Case study
Quality Assurance / Testing
How the Testing and Quality Assurance helps the efficiency of development
Who suffered
An international services provider (next only named the Company) that is supplying crucial services to the healthcare units, and big factories.
What happened
A Company’s call centre received enormous number of complaints from its clients, from which many reported double issued invoices, and incorrect data. Due to the complexity of the individual IT modules, there were using for the operations in their company, they were not able to identify the root cause of the problem on their own. The developer of the system was not able to identify the problem in their environment either. They had to ask the third party to step in, and help them with evaluation of the situation, and identification of the root cause of it.
Implications
In order to correct the mistakes, the Company ordered its employees to fix the data in the invoices manually which was tedious, and timely process, as they had to compare each subjected invoice with the real-time data. Not only our customer had to pay for the extra resources eliminating errors that were easily preventable, but they also lost many from their clientele, and their reputation as a reliable services provider was badly damaged.
Result of implementation of automatic Quality Assurance
Risk-free environment for implementation of new functionalities in the system
↑ Improvement of the reputation damaged by the incident of incorrectly recorded data
↑ Productivity within the client’s internal structures due to the process automation
↓ Complaints from the customers about incorrect data
↑ Improved efficiency of the internal systems
↑ Improved allocation of the sources on the call center of the client
Why did it happen?
The Company used a central accounting system with 10 independent modules feeding data to it. The IT system was developed externally, and part of the agreement between the Company and the IT system developer was that it was the Company’s responsibility to perform the acceptance testing prior any live installation and changes to the system. Due to the costliness and time requirements of such a testing, the Company skipped them, and didn’t hire any external resources to help them. When they changed a simple functionality in the live environment, the system crumbled and recorded data incorrectly. That caused wrongly recorded data and massive exodus of the clients due to the lost trust and damaged credibility of the company.
Corrections
Firstly, the independent observer mapped all existing processes within the internal environment, in this case, existing software modules, and their dependencies. The Observer brought the team of their own testers that performed all kinds of testing in order to identify the glitch. They identified the root-cause which was implementation of a small change in the Company’s live environment without properly reporting it to the responsible teams. The Observer implemented automatic testing procedures for the future that would require minimum involvement from the Company’s end. That way, the systems are set to run the tests automatically when any change is implemented.
The result
Regular quality tests of the IT systems that are performed automatically after any change in the IT modules/external installation of any functionality. This process ensures that no change is implemented without testing on its impact on the already existing systems.
Debunking the myths about Testing and Quality Assurance
1. We don’t need it
Most companies, see testing as unnecessary devil, and are in shock when a small bug causes the whole system collapse. Testing conducted throughout the process of development will prevent the system failures, and expensive corrections in the later stage.
2. It’s too expensive
2. Often, companies see the Quality Assurance and testing as extra costs that is unnecessary to be added. Yet, nothing is as expensive as identification of a software bug that goes unnoticed for a long time, or trying to rectify the errors with the use of your internal resources manually.
3. It takes a long time
While it’s true that proper testing and Quality Assurance adds to the delivery time, it is also true that if they are skipped, and consequences are dealt with later, it multiplies time required on working on a solution on significantly. Not mentioning the extra resources and time added to the process.
To conclude
Quality Assurance and Testing is hugely underestimated area within the Software Development process, but proven to be essential.
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