The software engineering world is increasingly facing questions and challenges around collective ownership in software development including software quality. As quality practitioners, independent software testing providers and testing services organizations, no one is perturbed by these – the communities are confident of leveraging these challenges as opportunities and definitely believe in the mantra of collective ownership.
However it is important for the varied entities to understand their roles in ensuring smooth and consistent delivery – this is one of the core challenges that one of my friends in the start-up world was recently talking to me on, in encouraging developers to think beyond just coding – this is the important element of inculcating the software testing mindset amongst developers.
More than one seminar is required to help his developers understand how to bring in this change which is primarily a mind-set change along with core discipline in the process.
We have to be strongly believe this is a topic that will help several organizations in grooming their development teams to the next level in building products that are of acceptable if not high quality. Understandably this is a very subjective discussion, but nevertheless an important one and the points below will hopefully bring in objectivity in the process of inculcating the software testing mindset.
However, the challenge lies in getting developers to think beyond just coding and inculcate a software testing mindset. It believes that a workshop or talk can help developers understand how to bring about this mindset change, which is crucial in building high-quality software products.
The Importance of Inculcating a Software Testing Mindset
- Do not feed in on requirements that are given to you as is. Take up a feasibility study to ensure you are convinced about the requirements, the market relevance, competitive advantage, robustness of the technology solution etc.
- As you code, think about the testability angle of what you write – testers are being increasingly encouraged to think like end users and go beyond the call of system requirements. Now, if developers start thinking about the testability angle, the overall quality and end user focused coupling gets tighter.
- Never miss out on unit testing – it not only helps you verify your own code and improve on any gaps that may exist, but largely helps the test team as well in focusing on more critical issues rather than those at the unit level.
- Leverage test automation scripts from the tester to use them before you release builds to test. These go a long way in enabling test readiness for the quality team.
- Participate in team efforts such as exploratory testing, bug bashes, test code reviews, test case reviews – these tighten the bond you have with the most important entity, the test team opening more scenarios for discussion. Similarly, ensure you take up high level code reviews with the test team. This will also help you compare your code against the team and the industry’s coding best practices and whether what you’ve written is readable, less bulky (as much as possible) and intuitive for others who understand coding – this goes a long way in building a robust, maintainable and transferable code base.
- Take time to understand the non-functional quality attributes of your code and how they’ve come along – be in performance, security, usability, accessibility etc.
- Step out of your coding comfort zone every week or so to connect with the varied entities on points above, as these help you develop a testing (curious) mindset and that goes a long way in improving your performance and the performance of the code you write.
The one core take away for developers is that coding is not rocket science, understanding the end user expectations, competitive landscape and aligning system requirements with the same is more challenging.
All though there are business teams that cater to these, gaining an understanding or a mere appreciation for these and partaking in the above process in possible ways, goes a long way in setting yourself apart as an exceptional developer – to be able to do that, inculcating the software testing mindset is one of the guided and proven paths.
Undoubtedly, only real practices QA consulting companies in global software testing can give the best consultation. Dozens of years of experience and thousands of projects provide many cases in various fields, and experience, as you know, is the most valuable asset.
Summary
The software engineering industry is facing challenges related to collective ownership in software development, including software quality.
To address this challenge, it is important for entities involved in software development to understand their roles in ensuring smooth and consistent delivery. The community suggests that inculcating a software testing mindset amongst developers is crucial to building high-quality software products.
It also takes several steps to achieve this mindset, including taking up feasibility studies, thinking about testability, never missing unit testing, leveraging test automation scripts, participating in team efforts, understanding non-functional quality attributes, and stepping out of the coding comfort zone.
These steps can help developers improve their performance and develop a testing mindset, leading to a more robust and maintainable code base.
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