Most of the software development and testing firms today struggle with mapping out some form of schedule or roadmap that they can deliver with consistency. And with more and more emphasis on releasing products faster in such a competitive environment, having a solid guideline for your team to follow can be the edge your business could need. This can be a great tool in itself in trying to keep production, testing and delivery times in check for your team. Today, we’ll be going through some of the ways you can better estimate your testing times.
With streamlined approaches, agile methodologies and sophisticated defect management tools at everyone’s disposal today, ensuring your QA comes in earlier is vital to see out the entire testing process. The ideal approach to creating your product development budget is with the 80/20 split in mind. 80 percent of your resource allocation should be set aside before starting any project with the remaining 20 percent accounting for any unforeseen changes that may spring up along the way. The one thing you’d want to avoid during a project is to ask upper management for additional resources. Avoid, at all costs!
#1 Begin QA staffing early in the schedule
As mentioned earlier in the article, the Shift Left approach is becoming the norm. Moving forward, incorporating QA teams and defect management tools early on is going to be crucial for any business to weed out any irregularities in applications from the get-go. Allotting the final 2-4 weeks prior to release isn’t nearly enough time to test and fix any bugs or defects present.
#2 Qualify the deliverables of the management
One of the simplest gauges on when to feature more QA staff is knowing how overworked your current teams are. Before it gets to some extent where they threaten to quit, attempt to anticipate the longer-term needs of your team. How does one do that?
On average, software developers are expected to have about 100 to 150 errors in every 1 thousand lines of code. Despite this being a relatively conservative estimate and suggesting only 10% of those errors were serious, then a less complex application consisting of only 20,000 lines of code can amount to 200 serious errors and defects.
#3 Building a well-defined algorithm
The two aforementioned ways can help get everyone on board a general idea of what the error rate might start to seem like. Once done, you’ll build your own algorithm. And while it does leave room for tons of guesswork, it can help narrow down your approach significantly. At the very least, it can provide senior management with estimated testing timelines and the resources required to achieve it.
Estimates in any business are naturally going to be more miss than hit, but having a solid framework on what to build on is essential. And with time and experience, it’s inevitable that with the right framework, businesses can eventually sharpen their testing time estimates.