Rapidly changing technologies are changing the way software testers function in Software Development Life Cycle. Testers play an important role in delivering quality software products to end users and clients. Given the importance of testing team in any software company, what kind of approach testers should have, to deliver quality software products that help organisations and individuals benefit out of these software products.
Software Tester finds & reports bugs. Does Software Tester job ends merely with finding, reporting and retesting bugs??? Certainly NOT. Raising bugs and retest/regression test once bugs fixed are the core of software tester job. But, thinking that his/her job ends there is a very conventional and irrational thinking. Software Testers not only uncover hidden bugs, but also address potential business risks.
Early Testing in Software Development Life Cycle
The early the bugs are identified and fixed in SDLC, that less costly to fix them in later stages. If a defect identified and fixed during concept stage is easier to fix than fixing it after coding phase. Fixing a defect at later stages costs almost 10x times more than preceding stages i.e. avoids defects carry forwarded to next phases, thus reducing the cost of fixing defects at later stages. And, of course not to mention, detecting defects at later stages is more cumbersome.
Context Driven Approach
A particular test strategy may not be applicable to any project. Context driven approach perfectly suits any project. Depending upon the context or business logic, testers will have approach the software product instead of validating the product in a cyclic way. Testing activity can show good and positive results when test cases formed based on context instead of linear way of preparing test cases.
Agile Development Environment and Software Testing
Agile software development model has become buzz word in the IT industry. Shorter time frames which are of 1 to 4 weeks are planned. Development & Test teams work like two sides of a coin. Customer collaboration is key in Agile model. Test teams have to plan their activities for every iteration and execute accordingly. Earlier, testing activities used to start after development phase. But with advent of Agile methodology, software tester became part of delivery team and are involved from project initiation phase onwards.
Mobile Application Testing
There has been surge of Mobile Applications in the market. Developers developing apps for multiple platforms, both native and hybrid. With the emergence of mobile apps, there has been greater importance and contribution of testers along with developers in delivering mobile apps. User experience is one of the key factor in success of mobile apps. Tester not just play a role of application tester, but also validate application with end-user perspective. Of course, there is a greater importance for Security testing. Choosing a right testing tool is also an important element in mobile application test strategy.
Bust all myths
Testing is bottleneck to project delivery, expensive, time consuming are myths. Software testing and Testing team are an integral part of SDLC & development team. Focus on functionalities, real-time scenarios, if possible create Mind Maps, perform exploratory testing, experience based testing, monkey testing and help development team & management in delivering quality software product.
