The software testing is playing a crucial role in SDLC since it assists in ensuring that the product’s quality is rather high to meet the business needs and users’ requirements. How might you ensure the software testing process seems as effective as it is possible? Read on to figure out the perfect quality assurance practices and methodologies that might assist in getting the most from the process of testing. 

QA best practices

The most effective software quality assurance practices you are recommended to follow in order to facilitate the product quality assurance check are listed below.

Let’s figure out what software quality assurance practices are meaning and what advantages your quality assurance team, and you might get when you follow them.

 

#1 Establish testing requirements and targets

Starting the software testing project, quality assurance engineers must elicit the testing requirements and customer expectations. It includes making clear the following:

 The customer expectations

If you know, the problems that the customer wants to tackle via testing and the criteria he or she utilizes to evaluate the testing success let QA engineers organize the testing process accordingly to customer’s needs, what is more, clarifying requirements assists testing experts in assessing the required resources for testing.

Testing priorities

Quality assurance engineers require getting the product functionality specification as well as the feature list with the prioritized features that must be tested first. Besides, quality assurance engineers must know how the primary project users will use it and who they are.

When you investigate testing priorities, you will find out that quality assurance engineers inform customers of the testing types that are applied usually to a certain product’s type and why so customers might make up their minds on the testing types they eager to apply to their individual software project.

Reporting on the results

The quality assurance team has to be aware of which format to utilize for reports, what data to include in the reports, and which bugs to report. Besides, the quality assurance team and the customer should discuss the frequency of retesting and the regression testing as well as the conditions.

Communication

The QA team and the customer should set communication channels and meeting schedules. The customer must specify who the quality assurance team must contact when they need to ask for more data or clarify something regarding the project. Besides, the quality assurance team should be aware of whether the customer needs any kind of non-standard reports like time reports, test reports, or test descriptions.

Advantages of the quality assurance team
  • One of the most crucial benefits of establishing testing requirements and targets is that the QA team might assess a scope of assignments to plan and perform the process of testing appropriately.
  • Eliciting testing expectations assists both the quality assurance team and the customer in evaluating the possibility to attain the customer’s targets with testing assistance. Therefore, the customer must not have fake expectations and would rather be pleased with the final results of the process of testing. Comprehending the customer’s requirements and targets lets engineers deliver the results the customer expects and would be happy with. This also assists the QA team in building a proper and positive reputation.
Advantages for the customer
  • The clear workflow for the quality assurance team features benefits for the customer since it assists them to know the complete scope of testing assignments, the timeline for all the quality assurance activities, and the estimated services’ cost. Knowing the testing process due date, the customer might build the marketing campaign and plan a release date.
  • If testing requirements are clear, customers might have realistic expectations concerning the testing process. Therefore, testing results would rather meet customer’s targets.

 

#2 Set a clear workflow

The properly designed workflow is crucial for a successful QA check. Experienced teams conduct testing in a few stages.

Firstly, they generate a test plan. The QA team is supposed to produce a plan that would guide the testing process via development. The team must specify a certain scope of assignments for your project, your price of services, and your deadline for finishing the process of testing in this plan.

The further step should be to research every of the project requirements in order to check whether they meet the quality criteria as well as correspond to the business needs of your product. To do it, testing engineers collect data on the domain software that is tested. It lets them comprehend certain requirements that software products should meet.

Then, the quality assurance team proceeds to functional testing. At this step, engineers test the product features by features to make sure that every and each functionality works as it has to and according to the specifications.

To make sure the product is stable, testing engineers are running automated test cases when the new features and product updates are implemented. Such a process is called regression testing. Quality assurance experts utilize regression testing to assess the effect of updates on the existing functionality and ensure that the new builds will not cause system crashes and new bugs.

One more essential aspect of the effective workflow in test reporting. The team must give test reports, which include the summary of final testing results as well as testing activities after every testing iteration. Regular and on-time test reporting targets at informing stakeholders of your relevant product quality, let them know the testing progress as well as give them a bigger control over the process of quality assurance.

Apart from featuring a set flow of assignments, the team must establish the precise distribution of responsibilities and roles. RACI matrix is considered to be one of the most efficient devices to distribute assignments effectively between the team members. It assigns the responsibilities for completing assignments and checking the deliverables of others. Also, it indicates who requires to be informed or consulted concerning project-related matters.

Advantages for the QA team
  • The well-developed workflow assists quality assurance engineers to be aware of their responsibilities and enhance the effectiveness of the testing process.
  • Be establishing the specific workflow with a set scope for all testing assignments, QA teams might eliminate delays and rework that are common problems in both development and testing.
Advantages for the customer
  • The clear workflow for the quality assurance team is rather beneficial for the customer since it assists them in knowing the complete scope of testing assignments, the assessed services cost, and the timeline for all quality assurance activities. The regular reporting and clear workflow let customers set clear cooperation with the quality assurance team and make the process of testing more productive.
  • What is more, streamlined workflow assists testing engineers in cutting down on the specific time needed for the testing that eliminates the time of marketing and saves much money?

 

#3 Check compliance with the industry norms

Various jurisdictions and industries feature their own standards and regulations that organizations must follow to secure their clients’ personal data. For example, the GDPR targets at securing personal data of EU residents, the HIPAA is protecting patients’ health data in the USA, and the PCI DSS is protecting clients’ payment card data globally. Quality assurance teams should provide compliance the testing services to make sure that every product meets all and any requirements.

Advantages for the QA team
  • Conducting compliance testing makes the quality assurance team in-demand. The compliance testing supposes knowledge and skills that not every quality assurance expert has. Therefore, if the quality assurance team features the skills to conduct compliance testing, they will be more attractive to the customers.
Advantages for the customer
  • Regulations and laws are too pricey to ignore. In the initial 2020 quarter, the European supervising authorities have issued 68 and more administrative fines for ignoring GDPR. Compliance testing assists organization owners in ensuring the software products they produce comply with particular requirements of certain domains and avoiding enormous fines.
  • The compliance check assists in ensuring that end-users’ personal data is secure that the security breach is unwelcome.

#4 Combine manual and the automated testing

Each automated and manual testing approach features its own nuances and benefits. Manual testing supposes test engineers to be running the test cases manually to define deviations from the currently tested software expected behavior and report about them to the developers.

Utilizing an automated testing approach, the tests are conducted automatically with the assistance of automation testing devices and scripts.

The main key to effective software testing should be a combination of automated and also manual approaches, not just selecting the one.

Advantages for the QA team
  • Utilizing both manual and automated testing improves product quality and speeds up the process of testing.
  • One more benefit is that the combination of these approaches generates a team with a broad range of competencies and skills.
Advantages for the customer
  • Automated and manual testing lets check various functionalities and areas of your software product. Applying each of such approaches boosts test coverage that is one of the basic metrics utilized to assess the process of testing success. The successful QA check must feature 80% – 100% of test coverage.
  • Automated testing includes generating auto-tests which must be re-utilized in the future. It facilitates support and code modification.

 

#5 Implement risk-based testing

The risk-based testing is such an approach that targets at defining the most harmful risk along the testing process. Such an approach includes evaluating project risks, planning the testing process, prioritizing, according to the risks’ priority. It lets quality assurance engineers focus on the most crucial risks that might harm the overall performance of the product.

Advantages for the QA team
  • Implementation of the risk-based testing method at initial software development stages assists in simplifying the code architecture as well as makes your product much easier to be tested.
  • Applying the risk-based approach, the testing engineers focus on the problems most likely to happen during the use of the product. Therefore, it assists in eliminating the testing activities range.
Advantages for the customer
  • When the risk-based testing approach is followed, the quality assurance team tests such functionality pieces which are more prone to the bugs.

Therefore, you might get a premium quality product even in the case when you do not have enough resources for checking all product functionality.

 

#6 Conduct frequent regression testing

One more proper QA practice is performing regression testing when the software product is updated. When conducting regression testing, the quality assurance engineers run a choice of tests that were utilized earlier in the SDLC in order to check whether the product functions as it should. The regression testing lets testing engineers in order to make sure that the new features or updates do not impact your software product core.

Advantages for the QA team
  • Regression testing entails generating detailed documentation for the running autotests. Such documentation involves operator results, bug reports, test designs, system specifications, and more software-related data. Such data might be utilized by stakeholders, developers, and testing engineers.
  • One more advantage of the frequent regression testing seems to be that it lets testing engineers ensure the new features of the product do not affect the main software stability to keep the quality of the product at the highest level.
Advantages for the customer
  • Updates might bring bugs to the software product. The regression testing assists quality assurance engineers in reducing the bugs number in a product.
  • These engineers utilize automated tests in order to speed up the QA checks and make the software update process easier.

 

#7 Utilize shift-left testing

This approach supposes the beginning of the test process within the SDLC. Meaning, the testing team should be involved in the initial development phases, unlike it is in traditional methods. Eliminating and identifying bugs at the initial stages is much cheaper than later on.

Advantages for the QA team
  • According to this approach, there must be close cooperation between your team of the developers and your team of quality assurance, providing QA engineers a chance to impact product development at the very beginning.
  • What is more, such an approach facilitates the covering the product with the tests at the very early stages of the process of development, letting testing engineers find bugs much earlier as well as master your software quality.
Advantages for the customer
  • When beginning test activities early, you should make sure there is close cooperation between the dedicated development teams and your QA. Effective and close cooperation boosts the process of development, eliminates time to market, and reduces development costs.