10 Best Practices for QA teams to Deliver Quality Software Fast

As a quality assurance (QA) team leader, I must sign off on the quality of a significant release every six months. Each significant release normally includes two new large features and three smaller features, like a change in user interface (UI) or a new report, in addition to stability issues and bug fixes. I've eight QA engineers working on code developed by 30 developers.

That is a tall order to handle. Thus, to avoid needing to spend weekends and nights on the job, our staff embraced these 10 best practices to make the workload manageable when ensuring that the releases we approve maintain the highest standards of quality.

1. Break free from the classical roles and responsibilities of QA

We have breached boundaries in both directions. We're a customer-facing unit, and we hear from our customers about issues they encounter and what features they'd like to see in our merchandise. On the opposite end, we actively participate in design discussions, offering the input we receive from clients. In addition, our code analyzing knowledge and experience helps us identify designs defects before anyone spends time coding, which significantly reduces development cycles and helps individuals fulfill client expectations since we release new versions.

2. Select Your release standards carefully

You can't test everything in an enterprise merchandise for every single release, and luckily, you don't need to. You can still be confident in the product you approve if you concentrate on regions of your code where the most significant adjustments were made. Before a new release cycle begins, our staff sits together with all the stakeholders to know which parts of the product will be touched by new or upgraded code. We use that information to prioritize our testing efforts. We concentrate on these areas of the code and use present automation tests to handle other pieces. If you understand something labored in the previous release and you're not touching it in this release, then you certainly don't have to spend too much time testing. So base your release criteria on brand new code that is being added.

3. Prioritize bug fixes based on usage

Fixing bugs is an essential part of any new release, however on which bugs should you concentrate your efforts? Our response is usage data. We use Google Analytics to see how end users interact with no loading testing tools. This provides us a wealth of essential information. For example, if we know that one part of the application is rarely used, a bug in that region of the code has lower priority. If less than one percent of our users are on a particular browser, issues specific to this browser get less focus. However, we also listen to our customers. The very last thing we need is for our users to encounter bugs. When something did get beyond users and us detect bugs, those bugs get priority for repairs in the next release.

4. Adopt a two-tier approach to Check automation

If a commit a developer makes to the main trunk breaks the build in any way, we notify them as quickly as possible. Nevertheless, we can not run exhaustive system tests for each commit. That would take too long, and by the time a problem could be discovered, the developer might have moved on to another person. So, we embraced a two-tier approach to check automation. Tier one is triggered by every devote to the code base and gives rapid validation of programmer changes, with sanity tests that complete within a few minutes. Tier two conducts more exhaustive regression analyzing and runs automatically at night, once we have more time to test changes. Deciding how light or exhaustive each grade should be is an artwork. But once you start working like this, you quickly learn how to balance between daylight sanity testing and nighttime regression testing.

5. Stay close to the relevant environment

Each QA group has heard the developer comment,". . .but it works in my device " How can you avoid this situation?

Our QA and our development teams operate the exact same environment. As our builds move through the development pipeline, nevertheless, we must examine the code under production conditions, thus we construct our staging environment to mimic our customers' production environments.

6. Form a dedicated security testing staff

Because clients consume our products as a software as a service (SaaS) offering, we keep all data on our servers, and now we must perform safety testing before each release. Security vulnerabilities on SaaS platforms tend to get discovered by consumers, and those issues can quickly drive away customers. To prevent that, we formed a dedicated testing group that performs a complete week of penetration testing on stable versions of soon-to-be-released merchandise and updates. Before they begin testing, we brief the team concerning new features in upcoming releases and product surroundings. The team utilizes that information to test for security vulnerabilities to try to penetrate the system. These team members undergo rigorous security instruction and are familiar with relevant corporate and ISO security standards, with a specialization in cloud programs.

With their help, our staff recently discovered a security vulnerability, created by a few of the top cloud surroundings providers, that would have enabled malicious hackers to acquire valuable information. We immediately updated our infrastructure on Amazon's cloud to prevent a breach.

7. Form a dedicated performance testing team

Have a dedicated performance team run tests as soon as a product is steady, and short the staff about new versions and attributes so they can evaluate the operation risks. When the programmers introduce a brand new feature that has no impact on functionality, like a button on the display, we only run our regression tests. But if we guess that a feature might affect functionality, we also write and implement new functionality evaluations.

Always update your security and functionality teams together with all pertinent information and provide them with an environment as close to production as you can. In one of the current releases, the operation engineers found a significant bottleneck in an internal, third party SaaS environment because of a new configuration in that provider's database. If the performance team hadn't tested the surroundings, a crash would have resulted. This step is essential. If you do not have the capacity to form your very own dedicated performance team, train some QA team members to choose on performance testing.

8. Run a regression cycle

We run our regression cycle at the last stage of merchandise stabilization, and it's that process that activates the green light to go to production. Since very little changes in development at this point, you've got an opportunity to validate the entire product. We conceptually mimic our product as a tree with a hierarchy of module and part branches to help us understand the item from the client's perspective. When any branch is altered, the hierarchy shows what branches below it'll be changed and will need extra QA testing.

Our regression cycle uses the traffic light procedure. If each branch receives a green light (passes all tests), the item is deemed ready for delivery. If a branch receives a yellow light (all tests passed with one or more documented warnings), we talk about the matter with all our stakeholders. In the end, if a branch receives a red light (a couple of tests failed), we stop and tackle the issue. We also automate our regression cycle, so it only takes a few days to run.

9. Simulate customer balances on production

Since we maintain customer data in our databases, we have to guarantee that it remains compatible with any new variants we release. Eating our own dog food is essential, so when the QA team runs data migration testing, we create a test account that's handled on our production systems. We use this account to constantly generate data and populate our databases.

When we release a new edition, we conduct upgrades to check that no data was damaged, and if we find some data-corrupting bugs, then those become our highest priority. We also spend a day or two on manual backward compatibility testing while we take steps towards finding an automatic and more efficient approach. However, you still have to do some manual testing, since it is one of the final stages prior to manufacturing.

10. Perform sanity tests on production

We perform post-release sanity tests on our creation account to confirm that everything works as expected, such as all third party programs. We first perform tests using our current production account but create a new account to confirm that the process will continue to work correctly as new customers sign up. We conduct sanity testing for half a day, where a part of the team tests the old account and another part tests the recently created one. Finally, we test third-party elements, like the billing system, to guarantee version compatibility.

Performance engineering has altered the traditional roles and procedures of QA engineers. Now, you should have highly dedicated and specialized teams, as well as a continuing QA process through production and beyond. Additionally, to perform your role thoroughly and satisfy your clients, you need to be willing to be a client yourself.