testing on various product patches and updates.
To deliver above-average software-as-a-service (SaaS) experience to the end-users, carefully collect data distributed on servers, and require in-depth security testing performed on each data set before each release.
Prepare and educate your team about potential features and product changes. This will help your team to closely understand the system under test (SUT) from the user’s perspective.
6. Balance quality and speed
Your users seek operational quality from that particular product they use daily. QA is the key process to guarantee quality part. Adhering to a QA process enables testers to consistently conduct app performance reviews. This entails forming a QA framework and choosing the widely-trusted testing and audit methods for composing and running tests.
Speed is another big thing in any software development project. The agile testing tools such as Kualitee help you align and prioritize your quality goals with that of users. Your team then tests as competent testers prioritizing the top test cases and delivering the mission-critical requirements on an earlier basis. Further, the intuitive dashboards of these test management apps keep all the team members in the loop about every new change and enhancement occurring in the testing process.
At the end of the day, test management systems are the center points where quality and speed meet.
These QA secrets are all yours now! So, are you ready to implement them and boost your QA game?
