Software testing is one of the main stages of development that always needs much effort. And while it has been here for decades, that challenge is not just in the effort, it is in managing the process and making it effective.
Testing software can heavily impact other stages and sides of the software development. It is always related to the overall software quality. If you are developing or outsourcing software, here are 5 of the best practices of software testing that need to be followed.
Keep the focus on management and organization
While your tester may use the best tools and the best possible hardware to test new versions and builds of the software, they need to focus on the management of the project to make it all efficient.
Management includes communication, and aligning with others to make other phases of development and test the best process for efficient software testing. Project managers should have the knowledge and experience needed to manage testing and make it an efficient phase of the software development.
Make bug reports efficient and detailed
Efficient and detailed bug reports can impact the testing process, as well as other development practices heavily. Bug reports need to be detailed, to save time developers can waste on knowing what is the reason exactly behind the bug.
Less guessing and unneeded communication means higher efficiency. They need all the details that are to the point, for each of the bugs. These details surely need an understanding of many aspects, including good knowledge about software development.
While writing in detail, bug reports need to also be efficient and simple. In order to avoid wasting time on reading unneeded details or not understanding part of it.
Focus on test cases
While bug reports help developers resolve problems and bugs of the developed software, test cases can be a great addition that many teams should use more frequently.
When written clearly, test cases can save huge amounts of time. Usually, test cases should be simplified into 8 steps as a maximum, as suggested by most experts, to help make them easy to read and apply.
Communicate more, even with yourself
If you feel like the testing process is ongoing with less communication than needed. Then you need to solve this problem as soon as possible.
Testers need to communicate continuously with other team members and share updates. While the team should be updating testers with information as soon as possible. Communication needs to be efficient and managed through effective workflows, and over communication should also be avoided.
While testers are communicating with their teams, they should be also communicating with themselves and continuously asking questions.
Embrace positive attitude
Mindsets of the testers can impact the whole process heavily. A positive attitude is very important for testers, as their work brings more work to others and they need to be cautious.
Embracing a positive attitude, testers should ignite the spark to their teammates and always support them.