How to test on a tight testing schedule?

Application development is crucial to the brand image of a company. Tight deadlines, rigid work schedules, delivery of accuracy are among the many other factors that contribute to the overall SDLC complexity. Performance and security being the two most important aspects.

A software tester is bound by stringent guidelines to be followed while testing an application, whether manual or automation. The ultimate goal is to deliver a work that is free from defects along with functional and non-functional requirements fulfilled. At the very initial stage of project planning, a considerable time is devoted to planning and scheduling the testing activities of the project, bet it a brainstorming session or frequent meetups.

A lot of scenarios are to be considered for testing an application such as cross browser compatibility, OS compatibility, LAN/WAN connection (in case of web applications), database operations and so on. To make sure that such tasks are accomplished and are in sync with the business objectives, frequent meetings and discussions are necessary to exchange information about the project’s requirements, design, functional requirements, interface and so on.

1.Planning Test Schedule:

Following are the key points that must be considered while planning to work on automation testing (In agile):

• Analyse the functional areas which are to be used by a user, the most.
• Identify the areas that are prone to risks, for example, payment gateway.
• Any recent development of the product which has been delivered to the testing team, as such a module could hold a number of bugs within it.
• Identify the areas that need regression testing to verify if any new bug has introduced itself during the process of change.
• If a tester has prior experience working on a similar kind of project, then he may apply knowledge acquired in that process to the present work scenario.
• Keep a list of user bug report and analyze the cause of such issues.
• Automation helps to minimize the time required for maximum coverage within an application.

2. Managing Risks:

• Risk Identification: Determining the possible areas which could be prone to risks. The observation could be based on previous experience on software testing, so here we prepare a list of possible areas of risks:
  1. Budget constraints exceeded due to mismanagement, that could possibly lead to adding cost overhead to the company.
  2. Lack of resources while the project has already set off.
  3. Defects found at a later stage and the causes that led to such occurrences.
• Risk impact analysis: After a list is prepared, risks are categorized as per their priority. Each risk is set into high, mid and low priority list, which follows a series of tests in order to eliminate probability of risks.
• Risk mitigation: The last step in this regard is to find an appropriate solution to a given problem.

1. Better the earlier. The QA process should begin at an early stage, that is, from the project planning phase.
2. Among every other task, identifying risk is the most crucial activity.
3. Choose the appropriate tools, machine configurations, and other setup required for testing.
4. Even after rectifying some older bugs, there could be new ones. The bugs should be corrected unless there is no scope for defect.

It is advisable to follow a strategy so that one can focus on the major sections of a product under development. The best way to do is to prepare a checklist by which a structured picture is available to us.