Continuously improve your approach to quality with Quality Assurance Reviews

Quality Assurance (QA) is a much-discussed topic within the technology industry right now and how organisations and teams implement this into the Software Delivery Lifecycle (SDLC) can be variable and inconsistent. More and more businesses are looking to embed QA earlier in the lifecycle – with mixed results.

Organisations that are looking at their Quality Assurance maturity and effectiveness can struggle with benchmarking themselves against industry best practice. Gauging the efficiency of the delivery teams and measuring the output against Quality principles can be a difficult task.

At Roq, we look at Quality Assurance as part of a wider Quality Engineering Ecosystem that enables teams to embed quality throughout the process of developing and deploying software. Roq Head of Delivery, James Eastham talks us through the evolution from testing to Quality Engineering and why it's so important that businesses embrace the change to a more holistic approach in his recent article which you may find interesting.  As he comments:

It’s consideration of all aspects of a product or solution from the very first steps in the process to the value being realised when it’s in the hands of the end-user

Therefore, considering QA within this context is critical to achieving a true shift left approach.  However, we firstly need to look at exactly what Quality Assurance is and how we define what good looks like.

What is Quality Assurance?

With respect to the SDLC, Quality Assurance is the procedure to ensure that any project or programme of works meets the agreed quality standards within an organisation and measures the end product against overall objectives agreed at the start of a project.

In a broader sense, Quality Assurance is a shift in mindset from a team of testers coming into the SDLC to test against a set of requirements and is instead brought into the process to engage with the development team at the earlier in the lifecycle.

Often QA can be misused within the industry and the benefits of taking a quality approach earlier in the SDLC are easily missed. Organisations that are not looking at a shift left mentality are missing opportunities to improve their output and could be missing out on significant cost savings by not fixing problems sooner.

Teams who are still using Waterfall methodologies, for example, and bring test into the process to validate the build stage are losing time within the process when a shift left approach would allow testing to input into the design and requirements to reduce the project timelines.

What does good Quality Assurance look like?

A question asked by most organisation but is the most difficult to answer! Good quality assurance starts as far left in the process as the inception stage and is considered through each stage until deployment. How this is implemented across the industry is varied but we consider the below to be critical to good QA:

Automation First

Using test automation within the SDLC naturally leads to faster delivery as this enables the team to spend time on more interesting and impactful testing. Freeing the team up to focus on exploratory, usability and ad hoc testing can bring down costs within the project. Automation also reduces the risk of human error within manual testing and brings more consistency into the process. Any repeatable testing within the lifecycle should be automated. Although there is no one size fits all approach to automation, not considering this within your QA process means missing out on considerable time and cost savings!

Roq Client Director, Justin Brown offered his thoughts on Test Automation and the obvious benefits to organisations in his recent article:

Test Automation is a great building block to faster delivery.  It reduces risk and increases productivity.  With the right sponsorship, the right approach, and the right investment, all of these benefits are achievable

Documentation

A good Quality Assurance process will have clear guidelines for how documents such as Test Plans and Test Cases should be written and stored. We often see projects within the same organisation having different standards and documents being used which can lead to standards varying from project to project. Clearly defining and agreeing on an overall strategy and approach to QA throughout will lead to greater consistency and improve the output of delivery.

Feedback

Quality Assurance teams who embed feedback loops throughout the SDLC are able to improve the quality output of development. Feeding back regularly to all the stakeholders allows for continuous learning, so that any issues can be addressed early in the lifecycle. Maintaining strong measurables throughout the process allows you to keep track of the quality output and make changes quickly and at pace.

How would I review my QA processes?

First, it’s important to note to everyone involved in the process that embedding a QA approach into the process isn’t about creating unnecessary delays and steps. Bringing a QA perspective into the inception and design stages of any project can save time as requirements would be shaped to ensure testing is more focused at the validate and deploy stages.

• Inception - Start by looking at the inception stage of your SDLC. How are testing involved at this stage? How accurate are estimates and are the requirements clear and unambiguous? Are all requirements testable?

• Design - During the design phase, are all designs validated and is testing involved within this stage? How are Non-functional requirements considered when designing the product? Ensuring that the appropriate tools are in place to manage testing and defects at this point is key.

• Build - At the build phase, what processes are in place to ensure quality is embedded? Has unit testing, code reviews and a deployment process been captured? Quality Assurance is not just testing it is looking at the assurance process of the whole delivery cycle.

• Validation – When reaching the validation stage of the project the framework for testing and processes should be clearly in place, however, we often find this is when testing is being brought in for the very first time! Ensuring defined quality gates are in place, and management of releases is clear with agreed deliverables is crucial to embedding quality.

Deploy/Maintain - What allowances have been made for post-implementation and rollback testing once deployed? Are there any critical functions that cannot fail and how are they being measured?

At Roq, we believe that impartial, expert advice is key to understanding the maturity of your Quality Assurance model. Our team of experts are able to identify strengths and weaknesses of current testing practices, work with you to develop a practical roadmap to enact change and develop long-term plans for transformation. If you are just starting out on your Quality journey or are looking to review long-standing processes, we’d love to speak to you! Get in touch at ask@roq.co.uk