Major challenges in QA processes and ways to overcome them
As the market for IT products and services is rapidly
growing, Quality Analysts are facing a lot of challenges in terms of
understanding the work domain, adapting to frequent changes, maintaining
quality, and making self-development a priority. With Agile gaining popularity,
it is becoming more and more difficult to achieve continuous delivery and to
exceed expectations, especially through traditional Quality Analysis practices.
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Let’s take a quick look at a few of the major challenges
that QA faces in an Agile development life cycle.
Not being clear on
the requirements
Although Agility brings speed and Continuous Delivery, it
also brings frequent changes in requirements. Due to stringent timelines, it is
most difficult to keep the requirement up-to-date, and thus the QA has to
struggle with last-minute changes. Not only this but many times for smaller
features, requirements are not even clear before development and QA starts.
Following unrealistic
timelines
Timelines/deadlines have always been tricky in Agile. On the
one hand, the requirements are never frozen, and on the other hand, the sprints
are short. Usually, it so happens that a large number of user stories are
pushed in one sprint, due to which, development crosses its deadline, and that
in turn, affects the QA timelines. This results in poor outcomes due to lack of
time for end-to-end testing and regression. Bad project planning and poor
estimates play an important role in creating unrealistic timelines.
Finding Defects early
Yes, it is important to find defects early in the Sprint.
But does it normally happen? Testers may be able to find blockers or critical
defects early through the initial smoke testing of build, but there could be
some serious logical errors in the code, or the new implementation could have
created severe integration issues, which are usually found during the detailed
testing. Finding defects early is a normal expectation from all testers but it
is also a big challenge when they have to deal with never-ending changes in
requirements, poorly followed processes, and stringent timelines.
Testing an end-to-end
regression
Regression testing can be time-consuming, complex and
exhausting. Unless there is automation in place, regression testing can even
make testers lose interest in their job! In big projects, regression involves
integration testing also, which makes it furthermore complex and critical.
There could be hundreds of test cases in a regression suite. Even if they are
automated, it requires regularly updating the scripts. Manual regression
testing may leave a lot of human-errors, which could be expected in automated
regression testing too if the scripts are not up-to-date. Thus, end-to-end
regression testing a big challenge for all testers.
Not compromising
quality
Quality is the only thing a QA is responsible for. Then why
is maintaining quality, a challenge for testers? It is because even in less
time it is expected that QAs do their job 100%. Usually, a sprint lasts for 2
or 3 weeks, within that time happens the - Requirements analysis/KT, test
planning, test case authoring, functional testing, regression testing, along
with n-number of meetings. Many times, the development team takes longer than
the estimated hours. In this case, QA already has a shortage of time within
which they are expected to leave no errors! It needs talented QAs to perform
thorough testing in limited timelines without any complaints!
Apart from these, there are many other challenges that the
QA comes across. Challenges around - test coverage, technical skills,
collaboration with other teams, utilization of tools, lack of resources, etc.
persist in most QA teams and hinder their progress. Learn more about Enterprise
Application Testing Solution
Tips to overcome
these challenges
Have well-defined
requirements with examples
Even if the requirements have a lot of changes through the
sprint or project span, it is always better to keep the entire project team
updated at the earliest. Adding examples of new changes, layouts of screens,
easy to understand flowcharts, etc. in the requirements document or user
stories, also helps. All kinds of communication such as emails and project
meetings should be completely informative. For enhancements or change requests
in sprints, the user stories should also contain well-written Acceptance
Criteria and example documents wherever necessary. This way the actual
requirements can be delivered to the team and mistakes can be reduced.
Make appropriate
estimates
When estimates are made during project planning, they are
usually not given a detailed thought. Estimates are important because they
determine when the project can be delivered, or if it can be delivered within
the stipulated timelines. Not establishing project timelines carefully could
cause a huge loss of money, efforts, and trust. Every team in a project should
be cautious while preparing estimates. Think about all the last-minute changes,
risks and hurdles that could disturb your estimates. Some clients demand their
projects to be delivered ‘ASAP’. But it is best not to set unrealistic
timelines because it makes the resources over-worked; exhausted resources do
not produce the best results.
Have smaller projects
This is one of the best practices in Agile. Smaller projects
give you enough time for everything. BAs would get enough time for creating
detailed FRDs, developers would get enough time for implementing as well as
some unit testing, and QA will get enough time for testing end-to-end
functionality and also regression. This way every team can perform their best,
having complete focus on every detail of the FRD and the implementation. There
is even time for a sufficient number of team meetings which helps in sharing
suggestions, discussing problems and clearing out doubts.
Adhere to QA
processes
The solution to most project problems is to follow standard/defined
processes. Imagine a simple, yet common scenario where the tester doesn’t enter
all important details in a defect. They simply add a brief description and
submit. Now, how much time does it take to enter all necessary details in a
defect, 2 or 3 minutes at most, after which the developer starts fixing it? But
the tester didn’t spend that time. Now, think of the overall time spent when
the developer breaks his head trying to understand and locate the defect,
assigns it back to the tester, tester tries to enter all necessary steps,
screenshots, details, etc. or even explains to the developer, and assigns it
back to him, who now has enough facts to locate the defect and starts fixing
it. All this time could have been saved if the QA had just followed the
standard practice of entering all details in the defect!
Spare some time for
self-development
Who doesn’t like to have skillful personnel in the team?
When you save time from your project work, you can spare some time for your
growth. Learn new technologies and help others too! Improve yours and your
team’s knowledge of processes and domains. Become and create SMEs in your team.
Conduct technical training. Indeed, talented software testers guarantee the
best outcomes!
Original blog source: https://www.jadeglobal.com/blog/major-challenges-qa-processes-and-ways-overcome-them
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