6 Challenges of Effective QA Testing — And How to Overcome Them

With limited qualified staff and looming deadlines, QA testing can present many challenges. We outline some of them and offer solutions.

With limited qualified staff and looming deadlines, product management and engineering teams often face challenges conducting effective Quality Assurance (QA) testing before launch. This article describes some of these challenges and offers solutions.

1. Effective QA Testing Is Put at Risk Under Tight Deadlines

Perhaps the most common challenge of effective QA testing is tight deadlines. When the development process takes longer than expected, it prompts last-minute testing requests that shorten the testing period for the QA team involved. This is especially unfavourable for startups, where testing and debugging products or software generally takes at least half the development time. Additionally, project requirements may change mid-sprint. Such circumstances require testers and developers to develop agility and flexibility in order to deliver expected results.

2. Failure to Make Quality Assurance a Company-Wide Priority

Businesses that succeed with their QA testing don’t do so by accident; their best practices are intentionally engraved into their workplace culture and are carefully monitored. When quality assurance is seen as a top priority at all levels of organisations, errors and defects in the final testing stages are reduced significantly. A key way a company’s leadership can ensure this is by frequently drumming in the idea that effective QA testing is mission-critical.

3. Ambiguous QA Processes

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Unfortunately, many startups struggle with clearly defined processes and miss the necessity of building a workplace culture that thrives on effective QA testing – oftentimes due to their limited staff. As a CEO or business leader, you must define clear objectives, provide concise control and verification points and lay out a precise path of periodic reviews. This will guide your team and help avoid confusion or ambiguity about QA processes. As these structures are put in place, the experience of customers should be at the forefront of everyone’s minds. This way, you can best ensure you are delivering a quality result.

4. Lack of Coordination Between QA Engineers and Developers

Professional differences and disagreements among QA engineers and developers are commonplace for many startups and even established brands. Developers may view effective QA testing as a final process in the product development life cycle. However, it requires more than just a list of technical requirements and user experience specifications. 

In an ideal world, QA engineers and product developers work in lockstep together during the entire development process. If all teams aren’t on the same page about how the software works or are unclear about what the product specifications are, there will inevitably be issues creating proper test cases that will uncover bugs and the need for necessary tweaks. This is true no matter how experienced quality assurance and development teams are.

5. Ineffective Communication

Today’s highest performing businesses with the highest-quality product offerings must make transparency a priority. When leadership shares challenges in real time, solutions can be quickly developed. This quick response will ensure that any issues that affect quality are absent from the final product. Additionally, honest leadership will strengthen team-building and company cohesiveness much more.

6. Lack of Effective QA Testing Skills

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Ensuring a robust and effective QA testing process and on-track product launch timelines requires specific skill sets. Some of these include:

• Understanding How to Leverage Automation

Understanding automation is a specific skill set many software development firms and tech startups look for. Properly implemented automation practices can reduce human error, reduce defects and drastically speed up effective QA testing time.

• The Ability to Perform Cross-Functional Collaboration 

Collaboration is a crucial piece of many businesses – both large and small – that is too often ignored. The best QA testing processes feature cross-functional teams that communicate often and assist each other. There is no such thing as “that’s not my job” in the company culture of those who develop the best quality assurance processes.

• Assisting With Effective QA Testing Across Multiple Devices

An underrated aspect of QA testing for websites or online services is testing across multiple devices. You don’t want to focus all of your QA testing on Apple users, leaving out Android in the process, for instance. A well-trained web or software developer can help with this important part of your QA testing process.

• Properly Documenting All Fixes

During the QA process, small undocumented changes can have a ripple effect and cause large unintended issues. Documenting every fix made in this process will ensure all teams are on the same page, and testing scenarios before changes are made. Well-trained tech talent can help with this important part of the QA process.

Ready to Upgrade Your Quality Assurance Testing?

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QA testing requires all hands on deck. Unfortunately, many startups and small businesses lack the manpower to effectively implement QA processes. For many business owners, who are already busy with a million other things, hiring the best professionals to assist in critical QA testing can be a challenge. That’s where The ROOM comes in.

If you are ready to optimise your QA processes, visit The ROOM to access a diverse talent pool – including Software Engineers, Cloud Developers, and Web Developers. Give your VP of Product Engineering a day off and let our qualified tech talent handle important QA tasks.

The ROOM is home to a highly specialised community of agile digital talent, connecting individuals and companies across the globe with the skills and resources they need to future-proof their teams and thrive in the new world of work.