Agile Testing - Things to know about

What is Agile? The software development lifecycle has got a new shape in past decade. Experts have experiments many new ways to increase the productivity of the process. They implemented many changes to the development process for better output. One of those changes was agile methodology. Agile means to do together. We know the importance of team i.e., together everyone achieves more. In agile methodology this concept has adopted for better performance. Fortunately this method work like a charm in IT industry and received tremendous support from the IT farms. Now almost all projects are implementing this methodology in the development process for better result. Let us see how it works.

The best testing tools of 2014

Why testing tools: If anything that starts with the very beginning of any project and that ends with the project is nothing but testing. Testing is an integrated part of any software development application. Industry understands the importance of testing and hence all the major IT companies focus more on a testing than others. Because they know that testing is the key of success of any software application or product. They use to have a dedicated QA team to deal with all types of testing methodologies. Before a decade testing was performed by manual testers but, with time industry realized that for quality and efficient testing we need some software tools which can test an application thoroughly and quickly. These software tools are also known as automation testing tools. They are gaining a tremendous popularity in a very less span of time due to their efficiency and accuracy. Today we will discuss about some of the industry leading automation testing tools in our topic.

Why would companies like to have certified testers to test their projects?

Why Software testing? It will not be an overstatement if I would say testing is the key to success for any software application program or product. All that we aim to have within any software must be tested by the tester to ensure their presence and performance. In order to get a user friendly and efficient software product, we must test the product intensively before producing the same in front of the end user. Previously the testing task was performed by the manual testers but with time enterprise rely on automation testing. An automation testing tool helps in preventing all types of bugs that may be overlooked by the manual testers due to human errors. So industry is now depending upon the automation testing tools like QTP automation testing tool, Selenium automation testing tool etc.

Emerging Trends in Software Testing for 2015

The new technologies and innovative development platforms make it easier for programmers to create user-friendly and modern software applications within a shorter time span. Most enterprises are adopting the new technologies to curtail both development cost and time. That is why; it has become essential for each organization to optimize its testing and quality assurance (QA) efforts to keep pace with the frequently changing software development requirement. It is also important for the company to keep track of the emerging software testing trends for 2015.

Testing application using QTP - What are the benefits?

All major enterprise of the IT industry give maximum priority to the testing because they believe strongly on the quality of service and for the same the importance of testing. Testing is an integral phase of software development life cycle. For a product to be user friendly, reliable and robust, it must be gone through several testing process. The testing operation makes the product not only perfect but also provides a better user experience which is the aim of every product. In other words we can say, testers are the connection bridge between developers and the end users because tester check the application’s functionality and he gives the feedback to the developer if any enhancement is required to give greater experience to the user.

The Importance Of Software Testing For IT Businesses

Software testing is a crucial part in developing projects. Through this process information related to the quality of the software developed is evaluated by the programmer or developer. With rising competition it seems fair to launch the product before your competitors and fix the bugs later. It does sound appealing but this would not ensure success for your product. Rather comprehending the features of your product is more important in the daily activities and eventually, in the success of any business. At this stage, a developer can find out in details about the definite and expected outcome of its quality and this, further helps in debugging. Without testing it would be impossible to know about the consistency and overall performance of the product. Thus, in the software development lifecycle testing plays a crucial role.

Agile QA Process for Projects - Best Practices

As an incremental and iterative agile approach for software development, scrum is used widely by enterprises across the world to manage product development in a holistic and flexible way. Scrum requires the development team to work as a single unit for accomplishing a common goal. The agile approach further assumes that the clients can always change their mind about their wants and needs during the project.

Therefore, it becomes essential for both software developers and testers to explore innovative ways to deliver valuable features of business in short development iterations varying from 2 to 4 weeks.

Crowdsourced Software Testing – 2 Approaches

Each enterprise finds it a daunting challenge to implement the software testing strategy effectively. In addition to being labor-intensive, software QA processes further require efficient collaboration between software developers, testers and users. So a constant increase is noted in the number of companies adopting crowdsourced testing solutions. The innovative form of software testing enables organizations to avail the combined advantages of crowdsourcing and Cloud computing. Unlike conventional software QA methods, crowdsourced testing can be performed by community of external expert QA engineers working from different location.

The organization is, thus, not required to hire any experienced testers and consultants to test the application in a realistic environment. However, each enterprise has several options to access to the crowd. In addition to using a self-service model to access the crowd, an organization can consider availing crowdsourced testing solutions through managed service provides. Also, a company can avail both self-serviced and managed crowdsourced testing solutions. It is always important for an organization to choose the crowdsourced testing solutions according to the nature and significance of a specific task.

Two Distinct Approaches to Crowdsourced Software Testing

Self-Service Crowdsourced Testing Solutions

As the name indicates under this approach, an organization has to set up the test, manage the project and evaluate the requirements internally. The organization has to deploy external testers to evaluate the application under real-world conditions during the development phase. Some enterprise level companies even get the QA done through their existing customer base. As the testers work from different locations, documentation is essential to ensure adequate test coverage. At the same time, the organization also needs to make the issues traceable and reproducible. Once the application is evaluated by the participating testers, the test results needs to be integrated and analyzed by the internal team.

That is why; the resource requirements will vary according to the size and nature of individual processes. However, each company has to consider several factors before adopting the self-service model. Along with evaluating various aspects of the project in detail, it also needs to decide the resources required by the setup. Also, it must have adequate manpower to manage the testing project internally based on the documentation provided by the crowd. The enterprise further has to deploy an in-house team to setup and manage the software QA projects effectively. On the whole, an organization must have to capacity to setup an internal environment to get the software tested by through self-service crowdsourced testing solutions.

Managed Crowdsourced Testing Solutions

The concept of managed crowdsourced testing is similar to that of project outsourcing. Most companies opt for managed crowdsourced software testing solution to save time, money and efforts. Each organization also has option to choose from several crowdsourced testing solution providers. But the managed crowdsourced testing solutions are more expensive in comparison to the self-service method. Also, the enterprise has to avail managed solutions from the right company by keeping in mind the specific details of the project. At the same time, the company also needs to decide if its budget allows it to avail managed crowdsourced testing solutions from a reputable firm.

While availing managed crowdsourced testing solution, an enterprise must define how to document each test. Each external tester must provide screenshots, screencasts and written documents to make the issues reproducible. It is always a good idea to avail managed solution for large and complex projects to save both time and money. Also, the managed services must be integrated seamlessly with the internal processes to avail benefits in the longer run. However, each company can avail managed services initially to check if crowdsourced testing works for it.

An organization can always consider combining both self-service and managed crowdsourced testing solution to avail better results. At the same time, it must compare the cost and efforts required to test a software application under these approached to take the right decision.

You can hire testers from top web application testing companies in India who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide software testing services. If you would like to hire software testers experts from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

Manual vs. Automated Testing - How to Achieve Consistency

Many experts have highlighted how the software QA strategy can be optimized by integrating both manual and automated testing seamlessly. Regardless of the type of software testing, the QA strategy also needs to consider a number of key elements like test plans, test cases, test environment and test automation tools to generate accurate test data that can be used to take important decision. The right QA strategy can further enhance the efficiency and productivity, while getting higher ROI in the longer run. However, the QA strategist must explore innovative ways to maintain consistency in both manual and automated software testing efforts.

Smart Ways to Achieve Consistency in Software Testing

Setup Automated Build Setups

The budgets of small and medium companies do not allow them to invest in commercial test automation tools. So these organizations often build, stage and deploy the codes manually. Further, the QA engineers have to put both time and effort to perform certain repetitive activities like running tests, tagging new versions and taking backup of old versions. However, an organization can always consider setting up customized automated build solutions without investing any additional funds. It also has option to use several open source software testing tools that can be used to easily setup the basic automated build solutions to achieve consistency in QA without incurring any additional expenses.

Manage Product Backlog
As the product grows large, the volume of product backlog also grows at a rapid pace. During the development cycles, the enhancements and bugs further add to the backlog. So each organization must emphasize of managing the backlog properly to achieve consistency in software QA. In addition to each product manager focusing on the changes, the team of QA engineers must modify the test strategy and roadmaps to deliver accurate test data. It is always important to evaluate and filer the product backlog constantly to decide the cases that need immediate focus. There are also chances that the QA strategy needs to be modified regularly to reduce the growing product backlog.

Adopt Agile QA Methods
An organization can avail several advantages by adopting Agile approach of software development and QA. Along with addressing the enhancements throughout the development cycle, the Agile testing methods further collaborate and coordinate the test efforts efficiently. So it becomes easier for the team of QA engineers to manage the product backlog. They can evaluate the significance of a QA issue according to the expected goals, and thus can easily process the product backlogs. As all issues cannot be measured quantitatively, the QA team can decide the most appropriate way to evaluate the issue. The qualitative aspects of the QA can easily be evaluated and processes to achieve the primary goal, while maintaining consistency.

Perform Requirement Reviews
To maintain consistency in software QA the testers need to ensure that each requirement is testable. The team can further put both time and effort to consistently perform requirement reviews. Based on quality and verifiability of the results, a testing professional can decide of a specific requirement is testable. The testability of a requirement can also be measured based on a calculation, form or database value. These elements can also be used to verify several results based on a particular requirement. However, the QA engineer must emphasize of certain key elements like what, when, how, where and why. At the same time, he also needs to review the logic or functional workflow to find the gaps or missing connections.

A number of reports have highlighted how an organization can achieve consistency by automating its software QA efforts. But the test automation strategy of the organization must concentrate on these points to deliver reliable results along with achieving the preset objectives. Application software testing experts can be the primary driver who can help you accomplish testing within allocated budgets and time schedules.

We provide automation testing services. If you would like to hire certified automation testers from us, we would be glad to assist you at Mindfire Solutions.

What Does It Really Cost to Fix a Software Defect?

While there is no denying the point that the advancements in software technology have brought about several benefits for the business enterprises all over, it is also true that certain defects in software are really hard to handle.

The later the defects are identified, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to handle them. This was said by none other than a software engineer called Barry Boehm back in 1976. He also drew a curve representing the consecutive phases of the waterfall software development lifecycle on the horizontal line. The vertical scale, on the other hand, denoted the relative cost of fixing the particular defect in a specific phase versus the cost involved in fixing the same defect in a different phase. With time, this curve was modified to make room for a second exponential relation.

Finding the Cost of Fixing a Defect

There are certain problems that arise when it comes to the fixing of a software defect. Out of these, deciding upon the cost of fixing the trouble happens to be the most important one. The actual cost involved in finding solution to a problem is often the least understood factor too. Now, the cost usually depends upon the development lifecycle as well as the development process that one chooses apart from the risk that the enterprise is ready to take. Estimation of the cost can be done by means of the following technique:

Considering that all the people working in a system test are completely dedicated to identifying and fixing defects, the number of fixes are to be taken into account. Next, the number of people including that of developers, testers and everybody else along with the duration of system test are to be considered. The process of calculation goes like this:

Average cost of fixing defects= Number of days* number of people* cost per person-day/ Number of defects that have been fixed

It is worth remembering in this regard that it is not the defects but the ones that are fixed that matters while also leading to the right calculation.

How Much Does It Cost?

The attitude taken towards fixing software defects often varies depending upon respective managers. Again, there is some confusion about when to find solution to which defect. Now, the cost of finding solution to the defects is influenced by the organizational culture and its implications. Here is a brief overview:

Routine Culture

In a routine culture, quality is considered valuable by the management but there is neither money nor the time to devote on improving the same. The problems are fixed only after quite a severe one has occurred. The easy defects are identified while the difficult ones are left out. As such, the cost of fixing a problem is the lowest of all.

Steering Culture

In a steering culture, the management realizes that quality is but a systematic issue and automatically, the task of managing is executed better. Problems are openly discussed as well as resolved in an orderly manner. The defects are found earlier than the system test leading to the creation of several bad fixes. Eventually, the cost of solving the problem is the highest among all.

Variable Culture

In a variable culture, the management usually does not consider quality to be a management issue. Personal efforts in solving problems are often preferred over a systematic approach, as a result of which, it is found that the employees identify more defects compared to what they could fix. Accordingly the average cost of fixing a defect is higher than that of a routine culture and lower than that of a steering culture.

Ways of Preventing Defects

Preventing the defects from arising in the very first place is essential for the simple reason that fixing them requires considerable effort, time and money. Early defect detection has a number of advantages. Following a list of some of the prominent ways in which the software defects can be checked:

• Analyzing the software requirements well beforehand is a significant way of preventing troubles. The specific customer needs are to be analyzed and then transformed into product specifications with expertise. Interactive sessions with the customers is helpful in this regard.
• Reviews, both self-reviews and peer reviews, work wonders in uncovering defects instead of finding them out later. Self-review, in particular, allows reduction of problems related to implementation of algorithms, incorrect logic and missing conditions. Many software organizations are making this a part of their best practices of coding.
• Documentation and defect logging leads to better management of the troubles as well as the depletion trends and costs. A defect logging tool allows correction of the problem, identification of the phase and so on.
• Analyzing the root cause can be done via applying local expertise and targeting the systematic errors. This largely helps in saving time and costs involved in fixing the troubles.

Having considered the above discussion, implementation of the defect prevention procedures into the application software testing process is the most difficult of all tasks. If carried out successfully, it can actually prevent the troubles from arising and pave the way for smooth operation of the enterprises.

We provide software testing services. If you would like to talk to one of our certified software testers, please get in touch with us at Mindfire Solutions.