Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the potential for patchy, retrofitted features, glued logic and code that
strays from guidelines. QA should take into consideration while estimate
testing cycle times that the application is being developed in a volatile
design environment.
Quality under Constraints
Constraints aggravate matters. If the project is run in a resource-constrained
and also a change-filled environment, as many projects are, the probability
of defects is higher. Quality, therefore, is not related only to the design
and the requirements, but also to the environment in which the work is
done.
When the development and QA teams are working under deadlines,
some of the approaches to handle the situation include:
One can restrict the testing to key requirements (short cycle) rather
than the full QA cycle. In short-cycle QA, the team may decide to
fix only those bugs related to critical failures. It is a time-saving
device that trades some risk for the time saved.
Project managers may decide to avoid delaying the release by
providing a software patch after the software release rather than
addressing the known defect immediately.
Bypass QA altogether using “production fixes.” Development may
advise the use of a “production fix,” an ad-hoc hot-fix that is
deployed in the production environment directly without much (or
any) QA. This strategy is restricted to fixes that are “small” (e.g.,
changing the size of a field, or exposing a hidden field in a form)
under the assumption that it can be applied in production without
following the normal full QA cycle. This shortcut comes with some
attached risk — recall the nonlinear effects of bugs and the
tendency of systems to have side effects. If production fixes are
to be added, it is best to follow a formal production fix process,
so that the fixes are not left to the individuals doing the work.
The fix should be documented to avoid failure of a subsequent
release of the software.
QA Effort Sizing
Testing efforts depend not only on the size or complexity of the applica-
tion, but also on the nature of the test cycle. The time and effort required
depend on the number of tests utilized. It is important to keep in mind
