Agile software development has taken over the tech world. It is an iterative and incremental approach to software development that priorities collaboration, flexibility and speed of delivery. Scrum is a popular agile software development framework that provides a structure for teams to collaborate and deliver value to customers quickly.
In any organisation that develops software, Quality Assurance’s (QA) function is vital. As such team is in charge of making sure the software is of a high standard and satisfies the business’ requirements. The QA team typically works closely with the development team and is involved throughout the whole Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). To look beyond the box, the most recent trend has been to segregate QA tasks from the development process.
Separating QA and development activities has several advantages. One of the primary advantages is that it allows for dedicated testing time. By separating testing activities, developers can concentrate on writing high quality code while the QA team tests it thoroughly. This approach guarantees that significant faults and problems are found and fixed sooner in the development cycle, leading to a more reliable and durable software product. Likewise, the separation of QA activities allows for greater flexibility and agility in the development process. The development team can release frequent updates by prioritising testing activities based on their importance resulting in a better user experience and increased customer satisfaction, and they’re able to respond quickly to changes in requirements, technology, or customer needs because of this flexibility.
Another advantage of separating QA activities is that it reduces the risk of product failure. Dedicated testing time ensures that critical bugs and issues are detected and corrected earlier in the development cycle, lowering the risk of users finding issues after the product has been released. This can have serious financial and repetitional consequences for the organisation, so it is critical to have a dedicated QA team working alongside the development team. Separating QA activities can also result in more efficient and effective development processes. Allowing developers to focus on writing high quality code while the QA team tests it thoroughly streamlines the overall development process. This can reduce the amount of time and effort required to fix bugs and defects. Ultimately saving time and money for the organisation.
There are some possible downsides to separating QA activities from development; such as some sort of a lack of collaboration between the development and QA teams. However, these downsides can be mitigated by providing regular opportunities for both teams to communicate and collaborate.
To summarise, software development organisations benefit greatly from separating QA activities from the development process. It results in more efficient and effective development processes, lowers the risk of product failure, and, increases development flexibility and agility. While there are some possible downsides, these can be mitigated by facilitating regular collaboration and communication between the development and QA teams. Finally, separating QA from development results in better software products and higher customer satisfaction.