Quality Never Sleeps

In recent weeks, we’ve seen a number of high profile technology failings from some very large organisations, which have played out in the mainstream media and no doubt caused financial and reputational loss for these businesses.

It would seem that most of these issues happened over the weekend, a time when the majority of your workforce may be relaxing with family, at the pub, or even out of the country. Software disasters never sleep, you see. And neither should quality.

With summer fast approaching, and a number of Bank Holidays on the horizon, here are some things you may want to implement in your organisation to make sure disaster doesn’t strike when you’re least expecting it, and you’re not the next business in a long line of software testing failures.

Define ‘Quality’

What does quality look like to your organisation? Defining ‘quality’ is paramount. If a system, product or update doesn’t meet those predefined standards, it doesn’t go live, it’s as simple as that. Defining quality and making these calls sooner rather than later, could save your business more than a few headaches.

Quality Engineering (QE) Mindset

The traditional view of testing and software quality is that it is something to be considered at the end of a project. But the fact is, that is often too late.

The core tenet of the Quality Engineering mindset is when to apply the appropriate practices to produce high-quality solutions, whilst reducing unnecessary costs and delays, and making delivery of great products and services possible. It’s a mindset shift from traditional testing and quality assurance, whereby quality is considered as early as possible within a product, project or delivery activity; and any risks are mitigated before they become difficult to effectively manage.

Involve The Right People

Everyone should be responsible for quality. Involving the right people throughout your project reduces risk of something being missed further down the line. Read our recent article on why quality should be everyone’s responsibility 

Automate

Have you considered test automation? By automating repeatable tests, you free up your manual resource to look at more rewarding exploratory testing which could uncover a showstopping defect and in turn save you thousands of pounds and hundreds of blushes. Not only that, but it’s quicker than manual testing, can be run around the clock and offers improved consistency and test coverage.

Invest in Quality Now

We’ve spoken about it lots recently, but quality is often one of the first things to suffer during cost-cutting exercises, with customers and senior stakeholders wanting “more for less” more than ever before. But from just a small investment in quality right now, you could save hundreds of thousands in the long run. Read Roq CEO Stephen Johnson’s latest article on this very topic.

Consider Quality Early

This links in very closely to the Quality Engineering mindset we discussed earlier, but it’s a nice way to tie up this article. None of the things we’ve highlighted here are an immediate fix, and they need to be considered now. There’s no magic wand for Quality Engineering greatness, but with a little time, effort and focus in the right areas, these tips can go a long way to ensuring a major software disaster isn’t round the corner for your business.

If you’d like to discuss anything featured in this article or discuss how Roq can support your business on its QE journey, get in touch at ask@roq.co.uk