Software testing can prevent errors that are expensive to repair, thereby avoiding high costs in the future because of them. The following are the 7 steps to optimize the upfront cost.
Why software testing is important
The average mobile phone application contains about 50,000 lines of code, the Microsoft Windows operating system has about 50 million lines of code, and Google’s entire code base is estimated to contain 2 billion lines of code. If each KLOC (thousand lines of code) has 15-50 defects on average, then software testers have a lot of work to do before the product is put on the market.
So how do software testers decide what to test? How to test? How much is enough to test, and how much is redundant? This is a difficult decision, even for experienced testers! Millions of lines of code are for It is unbearable for any testing team, and the cost of testing may be prohibitively high.
However, it is impossible for any software product to be released to the market without going through a thorough and comprehensive testing cycle. Software testing is the most important part of SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle), and possibly the most important part.
Some of the most important reasons why software testing is important are:
- Ensure the reliability and safety of the software. Software systems used in airplanes and vehicles, medical equipment, and key manufacturing facilities can even determine life and death.
- It ensures high performance, which is essential in systems that need to handle very large loads (such as thousands of concurrent users or very high data transfer rates).
It provides customer satisfaction, which is the key to the success of any business or product.
Why can I save money?
Software testing can prevent errors that are expensive to repair, which can cause unnecessary high expenses in the future. We have all heard that some companies have recalled thousands of cars and even airplanes because of "vulnerabilities" in their systems. Imagine the loss due to lack of testing!
A simple rule is that the sooner you track a bug, the lower the cost of fixing it.
This makes more comprehensive software testing more important in any business or project that relies on or uses software engineering. The longer a software defect remains undetected, the more likely it is to snowball into a larger, more critical defect, and gradually become more and more difficult to repair. In some cases, defects are detected too late to be repaired, thereby jeopardizing the success of the entire application.
Technology companies that invest in early testing and frequent testing are more likely to reap handsome returns in the long run. This is because software defects not only lead to costly fixes, they can also negatively affect the company’s reputation, leading to downtime, poor user experience, and loss of customers, thereby further reducing revenue.
Without thorough regression testing, even fixing bugs will lead to new bugs, which is disastrous for any organization.
How to get more benefits by spending on software testing
This seems a bit paradoxical: software testing does cost money, but it actually saves you even more. It depends on how you look at it. Software testing should not be seen as a mere expense, but as an investment to deliver reliable, defect-free and high-quality software, thereby gaining a reliable reputation in the market and attracting More loyal customers.
Unfortunately, many companies tend to cut corners when testing, either because of cost or because of demanding delivery schedules. In fact, instead of worrying about the shortcomings of "testing", companies should pay more attention to the disadvantages of "no testing" because the impact of the latter is much more serious. Testing may make you think that your time to market has become longer, but after all, it's better to fix bugs before they get into the hands of paying users. Right? After all, if customers find that the reliability, performance, and quality of your software fail to meet their expectations, you may never have a second chance to win customers again.
The return on investment (ROI) of software testing is usually intangible and priceless—customer satisfaction, brand image, company reputation, and repeat customers.
7 ways to optimize testing and cost
The following are 7 steps to optimize the cost of software testing, while maintaining the quality standards required by the market.
1. Understand
First, even before actually starting the test process, you need to conduct a test maturity assessment to understand the shortcomings and functions of the test process, and if possible, you need to find ways to improve them. Benchmarking in accordance with industry standards and best practices is also invaluable. It is very helpful to ensure that you will eventually get a high-quality product that meets customer expectations.
2. Plan
Without a comprehensive test plan, the chance of software testing going the wrong way is very high. You need to create a clear roadmap on the testing methodology, set measurable goals, identify risks, and set clear milestones for the entire testing life cycle.
3. Definition
Although reliability, performance, safety, and efficiency are still the overall goals, you still need to go deeper to clearly define the indicators you will use in the test cases, such as use case descriptions, prerequisites, execution steps, and verification with actual results Expected results, etc.
4. Automation
Today, with the emergence of a large number of available testing tools, as long as automated testing can be carried out, it has a certain meaning. Automation reduces the workload of the test team by handling all monotonous and huge workloads, so that team members can think about and focus on test planning and test design.
5. Adaptation
Compared with the traditional waterfall model, software engineering has made great progress. Agile and DevOps have taken a higher priority in application development. There is no reason for testing to be left behind, and DevOps is increasingly used in the testing field. Testing needs to be fully integrated into each stage of the SDLC and can help identify defects early in the testing cycle, thereby significantly improving the quality of the product.
6. Teamwork
Successful testing requires teamwork, and collaboration between members is essential. Define the QA role at the beginning of the test cycle, and carry out business training and construction for the members of manual testing and automated testing. The most important thing is to maintain continuous communication between different members and departments, ensure the layout of the team, hold face-to-face meetings as much as possible, and keep the communication channels open.
7. Repeat
Testing is an important part of the CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) model, so the testing cycle also needs to follow a cycle of continuous improvement and improvement. According to the "lean" method, it is very important for the iterative and iterative software product or testing process!
to sum up
Software testing is one of the most important stages in the software development life cycle. Even if our program under test does not have millions or tens of millions of lines of code, the price and cost of software defects are very considerable.
Companies should view testing as an investment in building a brand and meeting customer expectations, rather than focusing on software testing costs. Comprehensive testing provides a huge return on investment by ensuring reliability, safety, performance and customer satisfaction. Optimizing software testing can greatly reduce testing costs while maintaining quality and reliability standards.
Finally: send a wave of software test data!
In the technology industry, you must improve your technical skills and enrich your practical experience in automation projects. This will be very helpful for your career planning in the next few years and the depth of your test technology mastery.
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