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In a product organization, the ultimate responsibility of ensuring that every piece of code written for the product is error-free rests on the shoulders of the QA testing team. They are expected to have an in-depth understanding of the technical and business requirements of a product and ensure that it fulfills these goals.
In the simplest terms, if a product does not perform as it should at the time of its release, testers are responsible for it. In this article, we’ll explore the challenges QA teams are likely to encounter and how a bug tracking tool can help navigate these challenges.
The Biggest Challenges of QA Testing
QA engineers and testers face multiple challenges during the product development lifecycle. They are expected to have an idea of the possible issues that could occur during the development process and stay updated as far as technical updates to the products are concerned.
In dispensing all of these duties, the following are some of the biggest challenges QA testers are likely to face:
Sudden changes to product requirements
Dealing with sudden changes to product requirements mid-sprint can be frustrating for all stakeholders involved in a development cycle. But testers are particularly affected by last-minute changes as it often requires a total redesign of the scope of testing. Last-minute updates are even harder for testers to keep up with when there’s a tight deadline for the team to deliver results.
Insufficient information about user stories
In order to come up with test cases for product features and assess product goals, testers need to have an in-depth understanding of the likely user journey. This information can only be provided by the product owners who are expected to have an in-depth understanding of how users are likely to make use of the product. But if the product owners don’t have a clear understanding of this themselves, they cannot effectively communicate it to the QA team. This will make it difficult to create test cases that effectively capture the likely issues that users might experience in using the product.
Lack of test automation experience
One of the top priorities of an Agile development process is to cut delivery time to the barest minimum while still achieving quality results. This is why agile product development often takes an automation-driven approach. But if testers lack the technical competence to use automation tools, they will have a hard time keeping up with the expected speed of delivery and will slow down the development process.
Poor collaboration between stakeholders
In many organizations, there’s still major tension between the various stakeholders involved in the development process. Many developers still believe testing should be a final stage process and testers don’t need to know too much about the development process. But the testing process will progress better if testers understand how the software works. In some cases, inadequate collaboration tools stifle inter-team communication and this can affect testers significantly. Lack of collaboration will make it difficult for QA teams to get needed information about product issues and write test scripts needed to detect likely product bugs.
Why QA Teams Need a Bug Tracking Tool
Bug tracking tools can assist testing teams with the process of detecting bugs and setting up tests to get them fixed. These platforms will help with solving many of the challenges that QA testers encounter during the development process.
The following are some of the reasons why QA teams need a bug tracking tool:
Increased Proactivity
One of the goals of using a bug tracking tool to manage your bug tracking effort is to create an efficient workflow where tasks progress smoothly across teams and are resolved quickly. This frees up more time for your testing teams to proactively test for product defects and push them for resolution early before they have major effects on the entire product lifecycle. Also, identifying and resolving issues early reduces the need for resolution at later stages.
Better Understanding
QA testers need as much data as possible in order to work faster and effectively. Data is needed to build comprehensive user stories needed to design tests. Testers also need data to understand issues reported by users in order to replicate them accurately. A bug tracking tool serves as a documentation and reporting platform that ensures issues are captured in sufficient detail. The data derived from testing and other issue tracking efforts will also provide insights for future work procedures and bug management activities.
More Focus
Issue trackers aid knowledge sharing which is crucial to keeping teams focused. Given the volume of issues that will be reported in any product lifecycle, there’s a need for an efficient system to keep all reports organized and prioritize them. A bug tracking tool will show the current status of each issue and make it easier to follow updates as tickets are updated
Improved Consumer Experience
The ultimate goal of the bug tracking process is to deliver a working product that is as bug-free as possible. Bug trackers accelerate this process by making the process of implementing bug fixes quicker. When bugs reported by customers are captured accurately and resolved accordingly, customers will feel like their voice is being heard and this results in a more positive perception of your brand.
Whether big or small, testing teams of all sizes can benefit immensely from using a bug tracking tool to manage their quality assurance process. A bug tracking tool like Kissflow Workflow provides a centralized platform that helps development and testing teams collaborate smarter, track bugs from initiation to resolution, and drive better results. What’s more? The platform is perfectly designed for technical and non-technical teams alike and helps you create sophisticated bug tracking and testing workflows without the need for external expertise or coding knowledge.
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