Software underpins nearly every business process. Therefore it’s essential to lower the cost of testing and improve the quality of your software. These four pointers will help you improve software quality and improve testing efficiency.
Test at the right time
By testing earlier you will be able to detect and solve defects rather than having to resolve them at the end of the process. The later software bugs are detected, the longer and more expensive they are to resolve.
Fixing bugs early can be a game-changer. In a client case study, documented in Experimentus’ ‘Shift left and compress’ white paper, the firm cut development time by 25 percent and bug fixing costs by 31 percent.
Get testers involved during the requirements and design stage so they can help formulate a more effective test framework. More than 70 percent of software issues in a live environment can be traced back to poor requirements.
Implement Static testing early in the life cycle to give immediate reactions on quality issues regarding your software development.
Improve testing organisation
Be professional in your testing or risk harming your business.
Implement specific policies to direct a consistent approach like using repeatable industry standard testing processes like TMMi and training testers within this framework.
Remember: Use Quality gates supported by KPIs and metrics. This helps keep track of where you are ensuring that you don’t start before you’re ready, and you finish when you’re done to prevent wasted bandwidth.
Innovation leads to improvement
Don’t get stuck into the same old routine – embrace new approaches.
Buy into automated testing wherever possible to make your testing process more efficient. Make sure that your testing is targeted too. By using test design techniques and risk-based testing you can make sure that you will be using fewer, but more worthwhile tests.
Keep reviewing
You can have too much of a good thing. Just because certain methods have worked in the past doesn’t mean they always will. Processes of evaluation and refactoring allow your testing team to maximise efficiency by reviewing what worked well.
Implement a Root cause analysis process which distinguishes whether issues were a ‘testing miss’, a ‘development miss’ or a ‘requirements or design miss’. This will help to identify areas for improvement throughout the whole software development process.
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