Having a private jet to travel from one city to another city instead of traveling by car, can be a great example of what’s a necessity and what’s a luxury. Luxuries are the items that are beyond affordability; we don’t require it yet we wish to consume it. On the other hand, necessities are the items or services that are indispensable or required the most to have a daily life balance. Therefore, when it comes to the business world, there are also some necessities and luxuries that businesses need or wish for. When it comes to the world of software development, necessities are not just confined to the backend technical facilities and developers. However, all such processes from which a software product goes through before it gets launched are its necessities. One of the indispensable parts of the software development life-cycle is software testing or software evaluation process.
But hang on! If software testing accounts to be the need for businesses then the types of equipment and tools they use are considered to be luxuries? Well, the answer to this question varies from business to business. Why? Because every business that conducts software testing has its own needs and wants according to the number and level of severity of errors, defects, and vulnerabilities in their software products. Therefore, many organizations implement the use of various tools like; the implementation of an issue tracking system or defect management tool to better track all the problems in the system under development. The incorporation of these tools depends upon various factors such as if an organization has a skilled team of testers or not. In this case, such type of tools can be a need for organizations. But when it comes to managing the test cases or tests, organizations encounter great challenges if they manually manage the test cases. For this purpose, incorporating the use of test management tools for Jira is a clever decision for the effective management of tests, it can not account for the luxury, yet the level of severity for utilizing this tool can vary from company to company. Maybe an organization is satisfied today with its test management method via using spreadsheets or excel but this can not be used for long-term purposes if an organization wants to grow.
Here lie several reasons to support the necessity of a test management tool. Let’s discuss them out;
Use of SpreadSheet can be a pain in the neck – For complex software testing activities, the use of spreadsheets and excel can be nothing more than a pain in the neck especially CI and automation, but if you still consider spreadsheet or excel as the best way, you are already killing your productivity!
Let us add this to you. IBM shared an informative fact in a white paper entitled “The Risks of Statistical Analysis Using Spreadsheets”, “More than 90% of mission-critical spreadsheets contain errors.”
The only thing to keep in mind is to open up your eyes as much as possible. You must be aware that if you continue to show reluctance towards test management tools while using the spreadsheets, then be ready to face the consequences as well:
Some of those hindrances include;
- The company continues to grow and the staff continues to grow. Most of them need access to daily testing activities, but this spreadsheet is not for teamwork or testing.
- The more complex the business model, the more difficult it is to obtain on the spreadsheet.
- Outdoor or remote employees may not be able to maintain the workflow because they will not be involved.
- It is not possible to grant permissions and control certain permissions in the spreadsheet.
Create test reports and traceability indicators – Test management tools can provide detailed analysis and comprehensive reports for the test team to track your test progress. By browsing the data at any time during the testing phase, you should be able to understand the current testing phase. It can also help you understand the status of the project by creating test case execution reports, detected defects and fixed defects, test distribution, and providing feedback.
Integrations possible – An appropriate test management tool is flexible enough to consolidate or integrate with multiple testing platforms or tools. In the modern age of APIs, this has become quite an easy and simple task as well. With the benefit of consolidation or integration, the entire process of test management can be easily automated via syncing the tools and periodically executing test cases. Hence a reduction in the time and effort significantly.
Collaboration between teams – A test case management software makes it possible for all the stakeholders to access the same platform in real-time while bringing every single member on the team on the same page without waiting for an email or document to be passed on to each team member. Such types of tools ensure that the tester, as well as the development teams, are on the same page and each one on the team is capable of viewing everything about any tests in progress or complete as well as the status & results.
Minimal Duplication of data – When an organization implements the use of spreadsheets or excel sheets to manage the test cases, requirements, defects, and other necessary information about tests, chances of duplication or copies of data are very high while the risk of varying information can mislead team members. However, the implementation of a test management tool makes it possible for the team members to view the same test information and data.
Summing it up
We know Software testing is an inevitable part of the software development life-cycle. Therefore, It’s inappropriate to claim that software testing is a luxury. In any case, the software testing process can not be considered a luxury because it is an absolute need of the organizations to make sure that their software products are free of errors and vulnerabilities before they release it. And the use of an appropriate test management tool is also an inevitable part of the software testing process. Those who think of test management tools as a luxury and show reluctance towards its adoption are restricting themselves to gain productivity. Productivity comes when efficiency is present. And for efficient test management, the use of tools is a necessity.
Now it’s time to reconsider your thinking of necessity & luxury!
