In the current day and age our daily life is infiltrated with a plethora of applications for our utility. These may be as simple as resting in the palm of your hand, your daily work drivers or your smart home setups like smart TVs and Chromecast etc. The only thing that sets the number one application from its rivals is experience. As more and more software developers storm the markets; it is the reliability of a certain application that sets it apart from the rest of the crowd.
There is only one way to gauge the experience the end user is going to have and that can be summed up in one word; Quality.
The main problem that people face is the management of data for these projects. Although people can add and track the project on an excel sheet, it ends up consuming time and resources. There may be focus on quality at these stages but it is the functionality issues, late delivery and high-cost variance that impact the failure of these projects the most.
There is a way to avoid being a statistic. For any software company, the risk lies in launching a buggy and untested software to the market. This is where the problem persists which not only leads to problematic software being released into the market but also opens gateways to security lapses and software malfunctions.
Thus there is a great need to test the software for a higher standard of quality. This as mentioned before can be done manually or automated to a certain extent in office products. When everything needs to be checked thoroughly for a better understanding of the efforts that go into the design and assessment of the product.
Hence test management tools become of vital importance to any company that aims to provide quality software to the end user. Standardized testing procedures for the project include;
- Managing the tests
- Scheduling the tests
- Managing the testing activities
- Traceability
- Logging of the Tests
- Progress reports
All this data can be overwhelming when broken-down to the work that goes behind each and every phase. But there are ways to make it more user friendly depending on what kind of tool you are using. It should have the ability to go from a Micro/Complex level view to a Macro/Management Level view. At the same time a focused approach towards the project delivery offers benefits to the company that is developing the product. This gives the companies the time and resources to focus on a strategic spectrum.
As many companies fail to view the side of the end user and tighten up on the cost of testing phase they end up in the trap of Gartners research or end up losing the trust of the end consumer. Where the market is flooded with substitutes of each and every software it is the perception of the brand and it is very easy to forget that perception is reality in the eyes of the end consumer.
The idea for test can be summed up in the pyramid very clearly that what affects the companies and the products;
- Perception is Reality – Know what your customers really think of you.
- Consistency – Staying strong to the commitment from the pre-Alpha phase to the live production.
If the testing principle is followed to the core the commitment is realized and the benefit is far greater than a healthy bottom line and that benefit for the company and the end user is; trust.
