The need for faster product delivery can impact product quality
Companies are increasingly under fire to deliver software with new functionalities and improvements to stay ahead of the competition. This puts pressure on all involved roles to deploy new code rapidly, which often results in reduced testing efforts. But in today's competitive business environment, a company's reputation is also closely tied to the perceived and experienced reliability of its services. In conclusion, testing is the crucial discipline to identify bugs before they are discovered by the end-users. As a matter of fact, even small bugs can have a significant negative impact on a company.
Source: John Schnobrich
The crucial role of testers in product quality assurance
In this game, testers play a crucial role in safeguarding product quality by ensuring that the product meets required standards in terms of functionality, reliability, usability, and more. This can’t be achieved just by clicking around in an application and reporting some “strange behaviors”. Testing should be a comprehensible activity based on specification, proven methods and an overall understanding of the business context. To be able to assure product functionality and quality, you need skilled people with a quality-focused mindset, who understand your business processes as well as the implemented technologies and solutions. In this context, it is understood that this work cannot be a "last minute" task which can be skipped in case of tight deadlines or done by any person “just available”.
Shift testing to the left and involve testers from the beginning
So how is it possible to implement quality assurance in such a way that it does not delay the delivery date and still has an effect? This mainly requires two approaches: involve experienced testers that have the capability to analyze the use cases and IT solution design, and start involving them at the very beginning of the process. By challenging business ideas and identifying missed elements or flows early on and even without code, testers can help avoid wasting unnecessary resources on a functionality that may need to be changed later. This requires close collaboration between business, testers and developers as one team.
The approach to start testing early in the software development life cycle (SDLC) is called “Shift Left” and it comes from the idea of shifting test activities to the left in the development process timeline to ensure problems are detected as early as possible. Involving testers right away, starting with the requirements gathering stage, brings numerous benefits:
- Early defect detection: defects and issues can be identified and resolved before they become more costly to fix and thereby help reduce the overall cost of testing and development
- Faster feedback: improvements and changes can be made more quickly, reducing the time required for development and testing
- Better collaboration and communication between teams: by involving quality and testing teams early, they can be the bridge between the business representatives and developers and make sure that the requirements are clearly defined, and help avoid misunderstandings to ensure that the final product meets the final users’ needs
- Reduced risk: testers who work with quality assurance can help identify risks related to time plan, budget, technology, quality, and security early in the process, and ensure that time and resources are spent on the most business-critical development
Source: Fauxels
Assuring product quality means protecting your brand
In recent years, there has been growing recognition of the importance of testing and quality assurance in the software development process. As a result, many successful companies are increasing their investment in testing and quality assurance to meet the needs and expectations of their customers. In this context, testers play a crucial role in ensuring that companies provide better and more stable service, thus protecting the brand and maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Source: Luis Villasmil
Learn more about how Sixsentix can help ensure product quality!
If you want to learn more about how Sixsentix can help you, your team, or your company ensure the quality of your products, you can read our blog posts or contact us for more information. Act! Now!