In October of 1947, Chuck Yeager became the fastest man alive when he test-piloted the experimental Bell X-1 rocket-powered aircraft breaking Mach 1 for the first time. He may stand alone as the most famous test-pilot of all time, but we all need at least one on our team.
Imagine aerospace engineers using their knowledge, expertise, and engineering tools to design a passenger jet. The manufacturer builds it. Then they load one hundred passengers on board and fly it for the first time.
Sound insane? Yes, but that’s what happens all too often with software rollouts.
Expert developers design and build the software, even doing their own testing before shipping out new releases to end-users, who stake their corporate lives on it working successfully.
Quality Assurance is Optional, Right?
Some software developers see a quality assurance (QA) phase as optional. They don’t want to spend the time or money when the software is “finished” already.
They have their reasons, no doubt…
- They feel the expense is too much and unnecessary.
- They think software testing is just what the programmer does to get the code to run.
- They’re afraid that the QA phase is bloat that opens them up to potential slow-downs.
- They just want the project banged out. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll let you know.”
They may fail to consider the consequences of the software not working well in the real world. End-users are investing time and energy (time is money, right?) to get up to speed on the new software. Wasting even half a day on ramping up with new software that turns out to be inadequate is not good.
And what happens the next time you try to get them to adopt new software? They’ll fight it. Outright rebellion or sandbagging may result. Either way, your company is stuck limping along on the old, less-than-effective solutions.
We can do better. We’ve figured out a better way to attack problems and keep moving toward the next solution.
Quality Assurance Saves Time and Money
A focus on testing key workflows with end users—before, during, and after release—makes for better software. When done right, good QA saves time and money.
Plus, your end-users have buy-in because they are telling you exactly what they want, what they need, and what will (and won’t) work during the whole process. Releasing it into the wild is just one more iteration.
The US military and commercial airlines are not the only groups that test before release. You probably have three or four pieces of software open on your device right now that used the quality assurance process heavily. After all, companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple don’t want their software to crash and burn in the real world.
It’s costly. Heads will roll.
These companies don’t leave releases up to chance. They have teams of quality experts who test internally with automations and with end-users throughout the process – as soon as they have their first iterations.
Crafting testing strategy and plans is a discipline unto itself. QA experts must understand how the end-user thinks, the real-world workflows involved, and the virtual environment in which the software will live.
They need a whole different mindset than that of your average coder. That’s how they find the soul-killing irritants, time-sucking bugs, and business-destroying compatibility issues that have been the death of many, many software “solutions” (not to mention software development managers).
A good quality assurance team can keep the software development process calm and controlled, with strong and reliable intel on how things are going early and often.
That translates to a better delivery; more importantly, a successful delivery that has full end-user buy-in. That’s what victory looks like, and that why we fight so hard every day.
We’re Here for You
At Capsher, we take the time to deeply understand success from the end-user level. Then we test accordingly.
Our Delivery Team focuses on quality assurance testing, support, and deployment. We’re a full-cycle software development shop with experience in all phases of the software dev life cycle.
We take pride in delivering a great product and an exceptional experience. That’s integrated throughout our process saving you time and money.
And you’ll end up with a software tool that will keep your customers delighted.
Call Capsher today. We’ll save you time and money while getting you a better solution- one that your end-users won’t want to live without.
