What’s Keeping Your QA Team Up at Night?

It’s the middle of the night. 

Your Head of QA wakes up in hot sweat. 

They turn on the light and check their laptop…. panic-stricken.

“Did I forget to ‘ok’ that test?”

These “Oh no, did I leave the oven on?” moments are common in any industry. Forgotten tasks pop into your head when you’re making dinner or walking the dog. You suddenly realise you CC’d instead of BCC’d to that all important email on your cycle home and Susan from Finance needs that invoice ASAP.

But in the fast-paced world of software development, QA teams have to-do lists as long as their arms, meaning there are a whole host of ‘left-the-oven-on moments’ that could be keeping them up at night. 

So what are these key issues, and how can they be solved? 

How can your QA team sleep soundly, knowing there are no more fires to put out?

We took a look at the scenarios that might be keeping your team up at night (and how to fix them so they sleep soundly). 

Scenario 1: My team is under constant pressure

Especially in today’s climate, where many teams have had to scale down to cope with economic pressures, it can feel like a 10 man job is being completed by half the team size. 

In some companies, QA may have been cut drastically to save costs, leaving developers to pick up the testing slack. In others, recruitment has been frozen, meaning that even if your testing requirements scale, your team might not scale with it.

What does this mean?

Pressure

Writing code, keeping on top of testing requirements, finding time to build and execute test cases and making sure you don’t miss deadlines can seem overwhelming. And if your team is under constant pressure, burnout is inevitable.

So, what’s the fix?

Take an assessment of your current processes. It can often feel like you don’t have time to make a drastic change, but a disruption in the short term could have huge long term benefits.

Map out your SDLC. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are any of these tests unnecessary?
2. Could any of these tests be automated?
3. Should we partner with a testing provider to help manage the load?

If the answer is yes to any of these key three questions, there is scope for pressure on your team to be relieved.

Scenario 2: Our test coverage is insufficient

Your team tests in-house, meaning you have a bank of devices on hand to test with when needs be. 

But it feels like new devices are constantly being released every week. New Samsung phones, new Apple tablets, new Google laptops and the list goes on. To top it off, there are hundreds of OS/device combinations to deal with. 

That means your test coverage isn’t as full as it needs to be. You miss bugs on the latest iPhone, you receive customer bug reports from OnePlus users, and your QA team is struggling to keep up.

So, what’s the fix?

For teams who are stretched to their full capacity, expanding your device testing coverage can seem like a pipedream.

However, there are ways to fix the issue without mass ordering devices on Amazon. That could get hectic.

Partnering with a testing provider here is a fantastic option. Testing providers give you access to testers with a wealth of device/ OS combinations, meaning you never have to worry about your app glitching out on users.

Global App Testing can provide you with access to testers with almost limitless device/OS combinations, so you can scale your testing capacity, worry-free. 

Scenario 3: We struggle to test abroad

A new challenge has been put on your plate. The powers that be in the company recognise that launching in Brazil is the next big growth opportunity for the business. There are big plans for new budgeting, a marketing campaign, and new KPIs to meet. 

The engineering teams challenge: to ensure the app works as perfectly in Brazil as in the UK where it was launched. 

But your team is already working hard to maintain all the new updates, releases, and bug fixes already on their plate. 

What’s more, you don’t have testers in Brazil. That means you might just have to test in the UK and hope the product doesn’t crash out.

Sounds like a headache. 

So, what’s the fix?

Localization testing is an essential part of launching a product abroad. Without it, your app might miss the mark on cultural nuances, translations, and even the size of the text.

Some languages are longer than others. That means ‘Click here to register’ in English might be a fair bit longer in Portuguese. 

You can see the issue. And cut off text isn’t going to make customer’s feel like a product is tailored to them. 

Partnering with a crowdtesting provider is a fantastic way to resolve this issue. 

There is no need to hire testers in every new country your company expands to or operates in. Instead, crowdtesting providers enable you to have access to a crowd of global testers at your fingertips. 

With crowdtesting, there are no panic stations when it comes to localization. You receive local insights and detailed bug reports from professional testers, meaning you can release in new markets with confidence. 

At Global App Testing, our worldwide crowd of professionally vetted testers are always on hand to functionally test your products. That means you can send off tests at 5pm on a Friday and receive results from Brazil on Monday morning. 

It’s localization testing without the stress associated. 

Scenario 4: We can’t reproduce bugs

The most frustrating issue has happened: a mystery bug.

Something crashed and a customer reported the issue. But the details the customer gave were painfully vague. You don’t know anything about the device, the OS, or any of the key information you need to solve the problem. 

Knowing a bug is out there, putting customers off your product, but being unable to fix it is definitely something to keep you up at night.

You dread to think about the customers who may have churned after being faced with a bug you couldn’t reproduce. 

So, what’s the fix?

You need to get several testers hunting for the defect at once. Multiple people working through the necessary steps to identify issues and collect as much data as possible will help to get to the heart of the issue. And fast. 

You will need crash logs, app logs, proxy logs, and anything else vital to pinpointing the problem. That way, you can analyze the data and implement a fix.

But a team under constant pressure might simply not have time to test. That’s where crowdtesting becomes important. 

At Global App Testing, we have a team of 40,000+ professional testers in over 189 different countries. That means if you need multiple testers running tests on a specific device, under specific circumstances, we are here to help

Our testers give high-quality information about your mystery bugs, making them no longer such a mystery. Our crowd quickly and thoroughly exploratory tests your app, collects the information that you need and helps you pinpoint the bug.

Rest easy

A QA team under intense pressure could be on a one-way train to burnout. That means alleviating the issues keeping you up at night could be the difference between a high-performing team and one that spends its time fighting fires.

Global App Testing partners with your QA team to help relieve the stress from unexpected delays or hiccups in your SDLC. With an always-on approach, Global App Testing is on hand to provide testing capacity when your team needs it most. What’s more, we provide moderated bug reports of the highest standard and a dedicated customer support team, meaning you can get the most out of our platform. 

Our aim is to help you find critical bugs impacting users by acting as your peace of mind, so you can rest easy. 

Speak to one of our growth experts today to find out more about what our team can do for you.