Your QA team does more than simply test for bugs! Whether you hire a software team in-house or via a software outsourcing agency, making sure your QA processes are functioning smoothly is as important as your core development processes.
In this article, we elaborate on what truly constitutes ‘quality’ when it comes to your software – as well as the crucial role that your QA team plays to build products that are a hit with your end users.
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Being able to thoroughly and frequently test an application isn’t going to suffice, especially in the midst of a fast-paced business landscape. It is imperative to commit to fixing any bugs that are detected immediately. Failure to do so could lead to unhappy users and app abandons – something that is highly prevalent now, with markets today being saturated by multiple options that users can choose from.
Something is bound to break sooner rather than later, and so it is crucial to have a workflow in place that can help make sense of, and handle the chaos. A bug reporting system directly placed within your site or app can enable users to share their feedback, while a set of ‘best practice’ rules can inform your team on average turnaround times that need to be adhered to when it comes to investigating, fixing and releasing patches for an issue.
It is easy for source code to pile up with obsolete pieces of code in the wake of constant software/update releases, most of which have extremely short turnaround times. Add to this urgent requirements during times of high user demand or seasonality, and you have a code repository that is gradually accumulating unused or obsolete components from previous development cycles.
A code review shall therefore enable both QA and development teams to pay attention to areas of source code that may not be serving your application anymore, so it can be removed and possibly be replaced with functional code. Additionally, a code review can also encourage the composition of code that is more readable and comprehensible by other developers, so that sustainability can be maintained for the long-term.
Your end users have the final power and say over the usability and overall quality of your website or application. Having a system that users can access to easily share complaints and suggestions can provide your team with first-hand feedback about how well your application and some of its components are being received. Whether it’s a simple contact form or micro surveys across multiple areas, such feedback can pave the way for your software development team to improve on your application with user-centricity in mind.
Additionally, your team can take this a step further to incorporate analytics within this feedback; with the right reporting or business intelligence tools, visualise your data and identify patterns at a glance. Features that may or may not be useful for most users, for example, can be easily derived via quick micro surveys – while ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers are displayed in a neat chart.
Regular meetings, be they for remote or in-person software development teams, is an essential. Project managers need to set a calendar for when standups should happen. This could be on a daily or weekly basis, so the entire team can convene to discuss problems, bottlenecks or ideas on a face-to-face basis, as opposed to only communicating via cloud-based collaboration tools.
Such face-to-face communication not only instils a sense of personification and team spirit, but also gives team members the opportunity to discuss thoughts and issues that aren’t always best articulated via the written word. In the context of QA, reporting on bugs found and any delays that are being caused by these is always a great starting point, among other tasks such as confirming whether test cases written are valid and practical for future use.
Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) is part of DevOps, both of which encourage software releases in parts, to maintain shorter turnaround times and high quality. CI facilitates the addition of code into a central code repository. This is followed by QA conducting all relevant tests, including regression tests, to ensure all components will function as expected.
CD will subsequently facilitate release with the right infrastructure, and across necessary environments. With this cycle, QA teams are well positioned to thoroughly test each component prior to release, as deployments are happening in smaller chunks.
Many software outsourcing companies encourage periodical assessments with their clients for their software projects, so any concerns or plans for growth, no matter how small, are taken into consideration. These assessments serve as a source of guidance for software development teams, giving them the clarity they need to steer the project towards a direction that enables happier customers, better revenue and the accomplishment of key business goals.
The QA team, in this area, can play an integral role by asking development and product teams the right set of questions, typically from an end user’s point of view. As QA personnel are usually focused on testing and approving component functionality that is aligned to the needs and expectations of users, they have the insight required to drive a discussion that is customer-centric by nature.
The role that your QA team plays to deliver excellence within your software and apps should not be underestimated. The right set of QA specialists can:
Your QA team can also act as the glue that connects development and product teams by asking the right questions, from a user’s point of view. So providing your QA team with the resources and autonomy they need to do their best work can pave the way towards superior application performance that eventually meets your company’s end goals
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