Effective QA is not made or broken by any one thing. Rather, it’s a combination of all the right stuff: knowledge transfer, skilled engineers, great team culture, and the appropriate testing methodologies. When all of the checkboxes are marked, the result is a successful project and a stronger product that’s ready for market.
But what exactly should we plan to build into our project plan? These seven must-haves will help you plan and execute your project successfully:
Gathering requirements is usually the first step before testing begins, because it helps engineers determine the full scope of the project. If the requirements passed down to your QA team are not crystal clear, they may send a follow-up questionnaire or request for clarification your way. This will help provide a more accurate depiction of project needs and eliminate any retesting or extended testing cycles.
Clear testing requirements inform the testing strategy, which serves to reinforce their importance. A test strategy outlines the type of testing that will need to be performed, the proposed sequence of execution, the priority of each objective, and the right amount of effort to devote to each objective. This helps the QA team lead manage the correct resources efficiently.
The QA team needs to have extensive knowledge of the application or product before beginning testing. Having domain experts on the testing team is an added advantage, as they will know where to look for common but easily overlooked issues. They will also know how to convey issues to the client in correct, domain-specific terminology. Overall, extensive knowledge transfer helps close gaps in testing and reduces the number of post-release defects.
Automating certain time-consuming tasks, such as deployments, test case execution, and reporting, can help slash excess time off of the project schedule. Engineers can thus focus on other tasks that are higher priority or require more intensive QA. Learn the benefits of implementing automation with the rest of your QA services.
Many teams tend to gloss over performance testing and let a sub-par product out for use by end users. Performance testing is a necessity, as it checks the overall usability and efficiency of the product or application. The team performing your testing should always have performance testing on its list of QA services.
Great QA is impossible if the team is not motivated to achieve their goals. Ideally, teams should be encouraged to share their ideas relating to a project so that they can anticipate all end user scenarios and help refine their testing approach. Support from superiors and an emphasis on team extension is a great way to ensure that engineers are engaged, dedicated and motivated.
Most product companies put QA last in the software development lifecycle. This results in a huge bottleneck as the product release gets closer: engineers receive the project and requirements much later than they should, they rush to test effectively, and they uncover a ton of bugs that must be fixed in haste or else affect the project timeline. Teams should be following the Agile method, testing in conjunction with development.
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