Pitfalls without a Well formed QA Team (Part2)

Let us try and identify the pitfalls, when such a solution is not in place. We shall include the individual's skill set in the later point of the discussion. The below given is not going to be an exhaustive list. But these are some of the problems that we face in lieu of absence of best practices incorporated in the system.

§  The QA team could be very naive in its processes, methods, techniques and metrics.

§  Development probably could be more or less completed by the time the requirements reaches the QA team. The changes in requirements might be known only when the testcases contradicted the workflows. Since QA was not involved in the requirements stage, the following were the issues that the team will encounter

-      Critical defects defects will go unnoticed or may be closed as ‘By design’

-      Loss of time in re-designing or fixing issues

-      Significant turnaround time from development team and QA team

-      Large amount of Re-work

-      Issues had to be release noted as they are found in the last min
-   Losing the big picture
-   Failure to gauge the impact on the existing baseline 
-   Losing the long term sight
-  Push the dates further or release it as it is, only to be bombarded with the customer tickets

§  There may not be a common agreed upon format of test artifacts or deliverable or they might be the ones that was created ages ago, probably when the software was in its nascent stage. and now the current road map, objectives and the product features and the product positioning have changed. Also, the functional behavior and technologies are very different now.

§  Each member has their own way of doing things and they are very random .

§  There are little standards and procedures or templates in place. or they  were not reviewed for its gaps...

§  Microsoft excel still serves as Test case management, test execution and test report tool. Hence updating of the sheet by multiple members is a task in itself

§   Files are maintained either in remote or local fileserver across all releases.

§  Defect Tracking is done with a primitive tool that had limited features

§  QA Project plan, tracking and metrics are very disjointed and incorporating the learning from the previous project could be tough.

§  Identification of regression suite

§  There was no common place where the product, development, QA, customer support and management can get their respective queries answered.
§  Over a period of time, there is a chance that work will get monotonous and repeated updation of data in different sheets, can bring down the morale of the team and result in lack of motivation.
§  This could result in intellectual wastage 

Thus, the need for identifying, introducing, streamlining, improving the QA processes, methods, techniques and metrics is inevitable