According to the Institute of Project Management, up to 70% of software projects fail.
What’s more, only 0.5% of them meet the scope and business goals.
As you can guess, digital Product Development is certainly not a walk in the park.
In this context, several Quality Assurance (QA) standards must be met to ensure truly functional products.
But why should decision-makers pay attention to Quality Assurance?
Let's explore the importance of QA throughout the Software Development Lifecycle!
What is Software Quality Assurance?
The International Software Testing Qualifications Board (ISTQB) defines QA as "activities that give confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled."
In other words, Quality Assurance ensures products fulfill project requirements, user expectations and industry standards.
In this context, a key principle of the testing process is to detect and address errors and poor software quality.
In modern Project Management, with methodologies such as Agile, Quality Assurance is carried out throughout the whole lifecycle rather than just a step.
Apart from quality, effective testing also handles key aspects, such as security, compliance and reliability.
9 Software Quality Assurance Techniques
1. Code Reviews
Code Review is a systematic process that evaluates new code for potential issues.
Teams verify that the code adheres to industry standards and whether its structure can be simplified to enhance maintainability.
Specific aspects to evaluate can include code syntax, readability, potential duplicates and documentation.
2. Unit Testing
Unit Tests allow Software Developers to test small units of code, such as methods and functions, in isolation to ensure they work properly.
Identifying potential code errors in individual components can ease timely corrections.
3. Integration Testing
With Integration testing, teams can verify how multiple pieces of code interact when combined.
This testing approach identifies errors that may not be obvious when evaluating individual units.
4. System Testing
System testing's primary goal is to assess the functionality of the entire product's systems.
This method can uncover issues such as incorrect functionality, unexpected behavior, poor performance and data exposure.
It's excellent for verifying that the product meets project and business requirements, including security and scalability.
5. Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
CI/CD involves automating repetitive tasks and standardizing testing procedures to streamline QA.
Additionally, CI/CD ensures that code updates are thoroughly tested and validated before being deployed.
These pipelines can also help automate end-to-end tests, which simulate user interactions across the entire application flow.
6. Risk-Based Testing (RBT)
RBT prioritizes testing tasks and activities based on their level of risk.
This technique focuses on enhancing product quality by optimizing resource use.
Furthermore, RBT goes from planning and risk identification to monitoring and reporting.
7. Performance Testing
Performance testing enables teams to evaluate specific performance metrics across devices.
These metrics can include response time or latency, bandwidth, CPU interrupts per second, throughput and memory.
As a result, PT ensures that the product operates smoothly under conditions such as peak usage times with heavy workloads.
Software Development teams can also identify the specific part of the system where a product may fail, ensuring optimal reliability and efficiency.
8. Regression Testing
Regression testing ensures that recent code changes won't affect existing working functionalities.
A key element is that it involves re-running tests on previously implemented features to ensure they still function as intended.
This helps prevent changes in code from breaking one part of the system or another.
9. Manual Testing
Manual testing brings human insight and intuition to QA processes.
The goal here is to identify issues that may not be visible in automation.
This method can be particularly useful for complex User Interfaces (UIs) that involve interactions and animations.
It can also provide deeper insights into the system's behavior and usability.
Why is QA Important in Software Development?
To summarize, QA ensures that functional requirements, including security and coding standards, are met.
By paying attention to testing, businesses can deliver error-free, high-quality software products, positively impacting user satisfaction.
Integrating compliance revisions in testing phases also makes it easier for businesses to adapt to changing regulations.
Quality standards can also mitigate financial risks by preventing cybersecurity breaches, which can result in substantial losses and damage to reputation.
Losses from data breaches have increased over the past decade, with the average breach amounting to $9.36 million.
Efficient QA leads to rapid product releases, which, when combined with top-quality products, ensure a competitive edge.
Implementing QA throughout the lifecycle has a direct impact on business growth.
A great example is the ROI of digital solutions that prioritize QA—it can return ranging from 3:1 to as high as 10:1.
Conclusion
Properly integrating QA can be challenging if a specialized team is not in place.
Working with an experienced agency, such as Capicua, can be key to achieving your success.
We have extensive expertise in providing QA services. Reach out!
