How can QA become potent and meet its objectives?

Studies have shown that the reasons behind a software failure primarily lie in not implementing a proper software quality assurance strategy. This leads to a negative impact on customer satisfaction and ROI for the business. In the fast changing digital landscape, the quick adoption of technology to deliver the best customer experience can help a business to sail over the maelstrom of competition. And unless the quality software is delivered in time, the company can bid goodbye to competition.

The need of the hour, therefore, is to reach your target customers ahead of your competitors but with quality products. So, how to achieve the seemingly opposing business demands – ensuring quality and reaching the market quickly? The answer is through the implementation of a stringent software quality assurance process that identifies and eliminates glitches right during development.

Shortcomings of software quality assurance testing

Lack of automation: It is a proven fact that manual testing has many inadequacies that ultimately lead to the development of poor quality software. The inadequacies can range from the difficulty in carrying out repetitive testing and not covering the entire test area to a slow pace of testing. Automating the QA software testing process can speed up things including the identification of errors, validating a huge number of dependencies, quick integration etc.

No Agile or DevOps: Many companies are still following the old school waterfall testing model. Here, the software quality assurance services come into the picture only when the development process is completed. However, to achieve the delivery of software that passes muster on the metrics of functionality, speed, security, and user experience, the QA software testing process should follow the Agile and DevOps methodologies.

Lack of cohesion among departments: A top notch quality software can only be developed and delivered successfully to the end customers when all the departments function in cohesion. It is often seen that the development, testing, and operations teams work at cross purposes where departmental goals take precedence over organizational goals. The lack of communication and the fact that each department operates virtually in a silo can lead to poor quality product and customer service.

Stakeholders are not involved: The quality assurance software testing services are not always backed by the stakeholders. The reasons could range from departmental one-upmanship to a lack of understanding of the complex QA processes by non-technical people in the organization.

The 3 things that Quality Assurance needs to redefine its processes

#1 Shift left testing: Quality engineering following the Agile model stresses on identifying glitches in the early part of the development process. Here, instead of the development and QA teams operating as separate entities, they become part of the same sprint. The objective of each sprint and its modalities are planned beforehand by the stakeholders. As each self-contained module is developed, the same is tested simultaneously. And should glitches be found in the code, they are sent back for rewriting. A self-contained module can only leave the sprint when it successfully meets the test objectives.

#2 Write proper test cases: The QA experts should setup proper test cases to validate each and every aspect of the software code. The aspects include performance, functionality, usability, and security. Furthermore, the writing of proper test cases should follow practices such as:

Identifying the scope of test: The QA testers should know the scope and purpose of testing and confine the test specifications within the defined scope while writing test cases.

Customer requirement: Since the software will ultimately be used by the customers, it should possess features and functionalities to meet the latter’s requirements. In fact, the test cases should be written by keeping in mind the various customer requirements.

Single expected result: A typical test case should have a single expected result rather than multiple ones irrespective of its frequency of testing. This is needed to make the testing process simple and quick.

#3 Automate and integrate tests: The repetitive tasks such as regression tests, build deployment, and integration should be automated. By doing so, the QA team can be engaged in other pressing activities. The codes should be integrated post their testing in the SDLC. The test automation process should use robust testing platforms such as Selenium to suitably test the software, the APIs, and various interfaces of the software with devices, networks, operating systems, and frameworks. This pre-empts any error that might arise due to the lack of software integration.

Conclusion

The quality assurance process needs to be redefined to address the changing market dynamics and user preferences. It should incorporate the latest methodologies such as Agile/DevOps for better and quicker identification of glitches and meet the requirements of the users.

Diya works for Cigniti Technologies, Global Leaders in Independent Software Testing Services Company to be appraised at Cmmi-Svc v1.3, Maturity Level 5, and is also Iso 9001:2015 & Iso 27001:2013 certified.