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Quality Assurance – Software Development’s Guarantee of Business Value

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Quality Assurance – Software Development’s Guarantee of Business Value

Published: 2023/02/16

6 min read

According to PriceWaterHouseCoopers, 40% of CEOs believe their organization will no longer be economically viable in ten years’ time. The pressure to adopt new business models, implement new technologies and survive an economic downturn are just some of the formidable challenges companies across sectors are facing. Software development will be crucial to overcoming these obstacles, and quality assurance is essential to ensuring efficient delivery and effective solutions. Read on to learn more about the business value quality assurance delivers. 

Quality assurance – the crucial factor behind successful products 

The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of meeting the schedule has been forgotten.” Karl Wiegers 

Forward-thinking organizations know that quality means money. This helps explain why, as reported by Research and Markets, the software testing market is expected to grow $55.76 billion between 2022 and 2026, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.07%. It is clear that every company needs to focus on the quality of its products and services, as dissatisfied users will quickly find an alternative. Customers choose a company based on its reputation because they expect to pay for something only if they get value. But a reputation is only as good as its latest review – that’s why quality needs to be checked, especially when talking about software development. There are several different levels of quality control during the software creation process. Let’s start with the basics.  

What is quality?  

What does it mean when people say that something has good or poor quality? It is hard to explain exactly what quality is, because it is relative, but some definitions are helpful. According to the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB): Quality is “the degree to which a component, system or process meets specified requirements and/or user/customer needs and expectations”. Another definition from James Bach argues that Quality is value to some person who matters. From my point of view, the real definition is a mix of these two ideas, in that quality is a level of pass requirements set by a person who matters.  

Quality is always evaluated according to a given criteria. Of course, there are some global requirements that are obvious. In software development, universal benchmarks applied to solutions are that they are bug free, accessible and user-friendly. During the business analysis stage of development, when requirements are collected, it is important to establish the success criteria, which will be the point to reach for testing specifications.  

To put a modern twist on an old proverb – quality is in the eye of the beholder. Or, to use one of favorite phrases used by quality assurance engineers, “it depends.” Quality depends on various factors. It could be legal requirements, specific industry needs, good practices, standards or anything that delivers business value and can be measured. There should be different quality expectations for different kinds of tests. Indeed, tailoring tests for specific situations is the only way to ensure fair evaluations lead to reliable results. That’s why, in software development life cycles, there are various levels of quality checks.  

Software development life cycles

The basic level is called unit tests. These kinds of tests are usually performed by developers to check if their work contains errors and is ready to use. Integration testing is the next level, which involves putting puzzles together and checking if everything looks correct. The highest level is end to end testing, which should center on full paths to simulate end user behavior. For every step of testing and quality assurance, the business goal, along with identifying issues and opportunities, is for testers to reduce the costs of software development. This is why quality means money.  

Business requirements are key to business value  

Business value is simply value that has a positive impact on an entire company. This value could take various forms. It could refer to value for users, a company or a region. If we are talking about software, behavior is the most important. If a team creates an application that is easy to use, does what it should do and is bug free, it should be regarded, by all metrics and measurements, as a piece of software which brings real-world value to a business.  

It is not as easy as it looks, though. Clear requirements are vital to success. Even the best developers are not able to create effective solutions if they have incomplete or unclear requirements. Another aspect that needs to be factored in is the deadline expectation. It is obvious that a market will not wait for your product – if your team does not develop a solution that your customers want, your competitors will. In such a situation, ‘done’ is better than ‘perfect’. This is especially true of startups who are desperate to secure funding from investors to secure their next stage of development. The worth of development work only has meaning when a product is in use and doing what it was designed to do.  

The testing approach – a use case 

Without changing our patterns of thought, we will not be able to solve the problems that we created with our current patterns of thought.Albert Einstein 

From a business point of view, there are three main parts of testing – quality assurance, business and user.  An experienced tester needs to have the ability to wear different ‘pairs of glasses’. In user testing, quality assurance testers need to simulate the potential behaviors of users. In the business part, testers need to verify all requirements from a business perspective. Last but not least, quality assurance testing is needed to check good practices, technical requirements and various scenarios.  

If, for example, your team needs to test login functionality, the user perspective will be straightforward – enter in the login and password, with the expectation to gain access. This process can be expanded with a functionality that can be used in the case of a forgotten password. To clarify, users expect software to behave as it should behave. 

The business perspective will be more complicated. Tests can be based on password requirements; to check if a password requires upper and lower case letters, numbers or special characters. Additionally, the length of a password will be included in this part of the test. Besides that, a team will need to consider what to do if an incorrect password is entered and how many attempts should be allowed before an account is blocked. These are all issues that should reflect business requirements. 

Finally, quality assurance is mostly based on predictions about what could go wrong. It could be done in a range of ways, from basic checks of different types of scenarios to more advanced methods like security intercepting requests.  

Turn to an experienced partner for dependable quality assurance 

Software testing is, essentially, dedicated to ensuring pure business value. It improves customer satisfaction – who among us has not been mad when an error message pops up on  our screens? Testing reduces costs and increases the efficiency of developing software – measurable business value that CEOs are looking for. Also, paying attention to assuring quality enhances a company’s reputation. Software testing helps to mitigate risks and ensures that software products deliver desired outcomes, which contributes to the success and growth of a business. 

Getting the quality assurance support you need means finding a technology partner with the experience, technical knowledge and best practices that optimize software delivery life cycles. That’s why organizations around the world team up with Software Mind, whose cross-functional teams integrate quickly into a company’s culture, learn its goals and provide meaningful cooperation that focuses on real-world business value. To learn how our experts can accelerate your software delivery, fill out the contact form below.

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About the authorCezary Machowski

Quality Assurance Engineer

A Quality Assurance Engineer with over 10 years of commercial experience, Cezary specializes in testing and delivering quality assurance for software applications. Beyond his technical contributions, he works closely with the business side of projects to ensure solutions meet the needs and expectations of clients and stakeholders. An avid member of Software Mind’s QA Guild, Cezary has worked on projects for clients throughout the US, UK and Europe.

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