5 Main Software Testing Issues and Methods to Resolve Them

Software testing is an integral part of any software development phase. Testing often accounts for more than 50% of the expenditure incurred in developing a particular software. The more complex is the software, the more time and resources need to be spent to make sure that flaws are detected and set right. However, often this is not the real picture.

Software or systems are often installed and rolled out with hundreds of defect in them. The result is poor performance and loss of many days both for the software development firm as well as the client. To avoid such problems team leads or managers must sort out some issues which are inherent to software testing. Let us go through 5 main software testing issues and methods to resolve them.

1. Inadequate schedule of testing:

Testing is a time consuming affair. It has to be so since it is done to bring out the defects or inadequacies of the system under different conditions and not to show that it works. Testing needs to go hand in hand with development. This will make sure that inadequacies or errors in a particular functionality of the system is brought to the notice of the development team and sorted out sooner than later.
However, more often than not what happens is that managers keep on postponing testing until late in the development process. This leaves very little time for final testing which results in inadequate schedule of the process.

• The managers must emphasize the need for testing as a follow up and they have to make sure that development and testing of different functionalities of a system goes side by side. This will give the testing team enough time to look at the systemic inadequacies and vulnerabilities comprehensively.

2. Insufficient testing environment and tools:

Tools and environments are backbones of proper software testing. However, testing is often carried out in inadequate testing environment. An over reliance on manual testing or COTS testing tools is another aspect. Moreover,  some of the environmental components themselves suffer from defects. What is commonly seen is that test environment, test data and test software are not under adequate configuration control.

• Team managers must ensure that actual or close enough hardware and software requirements are met in a testing environment. This will make sure that testing brings out the flaws that would actually evolve during operations by the end user
• Team managers must also deploy automated testing tools if the testing process is complex, as involving more human testers is not possible. This will make sure that testing is carried out fast, with limited resource and repeatedly and can bring out more flaws in the system

3. Wrong testing mindset

Often the mindset of the software testing team revolves around finding out functionality of the system rather than finding defects in it. This itself prohibits the team from finding out flaws in the software.

• It is the duty of team lead to inculcate the notion that testing is done to find fault with the system or software under different conditions and not to prove that it works

4. Testing lessons are often ignored

It is often seen that same type of problems are repeated in systems,projects after projects.

• This is purely a management related problem. Management must ensure that team leads are careful enough to document each and every lesson learnt in previous projects and implement them in projects thereafter.

5. Poor integration of testing and engineering processes

Often it is seen that testing and engineering processes are not properly integrated. This means that components or subsystems are often tested for flaws before they are mature enough to be tested on all parameters. Moreover, there may be some project specific needs that need to be looked into. One size fits all formula does not apply to software testing.

• Testing team must ensure that components and subsystems are tested when they are mature enough to be tested on all parameters. This can only happen if the testing and engineering team works are well coordinated.

Conclusion
For letting us conclude, it is best said that unlike a single person, being a team is smarter. So, the best advice is to get together and fly high. Large enterprise and customers should not spend too much time accounting for errors which come up. Following a good and systematic practice for your QA needs will certainly provide quality to your team.