Why investing in software quality is a great value
Many organizations consider testing an unwanted necessity that delays software deployment. Even highly regulated industries, such as banking and capital markets, often choose high-volume, low-cost outsourced testing. Traditional ODC and offshore testing models require large volumes that often contribute to low QA (quality assurance). Fortunately, this approach is starting to shift. Organizations that value higher quality software, better customer experience, and accurate regulatory compliance are moving away from these low-value options.
QA efforts can be minimized through pragmatic approaches to risk
As businesses expand and depend on more complex integrated systems, the demand for cohesive QA design and testing is increasing. There is no longer a “golden rule” that testing and QA must be 30 percent of development spend. Today’s complex systems require significant integration testing and continuous deployment.
Let’s look at how this could be applied. Imagine implementing new regulations to a customer acquisition software product. Minor changes to the software include updating tables or modifying a few lines of source code. This simplified view could easily overlook major complications. It’s important to conduct a comprehensive QA analysis to understand how these minor adjustments might ripple through a system and cause errors. The level of functional, regression, report, and performance testing for this project may be exponential. A full schematic design would include data, environments, and deployment procedures that would produce better accuracy, results, and cost effectiveness.
Maximizing ROI with effective software quality practices
When properly implemented, QA will produce well-designed systems that increase ROI. It’s important to recognize key ROI metrics to measure software quality. Here are some common benefits that are often overlooked:
- Lower software defects and maintenance costs
- Improved software performance and reliability
- Reduced team size and footprint (FTE or contract) of manual QA resources
- Faster time to market
- Enhanced conversion rate, customer satisfaction, and revenue
- Lower cloud and infrastructure costs through performance optimization
- Faster regulatory and risk management audit completions
- Reduced litigation risk in security and accessibility failures
- Reduction in poor company media coverage
- Increased positive press
Develop a quality-driven culture
When QA is not a priority in a company, the quality of their software will suffer. With proper staff and investment, there will be a long-term impact on business success. Companies can build and optimize up-front design and development, build an automated test framework, establish procedures for test data and privacy protection, evaluate outcomes, and hold vendors accountable.
Whether you have a software development team with an integrated QA function or an independent QA team, software quality assurance is a strategic function that should be designed into the complete software development lifecycle. Engineering better software will produce increased efficiency, cost savings, enhanced reputation, and customer satisfaction.
