A dilemma that tech startups often face in the early stages!

Perhaps the right question should be, “Can I afford not to have one?”.

As an entrepreneur developing a technical product, innovation and quality are at the top of your product agenda. Innovation is why you develop an entirely new product. However, without a superior quality of the product, the innovation of the product and the idea get lost in the fog of defects and poor customer experience.

Before we get to the affordability part, let’s deep dive into why we need Independent Testers (QA), even in a small, early-stage tech startup. The importance of the quality of your product cannot be overstated, but we will leave that out on this blog.

Instead, let’s try to answer the question, why do we need independent QA to test a product?

In the absence of qualified QA, the tests are usually performed by the developers, but testing by developers is not enough for the following reasons.

Our own mistakes lie in our blind spot

It is human nature that we tend to overlook our own flaws. And I don’t mean that they do it on purpose. The reason is more embedded in basic human psychology. When a person solves a problem in a certain way, it leaves an impression of how they view the problem and therefore tends to overlook other possibilities. This leads to incomplete tests.

Even great developers are rarely great testers

Testing is a fundamentally different mindset than development. So even if another developer tests the code to overcome the blindspot problem, developers often cannot test the code thoroughly.

A key reason for this is that the development team is heavily focused on the specs, while ideally we want the testing to be done against the requirements (or better, against the customer requirements). So it’s not just a question of mindset or perspective, it’s also a question of skill. The training skills of testers are very different from those of a developer.

The intent of the above two points is not to say that developers should not do testing. On the contrary, developers always need to run tests, and the tests they run are called White box testing.

This is important because the developers can test the code with the knowledge of the design and the code being followed. This helps verify logic correctness, increase code quality, and find problems that otherwise would not be possible.

However, white box testing is not a substitute for black box testing – a form of testing conducted by independent auditors. Instead, it ensures coverage of use cases and scenarios from the user’s perspective and offers a holistic approach to testing.

This brings us to the point of how independent QA can help increase the quality of your product.

QA brings structure to your testing efforts

Ad hoc testing, like other ad hoc processes, is prone to unpredictable results.

An independent QA brings the skills to bring structure and method to the overall testing process. Structure is not just for structure. It brings predictability, much higher test case coverage, test repeatability, and faster and more effective test execution.

A structured test design also allows for a qualitative and quantitative review of the testing effort, which enables continuous improvement of the product and the testing process.

Independent Quality Assurance applies testing techniques to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of testing

There are many test and test case identification techniques to increase testing effectiveness and efficiency. However, while on the one hand ad hoc testing is generally ineffective, on the other extreme exhaustive testing is a practical impossibility.

Let’s illustrate this with an example: Suppose there is an input field that accepts alphanumeric input with a length of 10 characters. The total combinations of inputs are nearly 5000 trillion. It is easy to see that it would be humanly impossible to test all these input values. However, these input combinations can be infinitely large for an ordinary user input form.

To break this paradox, testers use well-defined techniques to choose an optimal number of test cases and inputs to achieve predictable results. Similarly, many other testing techniques increase testing effectiveness.

QA brings in the user perspective.

The main goal of independent testing is to focus on the user perspective. It does this by shifting the focus from testing the product against specifications to testing the product against requirements. This seemingly subtle difference brings about a paradigm shift in the definition of quality.

Establishes processes that test the right thing at the right time

There are many ways to test an application. These different types of tests are required at different stages of a project’s lifecycle. We cannot afford to end-to-end test the application at every exit gate of a lifecycle, and good QA is trained to do this effectively.

They execute the well-suited test cases in different phases in order to achieve the best possible quality with optimal effort. It also reduces risk in the process without increasing costs.

Increases productivity by introducing automation

The role of a well-trained QA is no longer limited to manual testing.

They are equipped with skills and tools to automate the testing process. This makes the system less error-prone, repeatable and highly efficient in the long run. However, automation requires initial effort and investment, but pays off over the lifetime of the product.

The need for automation is much higher when the product is built using Agile methodology and released using DevOps practices.

Reduces risk in the project

In the previous sections, we alluded to “predictability” several times. Predictability is achieved when risks are reduced.

According to PMI, project risks are the most important agenda item to discuss in every meeting. One of the most common and significant risks that any development project faces is quality risk. If a large number of defects are identified towards the end of the project, unforeseen delays will occur in the project.

Undetected defects are passed on to production, leading to more serious business risks, including lost sales and business value. By finding errors early, QA helps reduce these significant risks in a project.

Before we could discuss the affordability of a QA, it was important to establish the problem statement and the solutions. The above discussion clearly shows how important it is to have an independent QA (or a full QA department when you get big).

However, keeping budgets under control is just as important. So let’s see how including a QA impacts the cost of your operation (benefits aside).

The myth we need to address here is that QA is an additional cost.

First, let’s understand one thing, whether you hire QA or not, testing needs to be done by someone. It must be done by your current team as there is no escape. If this is to be done by developers, note that they are usually much more expensive than other QA resources. Also, they are less effective in testing.

So, adding a QA resource to the team takes a lot of the testing effort (white box testing still needs to be done by developers) off the developers’ shoulders. This means that either your development team will need fewer additions, or they will be more productive at what they do best, which is coding.

In short, the cost of a QA is not really an additional cost.

First, that work is still being done by someone now—only it’s being done less efficiently and less effectively.

Second, it can be done with a relatively cheaper resource, lowering your overall cost. Finally, the business savings will skyrocket all of this.

You can’t afford not to have a QA tester on your team!

QA testers are an integral part of the overall development process and must be considered by any company that wants to provide their customers with a quality, bug-free product experience. Hiring a QA tester in the early stages of the development process results in significant time and cost savings.

To learn more about QA testers and the value they can add to your business or hire one, visit our website at Wishup.co or simply email us at [email protected] for a free consultation.