In today's evolving world, companies keep pushing for new goals and objectives, which are usually bolder and aim higher. As a QA Manager, there’s a constant need for you to keep evolving and ensure that your testing strategy helps the company succeed.
Here’s how you can plan your testing strategy in 2023 to ensure you hit your quality goals.
What is a Testing Strategy?
A testing strategy is an outlined document that describes the testing approach of the software development cycle. This document aims to provide a rational deduction from organizational, high-level objectives to actual test activities to meet those objectives from a quality assurance perspective.
This documentation process will help the company (and your peers) understand the work your team does and what it comprises. It will also give visibility as you progress to where you're at in the bigger testing strategy plan and how you're making it happen.
How to benefit from a testing strategy?
Depending on where your company vision lies, it will impact your testing strategy from last year.
In this new year of 2023, companies are looking more into areas like DevOps, Artificial Intelligence, Mobile Device Testing Automation Tools, Integration Testing and Integration Tools, Tracking Metrics, Performance Testing, Scriptless Automation Testing, Regression Testing, Security Testing, and RPA (Robotic Process Automation) Automated Testing.
So, for instance, if your company is looking to use any Artificial Intelligence (like GPT-3), your plan will have to accommodate new ways of testing this specific area.
This means you'll need to do a new risk assessment to accommodate these changes and consider the risks for functionality, reliability, usability, maintainability, portability, and efficiency. They are all connected in a way, but their likelihood and impact are very different.
How to plan a testing strategy?
- First, you need to understand your company goals and what they're trying to achieve;
- Once you do that, you can then start thinking about what you can do to leverage the QA team to help the company thrive;
- When you've understood a few key areas, start thinking of the pros and cons of making those changes. You'll then come to a point where you have a clear vision of what exactly needs to be done and what its risks and impacts are from a business perspective;
- Next, it's time to update your old test strategy document with this new information;
- Then, you should strive to narrow it down to more specific documents where you specify what needs to be done, who will be responsible for completing it, and how it will be accomplished;
- Lastly, in your company's test management tool of choice, start creating the specific issue tickets that need to be worked on.
Testing Strategy Goals
Set priorities
Make sure your team's priorities are clear and align with your company's preferences.
Analyze your risk assessment
Understand, identify and mitigate the risks associated with introducing new things into your strategy while keeping old ones there, and make contingency plans to try and reduce the impact of the risks that start to show.
Communicate openly with stakeholders
Make sure the stakeholders are aligned and agree with what you're trying to do and any changes you're proposing so that they can be incorporated into the pipeline of the development lifecycle.
Go over any updates with your team
Once everyone is on the same page, remember to communicate with your team and the broader development teams so that they are aware of your team's focus and what they'll be working on (as well as the effort required to make things happen).
Look back and reassess
Lastly, once things are final and polished, remember to look back and reassess if the final product matches what you've planned. Retrospectively looking at what we prepare and achieve helps us professionally and improves our strategy planning, so we can learn how to do better next time.
Start planning your software testing strategy for 2023
Your testing strategy has no right or wrong as long as you follow all the essential steps in its creation and update it according to your company's needs.
Make sure the strategy for your company in 2023 reflects itself in your work and company values, and you'll be in a better position to guarantee that all goes smoothly from a quality perspective.
