Efficient Testing Practices to Maximize ROI

In today’s software development and testing environment, QA professionals face tightening budgets and delays in completing product roadmaps. What does that mean for their work? Testing teams must find a way to deliver measurable business value and optimize operating efficiency without sacrificing quality.

Development and testing processes in most organizations suffer from a significant amount of waste that represents lost business value. Wastes of time, resources and energy make an already difficult job far less efficient. Software testing teams must create a robust, valid and reliable process that puts application quality first but also adds significant business value.

QA testers don’t like to waste time. But, when inefficiency is built into the organization’s development and testing processes, waste creeps in due to an ever-changing selection of multiple toolsets or from a lack of focused workflow. To combat waste over time, teams must measure the reliability, accuracy and test coverage of the QA process.

To dig a bit deeper, let’s describe the practices involved in a standard software testing approach. We’ll provide tips for how to improve software testing efficiency and removing waste, ultimately pointing toward a positive business value.

What is testing process waste?

Testing process waste is any QA resource time or effort spent on work that must be repeated more than once or fails to add business value.

Testing process waste includes:

• updating multiple tools with the same information
• spending time filling out status spreadsheets or emails
• missing or misunderstood requirements leading to rework
• searching endlessly through an unorganized test management system
• executing functionality during regression testing more than once
• conducting unnecessary meetings
• retesting defects on different release branches
• misaligning performance plan projects and testing functions
• failing to document functionality changes in reference documentation or test cases

Most testing teams perform a typical set of tasks. When QA test processes exist, if they are not well-organized and easy to search or access, then waste is quickly introduced.

Common tasks involved in a software testing process include:

• test development
• creating new automated or manual feature tests
• test management
• test case maintenance, storage or updates
• test execution, manually or via automated scripts
• task tracking
• tracking who is working on what for new feature testing
• tracking who is executing which test case suites
• defect tracking
• tracking fixes and retesting
• tracking broken functionality and removing affected tests
• documentation, including living reference documentation for each application
• training and continuing education
• cross-training testers on different areas of the application
• planning time, continuing education and upskilling staff

Waste creeps into these tasks quickly, especially when the software development process, product management or even upper management tends to be unstructured or ineffective. Many upper-level managers make demands for the business that frequently do not work with the current development process. Or, for business reasons, the team might be forced to repeatedly change gears or pivot to meet a demanding customer’s needs.

Techniques to improve software testing efficiency

The first step in reducing waste and improving software testing efficiency is observation. If you can’t directly observe, consider meeting with each tester to understand what they do, what projects they work on, and which test cases or documentation they’ve written. Ask if meetings are effective, and why or why not.

You can also opt to meet as a group, but in this approach, you lose the input from less assertive team members. If you have team meetings where nobody ever talks, that’s a red flag. When QA team members are continuously silent, you have issues on the team.

When waste exists nobody wants to talk about improvements, ideas or processes. You may have a situation where the team consists of a few overly aggressive or controlling testers, inadequate test leads, or a disconnected team of working yet checked-out testers who don’t feel comfortable sharing ideas.

When talking to a tester individually, attempt to get information on what’s working with processes and what’s not. Once you’ve gathered input, it’s critical to put together a few solution options for improvements. Share these solutions, and then put the changes in motion. You can opt to make one change at a time rather than dump a bunch of changes at once. The important part is: actually make the changes.

Consider these other opportunities to improve software testing efficiency and find waste.

Reusability. Do testers reuse test cases appropriately before simply creating new ones?

Findability. Try to locate a particular test in your test management structure. Can you find it easily, or does it take more than five minutes? Hard-to-find tests waste valuable time.

Test maintenance. Are testers updating test cases and documentation with new or updated functionality? If not, testers waste time reporting invalid defects.

Regression test suites. Learn from your regression or other test execution suites to ensure the team doesn’t test the same functionality more than once. Many QA teams create new suites with dozens of duplicate tests.

Clear assignments. Ensure that the team handles test development, feature testing and test execution as assigned. It’s not important for testers to rush to assign themselves work. Rather, assign work to testers on the team fairly and evenly.

Limit tool sprawl. Select the right tool for the team. Don’t use more than one or two tools. Never require testers to enter the same data in more than one place.

Ditch the status reports. Create and run performance metrics for testers to ensure testers update their test status in real time. Remember that some functions are more complex than others, so review metrics to ensure they truly represent the work.

Leverage exploratory testing. Exploratory testing alleviates tester boredom when repeatedly executing test suites. Exploratory testing covers gaps and enables testers to identify new defects.

Implement continuous testing. Take advantage of manual and automated testing practices that foster comprehensive testing.

Upskill. Encourage testers to learn or update their skills by offering online, free or open-ended training. On that note, make testers work at the job; don’t box them into an application or role. Mix up assignments frequently so everyone gets an opportunity to shine, which also reduces boredom.

Assess team composition. Do you have too many QA managers or too many QA leads? QA managers and leads are valid roles for large teams, but not always for smaller teams. To improve efficiency, you likely want more active testers than leads or managers.

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