In one of my blog post, I detailed out the challenges that are often faced by the product/test owners during software product testing. In this one I will be talking about some methods or activities that can help in overcoming those challenges. I will leave it open for you to map the answers one on one to the challenges that I detailed out there.
Testing team is often involved very late in the PDLC. The product management team also collates frequently changing customer requirements and market expectations of a product, while also contributing to the product roadmap. As a result, the scope of the product changes constantly and testing becomes complicated with daily builds involved.
It is important to design the test strategy early along with the product roadmap so that everyone knows what all will be needed to test and what all methodologies will be applied during the process. This will enable the test owner to define the right budget for the testing cycle and get the necessary approvals on time.
There is a wide range of testing methods and testing techniques currently in use that serve multiple purposes in different life cycle phases. Team should choose the testing programs best suited to their needs.
Additionally, team must also focus on the cost element when identifying and evaluating testing tools available in the market. By picking Open Source tools, organizations can cut capital expenditure. At the same time, automated testing tools can also allow companies to undertake cheaper regression testing. Automation is again a debatable approach, might be I will share more thoughts on this in my upcoming posts.
It is also important to prioritize the test areas based on business criticality and test coverage. A test metric driven report also helps in getting the visibility into the exact team/product status from time to time. This enables management to take a decision regarding the market release of the product.
When examining the outsourcing option, companies must explore and clearly differentiate on what part of testing can be done onsite and what to outsource, while optimally using the collaboration tools. If there are questions of who is doing what, setup a transparent system in order to track each remote team member of the test team.
Currently I am busy designing a test solution that will act as a SINGLE solution to overcome all the challenges in software product testing space. It might be too early to talk about it or maybe you will need to wait for few more days before I start detailing about it in my blog posts.
A Blog by Vipul Gupta 