Software Testing & QA: Learning Through Humor

We all make mistakes. Even the most experienced and professional software developers do let a couple of bugs slip through once in a while. Yet it’s not making mistakes that’s the issue, but having no one to point them out for you to fix them. Instead of getting all crazy serious about the importance of software testing & QA for the success of your product or service, let’s rather indulge in a little bug-hunting humor. Here are some great tweets on why and how we test software before releasing it.

1. Tech debt growing out of control

Winning the race is a very important goal for any software development project in today’s highly competitive digital market. Nevertheless, a faster time to market should never be achieved at the cost of cutting corners during development or software testing and QA procedures. Otherwise, you risk incurring serious technical debt, where the bugs, errors, and other defects you ignored sprint after sprint have turned into an unwieldy mess of a codebase—a serious problem that will inevitably lead to tons of rework, slow down further development of your software product, and become sizable hindrance to your company’s growth.

2. The longer you delay, the more you pay

Like taking a large loan you will later have to repay at an increasingly high interest rate, dealing with your technical debt gets a lot more time and budget consuming the later you decide to address it. This interest will reveal itself in every aspect of your business from maintenance and support costs to even legal. According to a CISQ report, the cost of poorly coded software in the U.S. alone totaled $2.84 trillion in 2018 from legacy system problems to total system failures caused by lack of proper testing and code refactoring.

3. Automate, sit back, and relax

While manual testing is proven to be of great efficiency at the start, the further you are in the development of your solution, the more code you have to check and the more expensive manual tests get to perform. Test automation does not only help you minimize the long-term cost of testing but increases the overall efficiency. With automated algorithms and tools in place, your QA team spends less time validating newly developed features as well as gets faster feedback, improved accuracy, better insights, and higher test coverage for the project. Less QA stress, less code mess.

4. You may have a nice bar…

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is a crucial step for the successful implementation and launch of any software solution. This is one of the QA processes you definitely don’t want to take a short cut on or skip. Without proper UAT, you needlessly risk failing user adoption as you can’t truly be sure that the functionality of your software solution fulfills the expectations of your end users in full. You may have opened a nice bar, but what if you forgot the bathroom?

5. Unresolved bugs? Never heard of her

Invalid bug reports cause noticeable overheads in the software development process. There can be many things that lead to them from misunderstandings on requirements and functions to external factors like environmental issues and tools. To get all your bugs resolved without incurring unnecessary expenses, you need to establish transparent and timely communication between the developers and QA engineers. To avoid misunderstandings and optimize the time used for reporting and debugging, frequently review requirements and make certain you test in the environments intended for the purpose.

 6. What is this writing?

Documentation plays an important part in the success of your software development project as much as it does in the efficiency of the QA processes leading to it. If the test documentation you maintain on the project is poorly structured, bloated, and deficient, it will inevitably influence the quality of test cases and eat up your budget. For your QA processes to be most efficient, make sure all your test documentation is produced in accordance with standards such as ISO/IEC/IEEE 29119 and is continually updated. Proper documentation will also ensure your project’s higher level of maturity before current and potential stakeholders.

7. Overconfidence is a flimsy shield

Last but not least, no matter how confident you are in the skills and experience of your development team, never underestimate the value of testing & QA for your software development life cycle. Remember, it’s great when you find bugs in your software! Leaving them unaddressed is what actually leads to serious issues for all and everyone involved. The earlier you start testing, the easier it is to build your software solution and the cheaper it will be to maintain it in the long run.