Maintaining software development quality for your site or business is a very important aspect of your project management. It guarantees superior performance and cost-effectiveness. Creating strategies that help detect potential issues during the software development of your projects can spare you a lot of headaches in the future. In this article, we will give you some tips and advice on how to ensure quality assurance in your bespoke software development projects, as well as to decide when to outsource software
development.
Implement Quality Control
It’s essential that you start implementing quality control right at the beginning of your software development. You need to ensure that testers and developers are always in communication with one another and have a healthy working relationship. Their collaboration helps create methodologies and strategies that help deal with bugs and errors. It’s also a good idea to have some kind of Test Management tool when doing quality control.
Test As Often As Possible
Testing frequently and as early as possible will decrease the likelihood of glitches and bugs snowballing into bigger problems later down the line. An issue that isn’t dealt with early on can become really expensive to deal with if it escalates. They also tend to be more difficult to debug. That’s why it’s crucial to get testers involved in the software design process as early as possible.
The best way to proceed with testing is, to begin with, non-UI tests and then once the product has stabilized, you move on to UI-based testing. You can automate these tests if you’re using Webservices/APIs. You increase accuracy, and testing coverage and ensure the best quality of your product by introducing automated testing to your development teams. It’s always a good idea to be thorough as early as possible. Otherwise, the cost to fix an issue multiplies
tenfold for each stage of the development process.
Emphasize How Important Quality Assurance Is
Quality assurance needs to be the key focus at every stage of the development process. This needs to be communicated to every member of the development team. The more QA has been done by your software development team, the more confidence is built in the quality of the product. As you add more elements and features to your product, the same amount of QA and testing should be applied to each stage.
Innovation Is Essential
While it’s key to establish a consistent testing methodology, it shouldn’t come at the cost of innovation and experimentation. Automating testing can give you more time to spend focusing on innovation. Encouraging R&D (research and development) along with innovation can dramatically improve your software quality. Nurture your teams to be curious and experimental, and to investigate every possibility. Rewarding successful uses of innovative thinking is a great way to do so.
Always Plan For A Volatile Environment
There are so many dynamic and external variables to take into consideration when developing software e.g. hardware, libraries, web browsers, operating systems etc. It requires extensive and careful planning/monitoring in order to not overlook any of these variables. Software development is interdependent on all these elements. You have to test your software against all these aspects in order to maintain quality and avoid a so-called software dissonance.
Communication Is Important
Just like any business relationship or collaboration, establishing good communication with your team members is essential. Everyone must be on the same page and have access to the same information in order to maintain and improve software quality. A good example is having KPIs that display the way the quality of the software is measured. Every single individual that’s part of your team must be privy to KPIs to maintain this clear communication.
Consistent feedback amongst the team is also key in ensuring that there are no miscommunications. You must also not forget to regularly communicate with your stakeholders. Having important parties being kept out of the loop delay and negatively impact your project.
Focus On Creating Products
There’s a difference in attitude when trying to create a project vs creating a product. When you begin creating a project with your team, you are imparting an attitude of creating a finite outcome. But this can be an issue due to the changeable nature of software. It will create a situation where the software won’t be able to keep up with its environment.
By approaching it through the idea that you’re creating a product, the software they create will be easier to change and adapt to the ever changing and volatile landscape. Being able to make continuous small changes is preferable to deliver a finite project with a conclusive end. It guarantees an increase in quality in the long term.
An Emphasis On Long-Term Thinking And Strategy
Having a long-term and strategic mindset helps solves long lasting issues. Implementing an effective long-term strategy means you don’t have to waste correcting the same mistakes over and over again. Focusing on the architecture and design of your project ensures a certain level of accuracy as well. You can also minimize the number of mistakes by implementing consistent peer review. Immediate gratification and short-term gains shouldn’t be prioritized over long-term thinking.
Risk Registers
This is a really effective management tool to use for developing software. It can be used to create a list of identifiable risks and how to mitigate them. Some things to take into consideration for your risk register include
- Description of the risk
- Recognition of when the risk is identified
- Recognition of the severity of the risk
- Understand the likelihood of the risk occurring and how to mitigate it
- Communicate with your team when a risk materializes
- Assess the potential negative impact of each risk
- Give updates on the status of each risk
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this article has provided you with some tips and strategies to take into consideration for your quality assurance software development. It’s tempting to take shortcuts and cut corners, but being thorough and consistent through every stage of development will ensure that you produce high-quality results in the long run.
Also Read: Using Knowledge Management for Software Development: A Simple Solution To Collated Information
