How To Optimize The Testing Process and Reduce Development Costs?

The process of making the testing process quicker while not compromising on its accuracy is called Optimize of the Testing Process. Here, the build will be completed at a reasonable faster pace than the traditional approach. The test optimization process can be done by making changes in how the test cases are run such as execute the tests which cover the changes in the build or run the tests an optimal order.

As it is known that testing the software and fixing the bugs when the software is already being used in the market is a very costly process, so to reduce costs, enhance the testing productivity, and curb consumption of hours, optimization techniques are used.

Let’s discuss a few techniques which can really optimize the testing process and certainly reduce the development costs:

Starting Testing Process in Early Phase of Software Development

At an early phase of software development, it is easy to find out warnings and signs, ambiguities thus avoiding future issues. The defects found at an initial phase are easier and less expensive to resolve.
Also, involving the testing team from the beginning will create a better understanding of the software among the testing resources.

Well Planned Testing Process

If the testing process is kept formal, well documented from the beginning of the software development process, it will bring clarity about the software. It will be easier to communicate with the teams building the software. By well-documented testing, it is meant to create the main documents QA management plan, Test Strategy, Test Plan, and Test Cases. The documents should be updated in case of changes and different versions should be maintained. The documentation should be short and precise. It is a good practice to share the Test Plan document with the client so that the development team and client both are on the same plane.

Using Effective Testing Methods

Some of the useful testing techniques for testing process optimization are:

• Test Scenario Selection: Create effective testing scenarios. This will reduce the testing process time since there will be no duplication of test cases. It will also increase the quality of the product.
• Remove Redundant Test Cases: By keeping test case precise and unique will make the testing process effective and faster. It will also reduce resources including hardware utilization.
• Automation: Automation is used when some of the features of the software never change or hardly change whenever a new build is made. Instead of regressing the same test cases each time, this process can be automated. It will reduce time and cost, manpower, also helping inefficient resource utilization. Automation requires low maintenance of test scripts, provides a structured approach to testing, and also supports parallel execution of multiple test cases.
• Use Monkey Testing/ Exploratory Testing: Using on the go testing, will make the testing process faster. As the changes are made in the build, testing is done to verify the changes. The critical and error-prone parts of the software will be tested fast in risk-based testing. Small, fast rapid tests are run in this approach.
• Regression Pack be kept small in size: Selecting effective test case suite will reduce regression testing time, low costs while maintaining quality

Using Proper Testing Tools during Software Development

Best Practices for choosing a proper testing tool would be using more open source tools, removing expensive tools. The tools chosen should be easy to implement, contains open information available on the internet.

Choose a suitable Software Development Methodology

All testing models have different competencies, software development strategies. Choosing the best method will depend on various factors like project deadlines, business agenda. Also, the factors like the team structure in the organization, its roles also helps in selecting a suitable software development methodology

Conduct Reviews

The reviews conducted can be formal or informal. Formal reviews can be in the form of the review meetings, walkthroughs, inspection. The findings of these reviews help in finding out whether our product is meeting the requirements. Code Quality standards, Domain Knowledge, Knowledgeable Resources are other checkpoints for testing optimization. The reliability of the system, performance, maintenance, and security are certain measures that are checked in reviews.

Efficient allocation and usage of Resources

Resources has a vivid skill set. So the best practice would be to match the software requirements with the employee skillset. Another practice, if the skill set is not available, it would be recommendable to outsource the project. Outsourcing helps to save testing costs. Recent studies show that most of the companies after 2017 are delegating some portions of their projects to freelancers or smaller companies. Another practice would be to maintain good employee relations so that higher productivity can be achieved. The resource should not be over-pressurized.

Deploy Proper Testing Environment

To optimize the testing process, an effort should be made from the beginning of the project. Good Practices would include having a dedicated QA team from the early phase, having knowledge transfer sessions amongst cross teams, continuous and proper communication should be maintained within the different teams so that all of them are updated on the progress of the project.

Conclusion:

Concluding, the above steps can bring effective test optimization. Since software development has challenges coming in each of its phases, so optimization of each phase can certainly help the companies in reducing costs. Every company thrives to attain maximum performance in every phase of development. Following the above methods will definitely help companies to achieve faster software lifecycle, reduce costs, improve response time, maximize profits, and increase the productivity of their resources. Nevertheless, the organizations should not stop searching about the best ways to reduce costs and attain maximum productivity which can benefit them as a whole.