The Dev / Tester Relationship
Companies are looking for an edge–a way to reliably out-compete their competitors over time. In business, an edge might come from being more efficient, more agile, or keeping a faster pace. In software development, better processes have the potential to be a competitive edge.
For web development, one potential edge can come from improving the relationship between testers, and software developers.
An old-fashioned “throw it over the wall” mentality to testing means that opportunities for dev and QA to work together and help each other are left off the table. A better process–one in which developers and testers work together–can give a development organization companies a reliable edge to out-produce their competitors.
Advantages to a Closer Developer-tester Relationship
1. Better collaboration
Few things can be a greater time-suck than having to wait on someone else to complete their task before you can start yours. When testers can’t start testing until developers have built out the features they’re testing, it can create a bottleneck that slows down the entire process.
In an agile process, developers work with testers to test the features they’re building out. Developers can get feedback from testers before they complete the feature, and testers can learn how the feature is supposed to work. The end result is that both teams can move quicker, and the finished product is better.
2. Smarter Decisions
When developers and testers work together, it creates a two-way flow of information. Developers can learn from testers about how users will actually interact with their software, and testers can learn from developers about the developer’s intent. This can result in better collaboration and a better product.
3. Faster Feedback
In an agile process, testers are involved from the beginning, which means they can provide feedback to developers right away. This can help developers make decisions about their code, and it can help testers find bugs sooner.
4. More Accurate Testing
When testers are involved early, they can help developers understand how users will actually use the software. This can result in more accurate testing, and it can help testers find bugs that would have been missed otherwise.
5. Better Quality
Developers are responsible for the quality of their code. This means that they’re more likely to catch bugs before they make it into the code base. Testers can also help developers find bugs, and the two teams can work together to fix them. This can result in a better quality product.
6. Faster Development
In an agile process, developers and testers work together to get feedback early and often. This feedback can help developers make decisions about their code, and it can help testers find bugs sooner. The end result is a faster development process.
7. Lower Costs
The end result is a lower cost of development. Win!
