Unlocking Team Potential with Flexible QA Solutions

Team sizes vary across organizations. For example, some companies have an in-house QA Team of 50 people (including QA Engineers, Automation Engineers, SDETs, etc.), while others have only a few testers. Some teams have no QA support at all. In addition to team size, release cycles are another variable to consider. Some companies release new updates or versions of their apps every week, while others have cycles ranging from one to three months. 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution in the world of QA. This is the case in any area of business. However, these facts don’t mean you can’t find a way to include all areas in your company’s QA process. 

Currently, software development teams that embed quality engineering into their workflow are gaining a distinct advantage over other software development teams. Including QA Engineers at the beginning of the development process empowers teams with the testing tools, QA processes, and people to collaborate more effectively and accelerate time-to-market while delivering high-quality experiences based on customer demand.

Understanding the Flexible QA Approach

If you have a solid in-house QA team, congratulations; nurturing and growing a solid QA team is hard; still, the rest of the companies are starting to worry about building a QA team. As a Manager, you need to consider the current needs of your project. The manager may decide between hiring a growing in-house QA Team, an offshore QA firm, or freelancers charging hourly rates to complete QA runs. 

Consider a third option: Flexible QA. This method takes a combined approach to software testing that merges humans with technology to help you deliver high-value products at speed. Flexible QA is about leveraging third-party QA resources to align with the demands of your team and the cycles of your releases.

If you need shorter QA test cycles to meet a release, limit exploratory testing and flex your hours over one week. On-demand testers can swarm tests when needed and intentionally go fixed. As a result, capacity is available when you need it, but you never pay for idle time.

Flexible QA and Modern Agile Teams

Many companies have invested time and resources into automation. However, today, many companies have minimal levels of test automation because they don’t have the resources needed to support it—the lack of skilled and experienced testers is their biggest challenge.

Modern software development teams using Flexible QA are gaining a notable advantage over their competitors. Flexible QA empowers Agile teams with the tools, processes, and people to collaborate more effectively and accelerate time-to-market while delivering high-quality experiences based on client demands.

The Key Benefits of Flexible QA

• Increased Speed. Create seamless handoffs between automated and functional test execution while making those handoffs more actionable with higher fidelity test result signals.
• Improve Quality. Improve test coverage by automating repetitive test cases using appropriate testing tools, enhancing testing workflows, and accessing the right talent of quality engineers and expert testers.
• Reduce Defects in Production. By reducing test automation time, covering critical flows, and including other edge scenarios, we can reduce the number of defects leaked to production. Beyond that, we can free up time for exploratory testing sessions.
• Availability of QA Resources. Many companies allege they can’t find skilled and/or experienced test automation resources and deal with high resignation rates. Using a Flexible QA approach, companies can avoid those problems, take complete control of QA resources, and maximize the software development process.

The Flexible QA approach goes beyond a shared commitment to optimizing functional and automated testing. Instead, Flexible QA is a collaborative approach that creates a shared understanding of the QA process between the Agile Teams and the Managers

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Final Thoughts

Agile teams need to learn and adapt different technologies and business practices in today’s world. In addition, they need to know new tools and skills to be more productive and successful. Using a Flexible QA approach, companies can have QA resources helping their teams to deliver faster, improve quality and minimize bugs in production. 

Using a Flexible QA approach, companies can leverage QA resources and run automated software tests faster with no-code/low-code automation tools using advanced AI and ML techniques. Finally, a Flexible QA approach helps modern Agile teams embrace a quality mindset. 

Happy Bug Hunting